Ranked among great mathematical scientists

[violetwind]

What is wrong with D?
Is it only "based on not only" should be "based not only on" or some other mistake as well?

"not only ... but also ..." is a parallel construction; therefore, the two signals ("not only" and "but also") must be followed by similar constructions.
in choice (d), the second of these is followed by "on philosophical arguments", so it's inappropriate for "not only" to be followed only by "experiment"; in that instance, it should be "on experiment".

Isn't option "D" wrong for one more reason.
"al-Haytham was born in Iraq in 965 C.E., and had experimented extensively with light and vision"
These two ideas are presented in parallel structure but they should not be,because they are not equally emphatic. In parallel structures two ideas should have the same importance in my opinion.
Please confirm my understanding on this.

are choice A and D also wrong about the usage of past perfect tense? which makes the meaning that the scientist experimented sth before he was born.

Am I right?

[tim]

indeed..

[sabharwal.bhavna]

By the methods of elimination, I was able to eliminate the options A,D and E because the structures were not parallel. Also, the usage of preposition 'on' in D and E appeared suspect. I narrowed down to B and C, and chose B only.
My question is, why is C not correct? I rejected C because the structure ' and who experimented..' changed the voice of the sentence from active to passive. Also, the whole sentence turned from a set of parallel modifier structures to a cause and effect structure. The experiment was the cause and the laying down the effect.
Is the reasoning used by me to eliminate C correct? Do you find any more issues with the C?
Any help is appreciated.
Thanks.

[RonPurewal]

I rejected C because the structure ' and who experimented..' changed the voice of the sentence from active to passive.

no.

first of all, "who experimented" is active voice.

second -- and much more importantly -- it appears that you think the passive voice is an error.
this is not true! the passive voice is just as respectable as the active voice; the choice just depends on the meaning of the sentence.
(again, this answer choice doesn't involve the passive voice anyway -- but, if it did, you could not reject it for using the passive voice.)

Is the reasoning used by me to eliminate C correct?

no.

Do you find any more issues with the C?
Any help is appreciated.
Thanks.

choice (c) contains two supposed parallel structures that are very much nonparallel.
first, "born..." and "who experimented..." aren't parallel.
second, the parallel structure at the end of the underline is also incorrect: "not only" is followed by just a noun, but "but also" is followed by a preposition + noun.

[divineacclivity]

1) I was confused between B and C options and did prefer B over C finally, which gave me a right answer too but still I'm not very clear as to why C is incorrect. Could you please explain all the flaws in C:

C. al-Haytham, born in Iraq in 965 C.E., and who experimented extensively with light and vision, thereby laid the foundation for modern optics and also for the notion that science should be based on not only experiment but also

2) Phil, born in 1965, and raised in country-C, became a very famous scientist. - is this a wrong structure for "born..." and "raised ..." modifiers are joined with and?

Thanks in advance.
Please do answer my post. May be not all my questions were clearn but a lot of them have gone unanswered lately on this forum :(

[RonPurewal]

C. al-Haytham, born in Iraq in 965 C.E., and who experimented extensively with light and vision, thereby laid the foundation for modern optics and also for the notion that science should be based on not only experiment but also

there are two very serious errors in this answer choice.

1/
it attempts to make a parallel structure with "born in iraq..." and "who experimented..."
these aren't parallel.

2/
"not only experiment but also on philosophical arguments"
also not parallel.

Thanks in advance.
Please do answer my post. May be not all my questions were clearn but a lot of them have gone unanswered lately on this forum :(

in order to prevent individuals from unfairly monopolizing the forum -- and from crowding out posts by paying clients -- we limit the number of posts we answer from posters who are not MGMAT clients.

[iatbitw7]

hi Ron
can you explain what is wrong with (E)

[jnelson0612]

hi Ron
can you explain what is wrong with (E)

Ranked among great mathematical scientists such as Archimedes, Kepler, and Newton, Abu Ali al-Hasan ibn al-Haytham was born in Iraq in 965 C.E., experimenting extensively with light and vision and laying the foundation for modern optics and for the notion of science being based on experiment as well as on philosophical arguments.

Two quick things:
1)"the notion of science being based on" is awful wording. The GMAT would say that that is an awkward construction. The word "being" is almost always used incorrectly on the GMAT. The only exception I have seen to this guideline used "being" as the first word in the sentence.
2) Look at the structure of the sentence. The main clause is that this man was born in Iraq. Starting with "experimenting" everything else is a modifier describing the main clause. Is that really the important point here . . . that he was born in Iraq? The structure of the sentence is making it look that way. Check out the structure of answer choice B and notice how it lays out more clearly what is really important about this man. There is some good discussion about this on the previous page.

[rohan]

What about
al-Haytham, born in Iraq in 965 C.E., experimented extensively with light and vision, laying the foundation for modern optics and for the notion that science should be based on experiment as well as
I though this is not a valid construction on the GMAT?

[RonPurewal]

What about
al-Haytham, born in Iraq in 965 C.E., experimented extensively with light and vision, laying the foundation for modern optics and for the notion that science should be based on experiment as well as
I though this is not a valid construction on the GMAT?

1/
It's an officially correct answer. Therefore, it's not wrong.

Don't fight the correct answers. Waste of time.
Instead, learn from them.

2/
What do you think is wrong with it? Looks perfectly normal to me.
("The notion that..." can be followed by absolutely any sentence in the entire English language. Anything at all.)

[jha.madhavi85]

Hi Ron ,

Can you please verify my understanding :)...I have mentioned reasons inline for the options I eliminated.


[quote="kartik1979"]Ranked among great mathematical scientists such as Archimedes, Kepler, and Newton, Abu Ali al-Hasan ibn al-Haytham, who was born in Iraq in 965 C.E., had experimented extensively with light and vision, laying the foundation for modern optics and also the notion of science being based on experiment as well as on philosophical arguments.

A. al-Haytham, who was born in Iraq in 965 C.E., had experimented extensively with light and vision, laying the foundation for modern optics and also the notion of science being based on experiment as well as

-- Past Perfect is not required .
--And Also is wrong here as when we use "and also " it refers to the same thing but here we have 2 different things (modern optics and notion of science being based on experiments)
--being is awkward

B. al-Haytham, born in Iraq in 965 C.E., experimented extensively with light and vision, laying the foundation for modern optics and for the notion that science should be based on experiment as well as

--correct

C. al-Haytham, born in Iraq in 965 C.E., and who experimented extensively with light and vision, thereby laid the foundation for modern optics and also for the notion that science should be based on not only experiment but also

-- parallelism issue with not only but also

D. al-Haytham was born in Iraq in 965 C.E., and had experimented extensively with light and vision, laying the foundation for modern optics and for the notion that science should be based on not only experiment but also

-- Looks like he experimented prior to being born
-- born should be placed as modifier as thats not the central idea.
--not only but also issue

E. al-Haytham was born in Iraq in 965 C.E., experimenting extensively with light and vision and laying the foundation for modern optics and for the notion of science being based on experiment as well as

--this is funny sentence in terms of meaning .It looks like he was born experimenting as experimenting is adverbial modifier here .
--being is awkward

Thanks,
Madhavi

[RonPurewal]

That's a very good analysis. I only feel the need to comment on 2 things.

* I don't understand what you are saying about "and also". Perhaps you can give some examples.

* If you're not a native speaker of English, forget about "awkward". It's almost impossible to discern what is "awkward" unless you have known the language since you were a small child. (This is why GMAC doesn't test "awkwardness" on the exam.)

[aditya8062]

I don't understand what you are saying about "and also". Perhaps you can give some examples.

RON i think u have said in one of your posts that construction "X and also Y" is used to bestow two description on the same person .you also said that we should be suspicious about this construction unless used as below :
the first women and also the first Swedish writer ---->would imply that we are talking about the same person ans not about two different person

i think other than the above mentioned usage "and also" would be redundant .

in the question (of this thread) "and also" seems redundant

please correct me if i am wrong
thanks and regards

[RonPurewal]

I don't understand what you are saying about "and also". Perhaps you can give some examples.

RON i think u have said in one of your posts that construction "X and also Y" is used to bestow two description on the same person .you also said that we should be suspicious about this construction unless used as below :
the first women and also the first Swedish writer ---->would imply that we are talking about the same person ans not about two different person

i think other than the above mentioned usage "and also" would be redundant .

in the question (of this thread) "and also" seems redundant

please correct me if i am wrong
thanks and regards

It seems that you understood what I wrote, and that you're applying it accurately to the problem at hand.

Is that what you're looking for?
If so, good. If not, then I'm not sure what else to say, beyond what you've already quoted here.

[whereisraihan]

Hi,

I eliminated D and E by just looking at "Ranked among great mathematical scientists......, Abu Ali al-Hasan ibn al-Haytham was born in Iraq in 965 C.E"

I thought the meaning was wrong here.
To me meaning is " He was born as ranked among great mathematical scientists".

Is my reasoning correct?