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Kaplan sentence correction

by manishankar » Wed Aug 18, 2010 5:32 pm
Methotrexate, which was originally developed for a single purpose, has proven its effectiveness in several roles, including treating cancer, relieving arthiritis and it is able to dull pain..
A. including treating cancer.......
B. including treating cancer, relieving arthiritis, and dulling pain.
C. including the treatment of cancer, relieving arthiritis, and dulling pain.
D. which includes treating cancer, relieving arthiritis, and it is able to dull pain.
E. which includes treating cancer relieving arthiritis, and dulling pain..


OA B

I fell for E, can someone tell me the problem with E

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Mani
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by abhi84v » Wed Aug 18, 2010 6:15 pm
The only reason E is out is that even though it maintains parallelism it loses out on subject-verb agreement.

"several roles" is plural which would mean the verb "include" instead of "includes" would have been the correct choice.

Hope this helps!

With no other alternative seeming correct, B is the only remaining choice
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by manishankar » Wed Aug 18, 2010 8:57 pm
Thanks Abhi,

Yes i too thought the same, but Kaplan explanation says that pronoun "which" refers to only singular noun and it cannot refer back to a plural noun such as "Roles".

Any thoughts on this explanation
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by e-GMAT » Wed Aug 18, 2010 9:51 pm
manishankar wrote:Thanks Abhi,

Yes i too thought the same, but Kaplan explanation says that pronoun "which" refers to only singular noun and it cannot refer back to a plural noun such as "Roles".

Any thoughts on this explanation
Manishankar, good question.

However I feel that either there is a typographical error or probably you may have mis-interpreted the explanation. In any case, there are several questions in OG12 in which "which refers to a plural noun". For example, in question 26(E) - which refers to plural "letters".

I hope this helps.

Regards,

Payal
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by manishankar » Wed Aug 18, 2010 10:07 pm
Thanks a million Payal.

One quick question i did take Kaplan CAT full length tests and have my GMAT scheduled on Sep 27th.
This question was pickedup from one of those test (in which I scored a paltry 570). I am reasonably good in CR and score above 40 every time in Quants+DI, the only problem area for me is SC and RC.

Can you suggest any preparatory material and would the latest Kaplan tests do any good or should i purchase something else.

Thanks i advance

Regards,
Mani
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by paes » Wed Aug 18, 2010 10:25 pm
manishankar wrote:Thanks Abhi,

Yes i too thought the same, but Kaplan explanation says that pronoun "which" refers to only singular noun and it cannot refer back to a plural noun such as "Roles".

Any thoughts on this explanation
very good question/

I think Kaplan has given the right explanation.
Here : which is referring to 'effectiveness - singular' not to 'roles-plural'.
So nothing wrong with this.
grammatically E is correct.

But there is some other issue with E(and D)
It is meaning of the sentence.
You can not use 'which' here.
Actually, we want to give addditional information about Methotrexate in the sentence.
So, an adverbial modifier makes more sense.
only A, B C remains

Obviously here A is better than B, C.
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by ankurmit » Wed Aug 18, 2010 11:47 pm
Peas ..which can never refer to effectiveness as which always modifies preceeding noun and in this case which refers to 'Roles'.
D and E are out because of subject-verb agreement.
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by paes » Wed Aug 18, 2010 11:58 pm
ankurmit wrote:Peas ..which can never refer to effectiveness as which always modifies preceeding noun and in this case which refers to 'Roles'.
D and E are out because of subject-verb agreement.
Ankur,

Just add to your knowledge

effectiveness in several roles -> 'in' is a preposition

Which can refer to a noun before preposition also.
You can find many examples on BTG or OG.
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by nagendracse » Thu Aug 19, 2010 12:17 am
@manishankar :
I think whihc should refer to the object just preceding it. So in this case which should refer to roles.
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by nagendracse » Thu Aug 19, 2010 12:19 am
@manishankar :
I think whihc should refer to the object just preceding it. So in this case which should refer to roles.
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by GMATMadeEasy » Thu Aug 19, 2010 7:54 am
Which could refer to either "effectivelness" or "roles" . But logically, it is several roles the sentence meants. Several roles such as treating cancer etc . So treating cancer is one of the roles. Hope this helps.
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by tomada » Thu Aug 19, 2010 11:19 am
Answer B is better than A.
I'm really old, but I'll never be too old to become more educated.
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by KapTeacherEli » Thu Aug 19, 2010 8:36 pm
manishankar wrote:Thanks Abhi,

Yes i too thought the same, but Kaplan explanation says that pronoun "which" refers to only singular noun and it cannot refer back to a plural noun such as "Roles".

Any thoughts on this explanation
Hi manishankar,

Can you give me the source of this problem? "which" definitely can refer to a plural noun on the GMAT. I'm certain that there must be something about the explanation that was unclear, and caused this misinterpretation--but if it turns out we have an actual mistaken explanation, we want to get it fixed ASAP.

Thanks!
Eli Meyer
Kaplan GMAT Teacher
Cambridge, MA
www.kaptest.com/gmat

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by ankurmit » Thu Aug 19, 2010 11:14 pm
Ankur,

Just add to your knowledge

effectiveness in several roles -> 'in' is a preposition

Which can refer to a noun before preposition also.
You can find many examples on BTG or OG.
@Peas can you make it bit clear.I will appreciate if you can provide me example based on this rule.
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by paes » Thu Aug 19, 2010 11:24 pm
Ankur,

Check Stacey response here :

https://www.beatthegmat.com/which-usage-t42599.html
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