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by allfta » Thu Jul 25, 2013 7:36 am
Written in ink or engraved by stylus, more than 2,000 letters and documents on wooden tables excavated at the site of the old Roman fort at Vindolanda in northern England are yielding a historical account of the military garrison in the first and second centuries that are so vivid in their details about personal life as they are from Pompeii.
A. are so vivid in their details about personal life as they are
B. are as vivid in their details of personal life as those gathered
C. is as vivid in their detail about personal life as that gathered
D. is as vivid in its details of personal life as that gathered
E. is so vivid in its details of personal life as is that

I can pick D, the OA. My questions are

1) that clause should modify a historical account. But, I can't ignore of 'the' (in the first and second centuries). how the that clause can ignore "the"? Isn't it unusual?

2) D is clearly anser but, what if I change E to like this - is as vivid in its details of personal life as is that gathered. My point is that using "is" after as seems to make the sentence more clear, comparing a historical account and that(another historical account) from Pompeii.

Thank you!
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by vishugogo » Thu Jul 25, 2013 10:20 am
To your first question

"that" modifies historical account because of the military garrison and in the first and second centuries both are prepositional modifiers.Hence "that" being a pronoun modifies the only noun historical account.
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by vishugogo » Thu Jul 25, 2013 10:22 am
To your second question

In option D is as vivid in its details of personal life as that gathered , correctly modifies historical account

so why use is to make the sentence lengthy.
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by Matt@VeritasPrep » Thu Jul 25, 2013 10:34 am
Good questions!

Your first point is, strictly speaking, correct: a relative clause should immediately follow the noun that it modifies unless there is another modifier that comes first.

For example, a modifier like this is fine:

"I have mixed feelings about my old Honda Insight, which got great gas mileage but which was also a deathtrap."

Here, each "which" describes the Insight, and the second one doesn't need to be adjacent to the noun because there's an earlier relative clause that comes first.

But in the sentence you've provided, the use of "that" next to "centuries" strikes me as a little sloppy: "in the first and second centuries" IS a (sort of) modifier that describes "the military garrison", but placing it before a relative clause describing the garrison is bad form and needlessly creates an ambiguity. That said, it's illogical to describe centuries as "vivid in their detail(s)", so we have to assume the clause is describing "a historical account".

Your second question is a good one: you absolutely can use another "is" to clarify the modifier, and I agree with you that it makes the sentence clearer. By convention, however, you don't need to use an indicative form of the verb "to be" (such as "am", "is", or "are") in the second half of a comparison for which the first half also contains that main verb. (That sounds too technical! Here are some examples: "I am older than Mark", "Jeff is funnier than Dave", "The high school football team is much better than the junior high school football team", etc. All of these are fine: you don't need to say "I am older than Mark is" or "Jeff is funnier than is Dave".)
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by [email protected] » Thu Jul 25, 2013 10:40 am
Hi allfta,

Here's some insight into your questions:

1) You're correct that the clause has to modify the historical account; it really can't modify "the first and second centuries" because a period of time can't be "vivid." An "account" can be vivid in its description though.

2) Your suggested re-write of answer E clearly requires fixing a couple of errors and serves as an interesting alternative. However, GMAT SC answers are written in such a way so that you can find errors and eliminate them. Using THAT model to your advantage to find the 1 correct answer and the 4 incorrect answers will help you answer these questions faster than attempting to construct the perfect sentence in your mind.

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich
Contact Rich at [email protected]
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by allfta » Wed Aug 07, 2013 6:28 am
Matt@VeritasPrep wrote:Good questions!

Your first point is, strictly speaking, correct: a relative clause should immediately follow the noun that it modifies unless there is another modifier that comes first.

For example, a modifier like this is fine:

"I have mixed feelings about my old Honda Insight, which got great gas mileage but which was also a deathtrap."

Here, each "which" describes the Insight, and the second one doesn't need to be adjacent to the noun because there's an earlier relative clause that comes first.

But in the sentence you've provided, the use of "that" next to "centuries" strikes me as a little sloppy: "in the first and second centuries" IS a (sort of) modifier that describes "the military garrison", but placing it before a relative clause describing the garrison is bad form and needlessly creates an ambiguity. That said, it's illogical to describe centuries as "vivid in their detail(s)", so we have to assume the clause is describing "a historical account".

Your second question is a good one: you absolutely can use another "is" to clarify the modifier, and I agree with you that it makes the sentence clearer. By convention, however, you don't need to use an indicative form of the verb "to be" (such as "am", "is", or "are") in the second half of a comparison for which the first half also contains that main verb. (That sounds too technical! Here are some examples: "I am older than Mark", "Jeff is funnier than Dave", "The high school football team is much better than the junior high school football team", etc. All of these are fine: you don't need to say "I am older than Mark is" or "Jeff is funnier than is Dave".)
First, I would say thank you to both vishugogo and Rich.C@EMPOWERgmat for the kind reply, but I would like add my further comment to Matt@veritas


1. So, deciding which noun is modified by relative clause, I don't need to especially focus "The Noun" placed before the 'that clause' and just focus the meaning. Is that right?

2. In the second question,

Traffic safety officials predict that drivers will be as likely to exceed the proposed speed limit as they are the current one.

this sentence is correct. But it uses "are" followed by the subject. Still, I can see difference compared with my original posting and it is the change of subject. In this case, subject is not changed and the comparison is especially focusing on state.


2-1)
So, I carefully suspect that,in comparison, when it comes to same subject and the comparison is talking about state, a second verb is needed even it is "to be" verb.


2-2)
Furthermore, If the two verbs are perfectly same and are not the focus in main intention, is it also allowed to omit the second verb even the verb is not the "to be" verb?

Judge my judgements,plz
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