MGMAT--SC guide doubt--Page no.135

[prachich1987]

Please correct the errors in below sentence,if any

Although the towers appear identical the west tower is tallest,standing 16 feet taller than the east tower.
----------(1)
This sentence is from MGMAT & it's written than the corrected sentence should be as below

Although the towers appear identical, the west tower stands 16 feet taller than the east tower.
---------- (2)

Is the statement (2) correct?I think they have changed the meaning here.It says that the height of west tower is 16 feet more than the height of east tower.But I think the original sentence says that the height of west tower is 16 feet.
So I think the corrected form should be as below.

Although the towers appear identical, the west tower with 16 feet height is taller than the east tower.

Please share your thoughts.

[Tani]

For your interpretation of the original sentence to be correct, there would have to be a comma after "16 feet" - i.e. "16 feet, taller than the east tower". Without the comma it means "16 feet taller than the east tower."

The grammar error, of course is "tallest". Because the comparison includes only two towers, you must use "taller", not "tallest".

[plkt]

HI, I wanted to understand that why do we assume that there are only two towers. The sentence doesnt gives out the total number of towers it just mentions two out of an unknown number of towers
Here is how i see that sentence.

Although the towers appear identical - Subordinate Clause
the west tower is the tallest - ( Main Clause saying that the West tower is the tallest of a group of towers)
standing 16 feet taller than the east tower - ( Noun modifier of noun West Tower which has been moved away from the west tower because it wanted to include a small predicate.)

Comment Please

[melguy]

Hi Plkt

The sentence mentions only two towers (east and west) so we cannot assume that there are more than 2 towers.

Also, a simple example to understand example

Tower A, B - Tower A is taller than tower B.
Tower A,B and C - Tower A is the tallest tower.