Under a provision of the Constitution

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figs: Senior | Next Rank: 100 Posts; Posts: 70; Joined: Mon Mar 30, 2009 9:00 am; Thanked: 2 times

by figs » Sat May 02, 2009 8:02 am

Under a provision of the Constitution that was never applied, Congress has been required to call a convention for considering possible amendments to the document when formally asked to do it by the legislatures of two-thirds of the states.

A. was never applied, Congress has been required to call a convention for considering possible amendments to the document when formally asked to do it

B. was never applied, there has been a requirement that Congress call a convention for consideration of possible amendments to the document when asked to do it formally

C. was never applied, whereby Congress is required to call a convention for considering possible amendments to the document when asked to do it formally

D. has never been applied, whereby Congress is required to call a convention to consider possible amendments to the document when formally asked to do so

E. has never been applied, Congress is required to call a convention to consider possible amendments to the document when formally asked to do so

OA:E

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Source: Beat The GMAT — Sentence Correction | Sat May 02, 2009 8:02 am

DanaJ: Site Admin; Posts: 2567; Joined: Thu Jan 01, 2009 10:05 amFollowed by: 550 members; Thanked: 712 times; GMAT Score:770

by DanaJ » Sat May 02, 2009 9:04 am

The trick here is to spot the tense:

Notice that choices A, B and C all start with a past tense form of the verb: was never applied. This is incorrect because the meaning is just "begging for" a present perfect form of the verb. The provision has never been applied up until now. It's that rule: if an action started sometime in the past and continued up until the present moment, then the required tense is the present perfect.

So you're left with choices D and E. The difference between them is that whereby that you don't see every day. This word means "in accordance with" and is therefore unnecessary: Under the provisions phrase conveys exactly the same meaning, so using whereby is a pleonasm.

This is why choice E is correct.

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piyush_nitt: Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts; Posts: 424; Joined: Sun Dec 07, 2008 5:15 pm; Location: Sydney; Thanked: 12 times

by piyush_nitt » Sat May 02, 2009 3:40 pm

DanaJ wrote:The trick here is to spot the tense:

Notice that choices A, B and C all start with a past tense form of the verb: was never applied. This is incorrect because the meaning is just "begging for" a present perfect form of the verb. The provision has never been applied up until now. It's that rule: if an action started sometime in the past and continued up until the present moment, then the required tense is the present perfect.

So you're left with choices D and E. The difference between them is that whereby that you don't see every day. This word means "in accordance with" and is therefore unnecessary: Under the provisions phrase conveys exactly the same meaning, so using whereby is a pleonasm.

This is why choice E is correct.

OK Here is much simpler version what Danaj stated above.

In GMATLand , "do it" is always wrong. You cannot refer verb with do it.

Therefore A, B, C out.

Whereby introduces subordinate clause. But we need a Independent clause.

Hence E

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tyronetan82: Senior | Next Rank: 100 Posts; Posts: 31; Joined: Mon Jun 07, 2010 8:15 am

by tyronetan82 » Thu Aug 05, 2010 9:10 pm

i still don't understand why whereby is wrong, and why an independent clause is necessary for this

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Jen@VeritasPrep: GMAT Instructor; Posts: 49; Joined: Mon May 10, 2010 12:40 pmFollowed by: 30 members; Location: New York City; Thanked: 40 times

by Jen@VeritasPrep » Fri Aug 06, 2010 6:24 am

@tyronetan82, we need an independent clause here in order to make sentence complete. Every sentence MUST have at least one independent clause (another way to say it is that every sentence MUST have at least one main subject-main verb pair).

This sentence is introduced by a dependent clause, beginning with the preposition "under." The word "whereby" is a subordinate conjunction, so it also begins a dependent clause. In answer choice D then, we have:

[Dependent], [dependent].

There's no independent clause, so there's no main subject-main verb, so the sentence is incomplete. In E, the structure becomes:

[Dependent], [independent].

The main subject-verb pair here is "Congress is," and now we have a complete sentence.

Hope that helps!

Jen Rugani
GMAT Instructor, Veritas Prep
www.veritasprep.com

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tyronetan82: Senior | Next Rank: 100 Posts; Posts: 31; Joined: Mon Jun 07, 2010 8:15 am

by tyronetan82 » Fri Aug 06, 2010 6:42 am

thanks for the help Jen!

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tomada: Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts; Posts: 406; Joined: Mon Jan 25, 2010 11:36 amFollowed by: 4 members; Location: Syracuse, NY; Thanked: 23 times; GMAT Score:740

by tomada » Fri Aug 06, 2010 8:21 am

That was no simpler than what Dana said.

piyush_nitt wrote:
DanaJ wrote:The trick here is to spot the tense:

Notice that choices A, B and C all start with a past tense form of the verb: was never applied. This is incorrect because the meaning is just "begging for" a present perfect form of the verb. The provision has never been applied up until now. It's that rule: if an action started sometime in the past and continued up until the present moment, then the required tense is the present perfect.

So you're left with choices D and E. The difference between them is that whereby that you don't see every day. This word means "in accordance with" and is therefore unnecessary: Under the provisions phrase conveys exactly the same meaning, so using whereby is a pleonasm.

This is why choice E is correct.
OK Here is much simpler version what Danaj stated above.

In GMATLand , "do it" is always wrong. You cannot refer verb with do it.

Therefore A, B, C out.

Whereby introduces subordinate clause. But we need a Independent clause.

Hence E

I'm really old, but I'll never be too old to become more educated.

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