Scholars who once thought Native American

[liu1993918]

Scholars who once thought Native American literatures were solely oral narratives recorded by missionaries or anthropologists now understand this body of work to consist of both oral literatures and the written works of Native American authors, who have been publishing since 1772.
A. Scholars who once thought Native American literatures were solely oral narratives
B. Scholars thinking of Native American literatures once solely as oral narratives, and
C. Scholars who once had thought of Native American literatures solely as oral narratives and
D. Native American literatures, which some scholars once thought were solely oral narratives
E. Native American literatures, which some scholars once, thinking they were solely oral narratives

This question is a GMAT PREP question.
The OA is A. I believe this question is quite simple. Actually, I want to ask about the part which is not underlined.

I simplify the sentence: Scholars now understand this body of work to consist of both oral literatures and the written works. I am confused about the usage of " to " here. Is it a idiom?

[jnelson0612]

Scholars who once thought Native American literatures were solely oral narratives recorded by missionaries or anthropologists now understand this body of work to consist of both oral literatures and the written works of Native American authors, who have been publishing since 1772.
A. Scholars who once thought Native American literatures were solely oral narratives
B. Scholars thinking of Native American literatures once solely as oral narratives, and
C. Scholars who once had thought of Native American literatures solely as oral narratives and
D. Native American literatures, which some scholars once thought were solely oral narratives
E. Native American literatures, which some scholars once, thinking they were solely oral narratives

This question is a GMAT PREP question.
The OA is A. I believe this question is quite simple. Actually, I want to ask about the part which is not underlined.

I simplify the sentence: Scholars now understand this body of work to consist of both oral literatures and the written works. I am confused about the usage of " to " here. Is it a idiom?

Let me give you a simpler comparable sentence:
I understand your group of jokes to consist of lots of "knock knock" jokes.

I understand your family to consist of lots of lawyers.

The "to consist" is just an infinitive or untensed verb. I know that it can look kind of weird! :-)

[750plus]

Team,

Can you please explain the errors with choice D and E.

Thank you so much.

[tim]

What is the subject? What is the verb? Insertion of the "which" phrase makes these sentence fragments.

[750plus]

I really can't get your point, Mr. Sanders.

Subject is Native American literatures
I cannot locate a verb.

So you mean to say that they are wrong because there is no Verb.

Is the structure of D and E like this Subject, Modifier 1, Modifier 2

Thanks

[RonPurewal]

correct; those choices are just 'noun + modifiers'.

[750plus]

correct; those choices are just 'noun + modifiers'.

Thanks for the confirmation, Mr.Purewal.

[tim]

Yeah, you totally got it right. There is no verb, so those choices are incorrect.

[RonPurewal]

Thanks for the confirmation, Mr.Purewal.

sure.

[DiJ92]

Dear ron

I have several questions

1. in choice b, does "once" have a problem about modifying ambiguity: it can modify" thinking of "also can modify"solely as". is there any meaning difference between these two circumstances.

2 in choice c,, had thought is a wrong verb tense because of no sign of past tense

3 in choice d and e if we want to use a "comma, which" modifier in the middle of a sentence, it should have two commas, right?

please evaluate reasoning

Thanks in advance

[RonPurewal]

1. in choice b, does "once" have a problem about modifying ambiguity: it can modify" thinking of "also can modify"solely as". is there any meaning difference between these two circumstances.

this approach ^^ makes things much more difficult than they need to be.

here's all the reasoning that is necessary:

• in context, 'once' is clearly meant to describe thought.

• thus 'once' should be placed as close as possible to thought.

• the placement is closer in choice A than in choice B.

• thus eliminate B.

you won't need to worry about 'hmmm maybe this might be somewhat kinda ambiguous?'... because instead you can just objectively COMPARE the placement of the modifier in the different answer choices.

in other words, it's a 'beauty contest'. this is NOT the sort of thing you should be trying to evaluate in individual answer choices.

[RonPurewal]

2 in choice c,, had thought is a wrong verb tense because of no sign of past tense

^^ yes.

if the scholars' realization were also presented in a past timeframe, then that tense could work:
Last year, scholars who had long believed the principles of the xxxxxxx theory were shocked by the discovery of irrefutable counterevidence.

[RonPurewal]

3 in choice d and e if we want to use a "comma, which" modifier in the middle of a sentence, it should have two commas, right?

yes, unless the modifier extends all the way to the end of the sentence.

those choices have far bigger problems, though.
even if you throw another comma in there, you still have 'NA literatures' as the subject... so you still end up with a sentence that says 'NA literatures ... now understand xxxx' (!!)
total nonsense meaning.

remember, this exam does not test the presence/absence of punctuation.
so, while your point here is valid, you should know that there will ALWAYS be another problem (and you should be sure to find it when you review).

[DiJ92]

Really Thank you

[tim]