SC: Dressed as a man and using the name Robert Shurtleff

[violetwind]

Can D be right? if we just make "Joined" and "was discharged" parallel, with "injured 3 times" as a past participle modifier?

no -- that would be nonsense.
"was injured 3 times" is clearly something that happened after she joined the army; it can't modify the stuff that precedes it.

remember that modifier errors generally aren't grammar errors; they are generally meaning errors.

Hi Ron, please see my understanding is right,

I read from other posts that in the form of" comma+ Ved", different from"comma + Ving", the modifier is an adjective one which means it can only modify the noun that precedes it.

therefore, "injured 3 times" cannot modify the subject "Deborah Sampson" but just "the age of 22" , which makes no sence.

Am I right?

and I don't feel the "was too ill to serve" is so wrong as there's no obvious implication that time order of events must be shown in the non-underlined part .

i see where you're coming from here. however, the past participle (described above) is definitely an error.

I see what you mean, well, I still wanna ask, if we can use simple past tense for the part" too ill to serve" as I really wanna get more understanding about the different tenses in English. They always confuse me..:-) Thank you!

PS."injure"can only be a transitive verb but no an intransitive one,right?

heh, i had to go to google and find out what "transitive" and "intransitive" verbs are. (i actually have to do this often -- i haven't memorized much terminology, even after posting here thousands of times.)

yeah, you can't use "injure" without an object.
also, the object must be either a person (joe was injured in a fight) or a body part (joe injured his back).
in a more formal, legalistic context, it can also refer to a person's reputation (the defendant's actions injured mr. smith's reputation), although i don't think you're going to see that kind of usage on the gmat.

e.g., you can't "injure" a wall by punching a hole in it (you'd have to use a word like "damage" instead in that case).

Thank you Ron, you can always explain things in an easy and clear way!

[violetwind]

Hi Ron, my questions in the above post seem to be missed, could you please take a look at them? thank you very much!

[RonPurewal]

therefore, "injured 3 times" cannot modify the subject "Deborah Sampson" but just "the age of 22" , which makes no sence.

Am I right?

well, it shouldn't be a modifier in the first place -- the intended construction of the sentence is "verb1, verb2, and verb3" -- so this is a non-issue.

I see what you mean, well, I still wanna ask, if we can use simple past tense for the part" too ill to serve" as I really wanna get more understanding about the different tenses in English.

They always confuse me..:-)

if you wrote "was" (rather than a form of "become"), then that would appear in the simple past tense because it would describe the state in which sampson found herself at the same time as the action described.

--

** WARNING **
for non-native speakers of english (as well as every other language in the world -- this is not a unique feature of english), verb tenses are MUCH harder than any other aspect of the language.
in fact, it's almost impossible for any non-native speaker of any language to master verb tenses fully and completely. even when an intelligent speaker has been using his or her second language exclusively for decades, he or she will still routinely make verb-tense errors.

therefore:
DO NOT study verb tense until you have 100% MASTERED the other MAJOR sc topics.
* parallelism
* pronoun use
* subject-verb agreement
* modifier placement
if you cannot identify these error types literally one hundred percent of the time, then do not study other error types -- especially verb tense (which should be the absolute bottom priority for non-native speakers) -- until you can.

[RonPurewal]

Hi Ron, my questions in the above post seem to be missed, could you please take a look at them? thank you very much!

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 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.

[parakh.rahul]

What are the mistakes in the following SC?

Dressed as a man and using the name Robert Shurtleff, Deborah Sampson, the first woman to draw a soldier´s pension, joined the Continental Army in 1782 at the age of 22, was injured three times, and was discharged in 1783 because she had become too ill to serve.

A. 22, was injured three times, and was discharged in 1783 because she had become
B. 22, was injured three times, while being discharged in 1783 because she had become
C. 22, and was injured three times, and discharged in 1783, being
D. 22, injured three times, and was discharged in 1783 because she was
E. 22, having been injured three times and discharged in 1783, being

you can actually solve this problem on the basis of parallelism and verb form alone.
you have a SEQUENCE OF EVENTS, so they should be PARALLEL.
also, "was injured" and "was discharged" should be in the passive voice, since deborah sampson was the recipient (not the agent) of these actions.

so you need "joined..., was injured..., and was discharged...."
the only choice that does this is (a).

Hi Ron,

I still dont understand this concept about passive voice for this sc question..would be great if you could explain further. I didnt see this concept in the Manhattan SC Guide..or maybe it wasnt very explicit

I still dont understand why A and why not D.

Thanks,
Rahul

[RonPurewal]

I still dont understand why A and why not D.

(d) needs to say "was injured".

the way (d) is currently written, it implies that she joined... (which is ok) and that she injured... (which is not ok).

[loma.desai]

I understand the difference between simple past and past perfest tense. But this Q confuses me whether active and passive verb can be there in same sentence? i.e. "joined " and "was injured" as well as "was discharged" ?

[tim]

here's the best way to avoid being confused on this one: can you point to a specific rule quoted in our book that says an active verb and passive verb cannot be parallel in a sentence? if not, there is no confusion: keep the answer choice as an option and find another grammar rule to base your decision on..

[sachin.w]

Hi Ron,

Is usage of being almost always incorrect in GMAT SC?

B, C and E have 'being'.

I read in Aristotle SC that having 'being' in an answer choice almost always makes it wrong on GMAT SC.

What do you have to say on this? This, I have found, is the fastest way to eliminate answers.

Regards,
Sachin

[RonPurewal]

Hi Ron,

Is usage of being almost always incorrect in GMAT SC?

B, C and E have 'being'.

I read in Aristotle SC that having 'being' in an answer choice almost always makes it wrong on GMAT SC.

What do you have to say on this? This, I have found, is the fastest way to eliminate answers.

Regards,
Sachin

if you have a rule that contains the word "almost", then you don't have a rule -- you have a guessing method.

it's possible that this guessing method will give better results than completely random guessing -- that is, it's possible that "being" is wrong in a disproportionate number of cases -- but there are, of course, several official problems in which "being" is used correctly.
among others, there's an OG problem whose subject, in the correct answer, is "being heavily committed..."
there's also a GMATPrep problem about dogs that are being bred for some quality.
try searching for these; you should be able to find them.

there are also others; i just can't remember any of the specifics at this point.

--

as with any other guessing method, the best advice here is "use it if you have to guess."
it's not a real rule; in fact, whoever wrote it, by including "almost" in the statement, has explicitly acknowledged that it's not really a rule.

[sachin.w]

Thanks Ron!

[fcrjt]

Hi Ron,

Is usage of being almost always incorrect in GMAT SC?

B, C and E have 'being'.

I read in Aristotle SC that having 'being' in an answer choice almost always makes it wrong on GMAT SC.

What do you have to say on this? This, I have found, is the fastest way to eliminate answers.

Regards,
Sachin

if you have a rule that contains the word "almost", then you don't have a rule -- you have a guessing method.

it's possible that this guessing method will give better results than completely random guessing -- that is, it's possible that "being" is wrong in a disproportionate number of cases -- but there are, of course, several official problems in which "being" is used correctly.
among others, there's an OG problem whose subject, in the correct answer, is "being heavily committed..."
there's also a GMATPrep problem about dogs that are being bred for some quality.
try searching for these; you should be able to find them.

there are also others; i just can't remember any of the specifics at this point.

--

as with any other guessing method, the best advice here is "use it if you have to guess."
it's not a real rule; in fact, whoever wrote it, by including "almost" in the statement, has explicitly acknowledged that it's not really a rule.

Hi Ron,

As quoted in your book,"Do not use a comma before and to separate two verbs that have the same subject.Either elimilate the comma or add a subject to the second verb,creating a second main clause."
And here is a wrong sentence:Earl walked to school,and later ate his lunch.The right one is:Earl walked to school,and he later ate his lunch.

But when it comes to this question,I wonder if it violates the above rule,as the answer is "Deborah Sampson joined ..., was injured three ..., and was discharged .... ."

I'm confused by this.

Regards,
michelle

[tim]

this is different. you have three verbs here, not two. take a closer look at the parallelism.. :)

[fcrjt]

this is different. you have three verbs here, not two. take a closer look at the parallelism.. :)

Thx for your suggestion,Tim!! :)
I'll review it more carefully.

[tim]

glad i could help. let us know if you have any further questions..