Although the first pulsar, or rapidly spinning collapsed

[FaysalT485]

Hi Sage,

OG example

"[text removed by editor]" CORRECT

Previously i used to think that a modifier placed at the beginning of the sentence should be preceded directly by the noun its modifying. But this example shows otherwise, hence i read somewhere that if a modifier is modifying a verb then that modifier has freedom of placement. Correct me if im wrong.

Which brings me to my question

"Although not announced until February, 1968, in the summer of 1967 graduate student Jocelyn Bell observed the first pulsar, or rapidly spinning collapsed star, to be sighted. "

I think in this sentence "Although not announced until February" is modifying "observed" ? if yes, then why is the sentence wrong ?

Thanks,

[Sage Pearce-Higgins]

Please read the forum guidelines before posting: you need to post complete problems, stating the source, and you're not allowed to post from copyright resources (that means that this forum is restricted to problems from the 2 free tests from GMAT Prep).

The 'Pliny the Elder ...' quote that you posted is from a very old book: OG 2003. GMAT has evolved quite a lot in the 15 years since then, so don't expect this problem to adhere to exactly the same grammar rules.

Opening modifiers, as I prefer to call them, almost always modify the noun that follows, which is usually the subject of the sentence. Of course, there can be some exceptions. Our advice is to place noun modifiers as close as possible to the noun they modify. As for adverbial modifiers, it's not the case that they have 'freedom of placement', simply that they don't always need to be right next to the thing they're modifying.

In the case of answer B in the problem above, "not announced until February, 1968" is clearly a noun modifier but the noun it's modifying is nowhere close. In fact, we might think that it's modifying "the first pulsar", but, logically, it should be modifying something like 'the first observation of a pulsar', a noun that's not even in the sentence.

[FaysalT485]

Thanks Sage,

for reference , the example i used was from OG Verbal review 2016 exercise no. 45

[Sage Pearce-Higgins]

Okay, thanks.