Two Classic SC probs, come an instructor

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Two Classic SC probs, come an instructor

by tracyyahoo » Tue Oct 04, 2011 6:46 am
(1) Known today by a name they would not have recognized-Anasazi, Navajo for "ancient enemies"-the (( ancestors of the modern Zuni and Hopi built and then, for reasons still mysterious, abandoned the complex roads and structures of the domain they ruled a millennium ago in the American southwest.))

A. ancestors of the modern Zuni and Hopi built and then, for reasons still mysterious, abandoned the complex roads and structures of the domain they ruled a millennium ago in the American southwest
B. reasons are still mysterious why the ancestors of the modern Zuni and Hopi built and then abandoned the complex roads and structures of the domain they ruled in the American southwest a millennium ago
C. modern Zuni and Hopi had ancestors who, a millennium ago, ruled a domain in the American southwest where they built and then abandoned complex roads and structures for still mysterious reasons
D. domain of the American southwest was ruled a millennium ago by the ancestors of the modern Zuni and Hopi, who built and then, for reasons still mysterious, abandoned complex roads and structures
E. complex roads and structures of the domain that the ancestors of the modern Zuni and Hopi ruled a millennium ago in the American southwest were built and then, for reasons still mysterious, abandoned


I chose B, but OA is A, why the hell is that ?? Pls explain each choice.. The change sentence is in (( ))


(2) Drawing on her roots in a society that has a strong tradition of story-telling and oral renditions of the past, Indian writer Suniti Namjoshi incorporates many types of literature into her (( writing: including historical texts, legends, and even nursery rhymes from both Indian as well as)) European sources.

A.writing: including historical texts, legends, and even nursery rhymes from both Indian as well as
B.writing: historical texts, legends, and even nursery rhymes from both Indian and
C.writing: these include historical texts, legends, and even nursery rhymes from both Indian and
D.writing, which includes historical texts, legends, and even nursery rhymes both from Indian as well as
E.writing that includes historical texts, legends, and even nursery rhymes both from Indian and

I choce E over B, because I think ":" never sppears in GMAT and I think it's wrong. By the way, "that includes modifies " writting".

Am I missing something here?? OA is E. the changing statement is in (( )) pls explain each choice why they are wrong and right, thank you so much in advance...
Source: — Sentence Correction |

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by GmatKiss » Tue Oct 04, 2011 8:36 am
Drawing on her roots in a society that has a strong tradition of story-telling and oral renditions of the past, Indian writer Suniti Namjoshi incorporates many types of literature into her writing: including historical texts, legends, and even nursery rhymes from both Indian as well as European sources.

A.writing: including historical texts, legends, and even nursery rhymes from both Indian as well as
B.writing: historical texts, legends, and even nursery rhymes from both Indian and
C.writing: these include historical texts, legends, and even nursery rhymes from both Indian and
D.writing, which includes historical texts, legends, and even nursery rhymes both from Indian as well as
E.writing that includes historical texts, legends, and even nursery rhymes both from Indian and

B is superior to E in the GMAT!

IMO:B
Last edited by GmatKiss on Tue Oct 04, 2011 12:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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by aspirant2011 » Tue Oct 04, 2011 11:01 am
tracyyahoo wrote:(1) Known today by a name they would not have recognized-Anasazi, Navajo for "ancient enemies"-the (( ancestors of the modern Zuni and Hopi built and then, for reasons still mysterious, abandoned the complex roads and structures of the domain they ruled a millennium ago in the American southwest.))

A. ancestors of the modern Zuni and Hopi built and then, for reasons still mysterious, abandoned the complex roads and structures of the domain they ruled a millennium ago in the American southwest --- properly defines Anasazi, Navajo for "ancient enemies
B. reasons are still mysterious why the ancestors of the modern Zuni and Hopi built and then abandoned the complex roads and structures of the domain they ruled in the American southwest a millennium ago
C. modern Zuni and Hopi had ancestors who, a millennium ago, ruled a domain in the American southwest where they built and then abandoned complex roads and structures for still mysterious reasons
D. domain of the American southwest was ruled a millennium ago by the ancestors of the modern Zuni and Hopi, who built and then, for reasons still mysterious, abandoned complex roads and structures
E. complex roads and structures of the domain that the ancestors of the modern Zuni and Hopi ruled a millennium ago in the American southwest were built and then, for reasons still mysterious, abandoned


I chose B, but OA is A, why the hell is that ?? Pls explain each choice.. The change sentence is in (( ))


(2) Drawing on her roots in a society that has a strong tradition of story-telling and oral renditions of the past, Indian writer Suniti Namjoshi incorporates many types of literature into her (( writing: including historical texts, legends, and even nursery rhymes from both Indian as well as)) European sources.

A.writing: including historical texts, legends, and even nursery rhymes from both Indian as well as
B.writing: historical texts, legends, and even nursery rhymes from both Indian and
C.writing: these include historical texts, legends, and even nursery rhymes from both Indian and
D.writing, which includes historical texts, legends, and even nursery rhymes both from Indian as well as
E.writing that includes historical texts, legends, and even nursery rhymes both from Indian and

I choce E over B, because I think ":" never sppears in GMAT and I think it's wrong. By the way, "that includes modifies " writting".

Am I missing something here?? OA is E. the changing statement is in (( )) pls explain each choice why they are wrong and right, thank you so much in advance...

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by mundasingh123 » Tue Oct 04, 2011 11:04 am
As for the 2nd question : is a valid punctutaion much well in use . Perhaps you should refer to the mgmat sc guide
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by gunjan1208 » Wed Oct 05, 2011 12:13 am
I shall go with E. Reason are below:


(2) Drawing on her roots in a society that has a strong tradition of story-telling and oral renditions of the past, Indian writer Suniti Namjoshi incorporates many types of literature into her (( writing: including historical texts, legends, and even nursery rhymes from both Indian as well as)) European sources.

A.writing: including historical texts, legends, and even nursery rhymes from both Indian as well as
B.writing: historical texts, legends, and even nursery rhymes from both Indian and : Colon is fine and pretty much prevelent but second sentence with examples of literature and literature should come nearby. Out for this reason
C.writing: these include historical texts, legends, and even nursery rhymes from both Indian and Colon is fine and pretty much prevelent but second sentence with examples of literature and literature should come nearby. Out for this reason
D.writing, which includes historical texts, legends, and even nursery rhymes both from Indian as well as
E.writing that includes historical texts, legends, and even nursery rhymes both from Indian and : Perfect. absolves the issue needed for(:)

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by mundasingh123 » Wed Oct 05, 2011 12:28 am
OA is B
gunjan1208 wrote:I shall go with E. Reason are below:


(2) Drawing on her roots in a society that has a strong tradition of story-telling and oral renditions of the past, Indian writer Suniti Namjoshi incorporates many types of literature into her (( writing: including historical texts, legends, and even nursery rhymes from both Indian as well as)) European sources.

A.writing: including historical texts, legends, and even nursery rhymes from both Indian as well as
B.writing: historical texts, legends, and even nursery rhymes from both Indian and : Colon is fine and pretty much prevelent but second sentence with examples of literature and literature should come nearby. Out for this reason
C.writing: these include historical texts, legends, and even nursery rhymes from both Indian and Colon is fine and pretty much prevelent but second sentence with examples of literature and literature should come nearby. Out for this reason
D.writing, which includes historical texts, legends, and even nursery rhymes both from Indian as well as
E.writing that includes historical texts, legends, and even nursery rhymes both from Indian and : Perfect. absolves the issue needed for(:)
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by gunjan1208 » Wed Oct 05, 2011 1:04 am
Hi Munda SIngh,

What do you say about what I have written for B. Is my logic correct? If yes, what makes b a right choice?

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by mundasingh123 » Wed Oct 05, 2011 1:17 am
gunjan1208 wrote:Hi Munda SIngh,

What do you say about what I have written for B. Is my logic correct? If yes, what makes b a right choice?
I just went thru the odds and end chapter in mgmat . You are right ;What follows a colon modifies the word closest to the colon.. I dont why B is right in view of this . B must be incorrect.But OA is B according to other forums .I chose B initially .
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by e-GMAT » Wed Oct 05, 2011 6:04 am
(1) Known today by a name they would not have recognized-Anasazi, Navajo for "ancient enemies"-the ancestors of the modern Zuni and Hopi built and then, for reasons still mysterious, abandoned the complex roads and structures of the domain they ruled a millennium ago in the American southwest.

Meaning Analysis:
This sentence talks about people/tribes who are known today by the names Anasazi, Navajo for "ancient enemies".These are the ancestors of the Modern Zuni and Hopi. These ancestors would not have recognized the names given to them in present time frame. Infact the modern tribe members are familiar with these names but their ancestors were not. Then the sentence talks about the roads and structures that were built by these tribes.

Error Analysis:
Note that the sentence begins with the modifier - "known today...". This is a verb-ed modifier that should modify the noun - ancestors. (as in choice A). Choice A does not have any grammatical errors. And hence appears to be correct.

Now let us do the choice analysis.
Choice A: This answer is correct as discussed above
Choice B: Here, the clause begins with "reasons". "Reasons" cannot be the entity modified by "known today by a name..."
Choice C: Here, the subject is modern Zuni and Hopi. "Modern Zuni and Hopi" cannot be the entity modified by "known today by a name..."
Choices D & E : Same error as choices B and C:

I am curious about the source of this question. This does not appear to be an official problem. Or is it?


(2) Drawing on her roots in a society that has a strong tradition of story-telling and oral renditions of the past, Indian writer Suniti Namjoshi incorporates many types of literature into her writing: including historical texts, legends, and even nursery rhymes from both Indian as well as European sources.
B.writing: historical texts, legends, and even nursery rhymes from both Indian and
E.writing that includes historical texts, legends, and even nursery rhymes both from Indian and

What is the source of this question? Is it an official source? Reason I ask is this: Choice B is better than choice E but IMO it is not written correctly.

Notice that choice E has parallelism error -

both from Indian and European
The parallel markers both..and must be followed by similar elements. That is "from" should be repeated after both - both & and.

So this is a clear grammatical error in Choice E. There is yet another grammatical error - "that includes" modifies "her writing" when it should infact modify "many types of literature". And this leads us to choice B.

IMO even this choice is not written perfectly. Its not because of use of colon. It is because of what precedes the colon. You are correct that the entities after colon should talk about the noun or noun phrase right before the colon. Now in this case historical texts, legends, and even nursery rhymes are "many types of literature". Thus, this noun phrase should have been placed right before the colon. So if I were to re-write choice B, I would rewrite it as:

Drawing on her roots in a society that has a strong tradition of story-telling and oral renditions of the past, Indian writer Suniti Namjoshi incorporates into her writing many types of literature: historical texts, legends, and even nursery rhymes from both Indian and European sources.
(Note that I switched the order of words in green font)

It is very important to practice questions from trustworthy sources only. In fact while I was typing my response to these questions, I felt that I am wasting my time. But I still went ahead and typed it up because I wanted to re-iterate this point (as has been done multiple times by several other experts). Your time is precious...Devote it to good quality questions!!.

Hope this helps.

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by akhpad » Thu Oct 06, 2011 5:42 am
Well said Payal.

In fact, Answer is B
Image

This problem is in hand of Chinese.

What is he actual source?

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by amber2zen » Sun Nov 03, 2013 10:27 am
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Its a gmatprep exam pack problem as well. OA is B

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