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which one is better

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by nh8404052006 » Wed Dec 31, 2008 2:36 am
Which one is better:

1. She saw a thoroughly frightened child who was cowering in the corner of the room

2. Shw saw, covering in the corner of the room, a thoroughly frightened child.

Please explain, thank
OA: 2

Barrons Test A SC Q12
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by vittalgmat » Wed Dec 31, 2008 5:07 am
I feel the first 1 is better..
I am not able to justify why 2 is better except that 1 has the relative pronoun 'who'. Sentence 1 looks passive to me..
.. Welll, i am trying to justify since I saw the answer.. SO let me wait for others.
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by nh8404052006 » Wed Dec 31, 2008 5:26 am
Official explanation is as follows:
This is a suspenseful sentence because what she saw is held off to the very last word in the sentence. ...

Personally, I do consider the first setnence is more straightforward.
For second sentence, reader may misinterpret that it was the lady who was cowering in the corner rathr than the child.
Last edited by nh8404052006 on Thu Jan 01, 2009 12:30 am, edited 1 time in total.
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by vittalgmat » Wed Dec 31, 2008 10:20 am
I will PM one of the experts to weigh in.. The OA u mentioned, cannot be gleaned in a single sentence.. We should see the entire paragraph to do that !!!.

thanks
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by maihuna » Wed Dec 31, 2008 11:30 am
Barron SC OA..I coudnt get that...
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by maihuna » Wed Dec 31, 2008 11:31 am
btw i hardly see such stupidity in OG Q for gmat...barron may have...
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by nh8404052006 » Thu Jan 01, 2009 12:28 am
The whole OE:

This is a suspenseful sentence because what she saw is held off to the very last word in the sentence. Also, an active verb, saw, is preferable to the passive was seen.


The reason I do not include the second sentence of the OE is obvious, that portion is irrelevant.

The purpose of this posting is to find out whether sentence 2 is better than sentence 1, if so, what is the (grammatical) reasons behind it? If not, why is sentence 1 better than sentence 2?

Any guru, please comment.
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by sumithshah » Thu Jan 01, 2009 3:16 am
If OA is B, throw Barrons away!

She saw, covering in the corner of the room, a thoroughly frightened child.

This has two interpretations

1) She saw ( as she was covering in the corner of the room) a frightened child

OR

2) She saw ( a thoroughly frightened child covering in the corner of the room)

The covering in the corner of the room is a misplaced modifier and here can modify both ( child and "she")
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by amitabhprasad » Thu Jan 01, 2009 8:32 am
My 2 cents...
I think question is testing our knowledge of essential vs. non essential modifiers.
Based on my understanding "covering in the corner of the room" is non essential for the meaning of this sentence.
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by piyush_nitt » Thu Jan 01, 2009 12:14 pm
If OA is B, throw Barrons away!

1) She saw ( as she was covering in the corner of the room) a frightened child

OR

The covering in the corner of the room is a misplaced modifier and here can modify both ( child and "she")
I think if the sentence is

She, covering in the corner of the room, saw a thoroughly frightened child

then only sentence modifies She as mentioned in 1. I don't agree that it is a case of misplaced modifier. phrase is modifying the "She saw" i.e child.

Pls comment.
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by lunarpower » Tue Jan 13, 2009 3:57 am
ugh, #2 is horribly awkward.
a major publisher seriously printed something that quoted this as a correct answer?
dear lord.

the best way to write this would be the first way, minus the unnecessary words:
she saw a thoroughly frightened child cowering in the corner of the room.
there's no ambiguity as to who's cowering in the corner here; since there's no comma preceding the modifier, it must modify the immediately preceding noun (= frightened child).
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