FINALCOUNTDOWN wrote:757. The Forbidden City in Beijing, from which the emperors ruled by heavenly mandate, was a site which a commoner or foreigner could not enter without any permission, on pain of D€@th.
(A) which a commoner or foreigner could not enter without any permission,
(B) which a commoner or foreigner could enter without any permission only
(C) which no commoner or foreigner could enter without permission,
(D) which, without permission, neither commoner or foreigner could only enter,
(E) which, to enter without permission, neither commoner or foreigner could do,

please explain why B is wrong.

B doesnot sound right.

could enter without any permission only - awkward.

I am stuck between A and C

No X or Y (In C) - doesnot look right as well.

ll go with A .

whats an OA?

IMO is C

A is wordy

E ,D and B sound awkward. Moreover, D and B change the meaning of the sentence itself !

Now between A and C, I would say A has two negatives and it does not sound right.

So i will settle for C.

What is the OA?

its B coz it sounds better

(A) which a commoner or foreigner could not enter without any permission, - Double negative

(B) which a commoner or foreigner could enter without any permission only - Conveys opposite meaning

(C) which no commoner or foreigner could enter without permission,- correct

(D) which, without permission, neither commoner or foreigner could only enter, awkward, neither...nor....

(E) which, to enter without permission, neither commoner or foreigner could do - awkward

Rule of thumb in GMAT, avoid the option that changes the meaning of original sentence. Original sentence means, nobody could enter the city without permission. Option B changes the meaning. In option A, "without any permission" is awkward and wordy. In option C, "without permission" is pithy. D and E are very awkward. Hence, IMO C.

PS: 'which' after 'site' without comma is little awkward, but in GMAT we don't have "none of these" option

Author Message
karmayogi

In option A, "without any permission" is awkward and wordy

What is awkword about A? I would not choose A possibly because of word "any" which would make it wordy.

In C, is the idiom no X or Y correct?
Should it be no X nor Y?

schumi_gmat wrote:Author Message
karmayogi

In option A, "without any permission" is awkward and wordy

What is awkword about A? I would not choose A possibly because of word "any" which would make it wordy.

In C, is the idiom no X or Y correct?
Should it be no X nor Y?

You are right about A. 'any' is the bone of contention. There are not many permissions; anyone just needs permission to enter the site.

I am not 100% sure whether no X or Y is an idiom, but “no X nor Y” is surely wrong. ‘nor’ is a conjunction. As a correlative conjunction, it can be used only along with ‘neither’. Following is an important point about neither and nor: “When neither and nor are used together, they act as are correlative conjunctions: 'He was neither coming nor going'. You must use 'nor' following 'neither', you cannot use 'or‘. You can have more than one 'nor': 'It was neither raining nor snowing nor sunny.'”

Its C, all other are awkward or distort the meaning