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by [email protected] » Tue Jul 10, 2012 8:14 am
An international team of astronomers working at telescopes in the Canary Islands and Spain has detected at least 18 huge gas spheres estimated to have 5 to 15 times the mass of Jupiter, the solar system's largest planet.

(A) astronomers working at telescopes in the Canary Islands and Spain has detected at least 18 huge gas spheres estimated to have 5 to 15 times the mass of Jupiter

(B) astronomers working at telescopes in the Canary Islands and Spain has detected at least 18 huge gas spheres estimated to be 5 to 15 times Jupiter's mass

(C) astronomers is working at telescopes in the Canary Islands and Spain, having detected at least 18 huge gas spheres that are estimated at 5 to 15 times the mass of Jupiter

(D) astronomers, working at telescopes in the Canary Islands and Spain, and has detected at least 18 huge gas spheres estimated at 5 to 15 times the mass of Jupiter

(E) astronomers, working at telescopes in the Canary Islands and Spain, has detected at least 18 huge gas spheres they have estimated to be 5 to 15 times Jupiter's mass
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by mv12 » Tue Jul 10, 2012 9:27 am
An international team of astronomers working at telescopes in the Canary Islands and Spain has detected at least 18 huge gas spheres estimated to have 5 to 15 times the mass of Jupiter, the solar system's largest planet.

(A) astronomers working at telescopes in the Canary Islands and Spain has detected at least 18 huge gas spheres estimated to have 5 to 15 times the mass of Jupiter

(B) astronomers working at telescopes in the Canary Islands and Spain has detected at least 18 huge gas spheres estimated to be 5 to 15 times Jupiter's mass

(C) astronomers is working at telescopes in the Canary Islands and Spain, having detected at least 18 huge gas spheres that are estimated at 5 to 15 times the mass of Jupiter

(D) astronomers, working at telescopes in the Canary Islands and Spain, and has detected at least 18 huge gas spheres estimated at 5 to 15 times the mass of Jupiter

(E) astronomers, working at telescopes in the Canary Islands and Spain, has detected at least 18 huge gas spheres they have estimated to be 5 to 15 times Jupiter's mass
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by mv12 » Tue Jul 10, 2012 9:32 am
Before last comma Jupiter should be there..narrowing the answer choices to A,C and D. Now D is awkward. C is also awkward because of is working..having....

So I picked A.


Pls provide OA.
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by Bill@VeritasPrep » Tue Jul 10, 2012 9:44 am
Whenever I see a sentence where the underlined portion ends right before a modifying phrase, I check for a modifier error. In this case, whatever is the "solar system's largest planet" should be at the end of the underlined portion. Jupiter makes more sense than Jupiter's mass, so we can eliminate B and E.

A works pretty well: "a team of astronomers working at telescopes...has detected..."

C changes the emphasis of the sentence from the detection to huge gas spheres to simply working at telescopes.

D messes up the subject-verb structure by giving us a conjunction between them: "a team of astronomers..., and has detected"
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by [email protected] » Wed Jul 11, 2012 10:17 am
Thanks for the clear explanation Bill. Appreciate that.

But I thought "estimated to be" as the correct idiom and rather than looking at the errors pertaining to modifiers, I drilled down to searching for the correct idiom and ended up choosing the wrong answer.

Thoughts on idiom?


Best,
Aakash.
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by Bill@VeritasPrep » Thu Jul 12, 2012 7:29 pm
[email protected] wrote:Thanks for the clear explanation Bill. Appreciate that.

But I thought "estimated to be" as the correct idiom and rather than looking at the errors pertaining to modifiers, I drilled down to searching for the correct idiom and ended up choosing the wrong answer.

Thoughts on idiom?


Best,
Aakash.
I always prefer to start with the truly black-and-white grammatical errors. Either the modifier is correctly located, or it isn't...there isn't a gray area like there often is with idioms. For the most part, idioms are used to confuse test takers, and we can get to the correct answer without dealing with the idiom head-on. There's a stickied thread in this forum about GMAC's official position on idioms that you should definitely check out :)
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by [email protected] » Fri Jul 13, 2012 8:03 am
Got you Bill.
Thanks for the reply. :)


Regards,
Aakash.
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