In late 1997,the chambers inside the pyramid

[ZoeZ42]

cleaning and repair were not caused by moisture, so "due to moisture..." is nonsense.

Thanks RON
I am still confused.

if cleaning and reapir were not caused by moisture,

how could it make sense that "because the moist" then the chamber close to cleaning and repair

please help

[RonPurewal]

"because" is followed by a whole sentence.

...because the moisture raised the humidity...

__

"because OF" is followed by just a noun.

[JustinCKN]

In the original question posted, is the use of ",which" correct in answer choice A? I thought that the ",which" modifier is referring to moisture, and thus, it should be touching "moisture".

Yes, this is one of the things that's wrong with choice A.

Hi Ron:
In my opinion, Choice A: due to moisture exhaled by tourists, which raise its humidity to such levels so that salt from the stone was crystallizing....
the major problems in choice A are that 1. "due to" 2. such can not combined with "so that" 3. pronoun "its" .

But I think that "comma which " can refer to "moisture exhaled by tourists". , because without essential modifier "exhaled by tourists" the word "moisture" is too general.
I can cite a good similar example for you: 13th OG .No.106-Choice A.

Thanks !
Sincerely.
JustinCKN.

[RonPurewal]

that's a good point about "which".

on the other hand, you are correct about the other issues.

the main sentence itself is also problematic in choice A.
nothing is actually "due to moisture" -- the chambers were closed for cleaning and repair because of the EFFECTS that the moisture had CAUSED (= the crystallization of the salt and the growth of the fungus), not because of the moisture itself.

[RonPurewal]

in fact, the correct choice is the ONLY choice that actually says the chambers were closed for the correct reason!
all the other choices say either that the chambers were closed because of the moisture itself (incorrect as explained above), or else that they were closed because tourists exhaled moisture (= ridiculous, since ALL living human beings exhale moisture).

[JustinCKN]

in fact, the correct choice is the ONLY choice that actually says the chambers were closed for the correct reason!
all the other choices say either that the chambers were closed because of the moisture itself (incorrect as explained above), or else that they were closed because tourists exhaled moisture (= ridiculous, since ALL living human beings exhale moisture).

Dear Ron:
I get it. Understanding the meaning of the sentence is the essential method to solve the problem.
Thanks!
You are too KIND!

JustinCKN.

[RonPurewal]

you're welcome.

[prepp]

Hi Ron,


For option E -- how can HAD RAISED be correct here when there are no two past events occurring? My understand was past perfect can be used when two events are in the past and the earlier event takes the past perfect form.

On the other hand C makes the reason to use past perfect correct..because of had raised ...... would crystallize...
assume the last part of the sentence isn't present (was growing).. then C would be the correct answer?

Please help me understand my mistake. Thank you!


In late 1997, the chambers inside the pyramid of the Pharaoh Menkaure at Giza were closed to visitors for cleaning and repair due to moisture exhaled by tourists, which raised its humidity to such levels so that salt from the stone was crystallizing and fungus was growing on the walls.

(A) due to moisture exhaled by tourists, which raised its humidity to such levels so that salt from the stone was crystallizing
(B) due to moisture that tourists had exhaled, thereby raising its humidity to such levels that salt from the stone would crystallize
(C) because tourists were exhaling moisture, which had raised the humidity within them to levels such that salt from the stone would crystallize
(D) because of moisture that was exhaled by tourists raising the humidity within them to levels so high as to make the salt from the stone crystallize
(E) because moisture exhaled by tourists had raised the humidity within them to such levels that salt from the stone was crystallizing

[RonPurewal]

the timeframe of "had raised" precedes the timeframe of "were closed".

if you don't IMMEDIATELY understand this relationship, then you aren't doing the FIRST STEP of sentence correction correctly -- in other words, you aren't understanding the MEANING of the sentence BEFORE YOU THINK ABOUT ANY GRAMMAR/MECHANICS.

the point of this sentence is to describe why a certain tourist attraction was temporarily closed. this attraction was closed AS A DIRECT RESULT OF two destructive events caused by the moisture in tourists' breath.
if you don't understand this cause-effect relationship -- which is also the basis for the verb-tense relationship -- then you should NOT look at the answer choices, and you should NOT think AT ALL about grammar or mechanics, until you DO understand it.

[JbhB682]

Hi - I have a question from a parallelism point of view regarding E (specifically X and Y) compared to C ...

I tried to bring this to the core of the sentence and check for parallelism

Closed to visitors ... because moisture exhaled .......... AND Fungus was growing

How are the two reds (X and Y) parallel ?

It doesn't make sense to say "Closed to visitors ... because moisture exhaled .......... and Fungus was growing ......."

The "because moisture exhaled" doesnt look parallel as its missing a helping verb like "was"

C has better parallelism in this structure in my opinion

....Closed to visitors because tourists were exhaling and fungus [b]was growing [/b]are more parallel

The "Were exhaling" and " fungus was growing" is certainly better ...

Hence i eliminated E

Where am i going wrong please ...
---------------------------------------------

In late 1997, the chambers inside the pyramid of the Pharaoh Menkaure at Giza were closed to visitors for cleaning and repair due to moisture exhaled by tourists, which raised its humidity to such levels so that salt from the stone was crystallizing and fungus was growing on the walls.

(A) due to moisture exhaled by tourists, which raised its humidity to such levels so that salt from the stone was crystallizing
(B) due to moisture that tourists had exhaled, thereby raising its humidity to such levels that salt from the stone would crystallize
(C) because tourists were exhaling moisture, which had raised the humidity within them to levels such that salt from the stone would crystallize
(D) because of moisture that was exhaled by tourists raising the humidity within them to levels so high as to make the salt from the stone crystallize
(E) because moisture exhaled by tourists had raised the humidity within them to such levels that salt from the stone was crystallizing

[Sage Pearce-Higgins]

You're right that those items aren't parallel, but your analysis of parallelism is where you're going wrong. It can be really tricky with an open marker such as "and" to see what's parallel; you might need to try more than one analysis and apply the principle of charity (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_charity).

Since you can't change the non-underlined part of the sentence, you're looking for something to be parallel with "fungus was growing", how about..."salt from the stone was crystallizing" ? This works out fine.

I'd encourage you to pay attention to the meaning of the sentence. Ask yourself "what is this sentence trying to say?" as part of your SC technique.