The spectacular disintegration of a comet last year in full

[violetwind]

in this case, the insights are still relevant to the present, so the present perfect makes more sense.

Hi Ron, the answer is A, right? but A uses simple past tense for "provide insight".

Actually I feel very confused about the usage of present perfect tense on such abstract verbs as provide, suggest, offer etc. (when we are talking about some findings) when do we use simple past, simple present, or present perfect? it seems that all three forms have appeared in GMAT SC....

[tim]

Our sentence correction strategy guide provides quite a bit of general information regarding appropriate use of verb tenses, so you may want to check that out. As for this question in particular, the verb tense for "provide" was not the issue, but the sentence could have used "provided" or "has provided", and either of those would constitute a grammatically correct sentence. In this case, the relevant issue would be when the insights occured. If they occurred at the time of the explosion, we would use the past tense. However, if the insights occurred more recently and are possibly still occurring, it would make more sense to use the present perfect..

[namnam123]

pls, help, why C is wrong?

D and E is wrong because " last year" is replaced. adverbial is replaced. This error is popular on all-is-underlined SC problem which Stacey wrote an article.

why C is wrong?

gmaprep question is hard beautifully. Do not rush. we need to learn one error of gmatprep per day

[namnam123]

PAST TENSE vs. PRESENT PERFECT TENSE

--

The PAST tense is used for:
* HISTORICAL ACTIONS
Ex: Mexico achieved independence in 1810.

* POINT ACTIONS that do not have a direct bearing on the current situation
Ex: Thomas, who is the president of First National Bank, won two Olympic medals in track
and field.

* ENDURING ACTIONS/STATES that are FINISHED
Andrea was the president of First National Bank from 1990 to 1994.

--

The PRESENT PERFECT is used for:
* POINT ACTIONS that DO have a direct bearing on the current situation
EX: Thomas, who is the fastest sprinter in his country’s history, has won two Olympic medals
in track and field.

* ENDURING ACTIONS/STATES that are STILL ONGOING
Carlos has been the president of First National Bank since 2001.

Note that, in some cases, the same point action could be described either by the past tense or by the present perfect tense!
(See the two examples with "Thomas" above.)

--

in this case, the insights are still relevant to the present, so the present perfect makes more sense.[/quote]

thank you Ron, Pls, explain the point " do not have direct bearing on current situation". I do not understand this point. Pls, give another example. I do not know which tense, past, or present perfect to use in that point.

[namnam123]

PLS, HELP

"last year" in A modify what .
normally, adverbial modify verb or adjective. But in A, adverbial "last year" modify what.

Dose C have any other error besides "may possibly"? pls, help

[thanghnvn]

I already post, but do not receive reply. "last year" in A, modify what, pls, help.''

[RonPurewal]

PLS, HELP

"last year" in A modify what .
normally, adverbial modify verb or adjective. But in A, adverbial "last year" modify what.

it modifies "spectacular disintegration (of a comet)". so, in this case, it is not adverbial.
note that this modifier does not occur in the underlined portion of the sentence, and so is irrelevant to the solution of the problem.

Dose C have any other error besides "may possibly"? pls, help

"provided... and forcing" is a non-parallel structure.

[RonPurewal]

I already post, but do not receive reply.

don't do this -- i.e., DO NOT post a message that says "please answer my question".
this is called "bumping" the thread; it brings the thread up to the most recent position in the folder.

the problem, of course -- besides the fact that "reminder posts" are obnoxious, rude, and unprofessional -- is that we answer the posts strictly in order from oldest to newest. therefore, if you post a message, with no content, that says "please answer this post", then you are moving the thread to the LAST place in the queue.

please be patient -- we will get to all of the threads. if you make posts like this one, you're just making yourself wait longer.

thanks.

[thanghnvn]

it modifies "spectacular disintegration (of a comet)". so, in this case, it is not adverbial.
note that this modifier does not occur in the underlined portion of the sentence, and so is irrelevant to the solution of the problem.


Ron, pls, help, "last year" makes me uneasy.

If " last year " modifies "disintegration" the use of "last year" is wrong. A noun which modifies nouns must be in prepositional phrase or in adjectival relation.

"disintegration last year " is wrong.

Am I right ?

[RonPurewal]

"disintegration last year " is wrong.

Am I right ?

no. "last year" here isn't a noun; it's a phrase that is playing the role of an adjective. (if it were a noun, it would have to be preceded by an article, i.e., "the last year".)

i doubt that this sort of construction will be tested, but you may want to be familiar with it.
this construction can be either adverbial (i graduated last year) or adjectival (my graduation last year was a big event).

[jp.jprasanna]

Hi Could you please let me know why C is wrong... Some other poster has also asked i guess the question was missed.

I understand in the last part "may" and "possible" are redundant, apart from that is there any other error in the sentence?

Cheers

[RonPurewal]

Hi Could you please let me know why C is wrong... Some other poster has also asked i guess the question was missed.

I understand in the last part "may" and "possible" are redundant, apart from that is there any other error in the sentence?

Cheers

are you talking about choice (c) from the problem in the original post?
if so, i don't see both "may" and "possible/possibly" in that choice; i only see "possibly".

in any case, choice (c) contains blatant non-parallelism: there's nothing in the first part that can be parallel with "... and forcing".
in other words, that answer choice is trying to set up the parallelism "provided... and forcing..." -- definitely not right.

if you are not seeing this kind of error -- this is about as plain as parallelism is going to get -- then you should not waste your brainpower on minor issues until you can see it.

[jp.jprasanna]

Hi Could you please let me know why C is wrong... Some other poster has also asked i guess the question was missed.

I understand in the last part "may" and "possible" are redundant, apart from that is there any other error in the sentence?

Cheers

are you talking about choice (c) from the problem in the original post?
if so, i don't see both "may" and "possible/possibly" in that choice; i only see "possibly".

in any case, choice (c) contains blatant non-parallelism: there's nothing in the first part that can be parallel with "... and forcing".
in other words, that answer choice is trying to set up the parallelism "provided... and forcing..." -- definitely not right.

if you are not seeing this kind of error -- this is about as plain as parallelism is going to get -- then you should not waste your brainpower on minor issues until you can see it.

Hi Ron - Im not sure whether this problem is transcribed incorrectly here or in the other forums

In other forums Option C reads as

C) When a comet's spectacular disintegration occurred in full view of ground- and space-based telescopes last year, it provided new insights into how comets form and thus may possibly force

So in any case apart from "may" and "possibly" being redundant are there any other problems?

[tim]

please get us a screen shot of the actual question so we can address the issues as they actually appear in the problem..

[shreerajp99]

The spectacular disintegration of a comet last year in full view of ground- and space-based telescopes provided new insights.

I eliminated A because the above sentence seems to say that 'spectacular disintegration of comet blah blah and space based telescopes provided new insights'.It sounds as if disintegration of a comet and space based telescopes.
Can any1 plz tell why this isnt so?

Thanks,
Shreeraj