Shipwrecks are more likely to be found

[Raj]

Hi Ron,

With choice B, I thought you would say " Whether "an" archaeologist, treasure hunter, or sport diver". I see B is the best answer for all the reasons mentioned above but I felt uncomfortable picking it since it felt incomplete without the "an" after whether.

-Raj.

Hi Ron,

Thanks for your response.

You mentioned that C has other issues - "the bad usage of 'including' with the list of singular nouns".

I didn't quite get your point. If you don't mind, could you elaborate on the usage of "including" with the list of singular nouns.

Is it valid to use "whether" to refer to a list of items such as "whether X, Y or Z"?

Thanks in advance :)

when you use the word 'including', you have to use it was singular/plural according to the quantities of whatever it refers to. in this case, there is clearly more than one archaeologist / treasure hunter / sport diver, so you'd have to say '...including archaeologists, treasure hunters, and sport divers'.

as for your last question, yes, that construction involving 'whether' is valid.

[RonPurewal]

Hi Ron,

With choice B, I thought you would say " Whether "an" archaeologist, treasure hunter, or sport diver". I see B is the best answer for all the reasons mentioned above but I felt uncomfortable picking it since it felt incomplete without the "an" after whether.

take this as a lesson about the usage considered acceptable on the test; sometimes the conventions are more than a little surprising.

remember, it's their playground, and they make the rules. the best you can hope to do is stay abreast of those rules.

[RonPurewal]

I also feel that one important point in this question is voice. Since the non underlined portion here represents passive voice the entire sentence should be passive. This happens in b and not a. Please comment if you agree/disagree.

Thanks
Manish

you may have a point, but that consideration isn't terribly important in this problem: the choices using the active voice are all grammatically WRONG.
the antecedent of "which" doesn't make any sense in (a) or (d) - "coastal waters" and "the coast", respectively - and there's no antecedent at all for "it" in choice (e).

the best reason to prefer the passive voice in this sentence is that there isn't really a viable subject if we use the active voice. i.e., what actually "exposes" the remains to turbulence? uh... we don't really know. but we do know that they are exposed; hence the passive voice.

[shobhitdixit]

My reasoning for choosing B instead of A was regarding the use of "which", different from the reason above.

I deduced that "there should be a THAT" instead of a "which" since the clause after that has importance. So I eliminated A.

[tim]

actually, neither "that" nor "which" will work here. remember, the noun has to touch the modifier..

[khushburathi]

Hi Stacey,

I had a question.I was confused between a and b but then I knew a was wrong.However with b too, the sentence ends with whether.Shouldn't "whether" introduce a clause.Is b fully correct?

Thanks,
Khushbu.

[RonPurewal]

Is b fully correct?

OFFICIALLY CORRECT ANSWERS ARE CORRECT!
do not question officially correct answers!
far too many students on this forum make the mistake of questioning the correct answers; please note that doing so is a complete waste of your time and effort. i.e., exactly 0% of the time that you spend posting "isn't this official answer wrong?" is productive, and exactly 100% of that time is wasted.

"is this correct?" is NEVER a productive question to ask about one of GMAC's correct answers -- the answer is always yes.
"is this wrong?" / "is this X type of error?" is NEVER a productive question to ask about one of GMAC's correct answers -- the answer is always no.

instead, the questions you should be asking about correct official answers, if you don't understand them, are:
"why is this correct?"
"how does this work?"
"what understanding am i lacking that i need to understand this choice?"

this is a small, but hugely significant, change to your way of thinking -- you will suddenly find it much easier to understand the format, style, and conventions of the official problems if you dispose of the idea that they might be wrong.

--

if you are surprised by this problem, the correct way to react is "hey, i just learned something new about the word whether." as always, it is pointless to ask whether the official answer is actually wrong; the answer is no, the official answer is not wrong.

[divineacclivity]

first of all, you can use the correct idiom 'more likely to be found ... than ...' to eliminate choices c, d, e right away. you can't write 'more likely ... as opposed to ...' or 'more likely ... instead of ...'; both of those are unidiomatic, and therefore incorrect, 100% of the time.

so now it's down to a versus b. (choices c, d, e certainly have their share of other issues, including the bad parallelism in choice d, the bad usage of 'including' with the list of singular nouns in choice c, and the lack of referent for 'it' in choice e)

to decide, look no further than the 'which' in choice a, which is followed by the verb 'exposes'. that verb is singular, indicating that 'which' must refer to something singular - and there are no singular nouns in that part of the sentence at all. ('whether they be' is also unnecessarily wordy.)

Great explanation! Thanks.

[tim]

:)

[divineacclivity]

:)

:)

[tim]

let me know if you have any further questions on this one..

[divineacclivity]

let me know if you have any further questions on this one..

Not on this one particularly but would surely post questions on your site as I read further.
Thank you very much.

[tim]

my pleasure

[gmatalongthewatchtower]

Experts,

What's the difference between:
"The shipwrecks are more likely to be found in Australia than in Europe"

AND

"The shipwrecks are found more likely in Australia than in Europe"?

I am just curious.

Thanks

[RonPurewal]

Experts,

What's the difference between:
"The shipwrecks are more likely to be found in Australia than in Europe"

AND

"The shipwrecks are found more likely in Australia than in Europe"?

I am just curious.

Thanks

well, the short version is that the first one is right and the second one is wrong.

in general, when you use "likely" to modify verbs --
* "likely" can be placed after is/are/was/were/etc.
* it can also be placed after other helping verbs (can, well, would, could, and so on)

however...
* i don't think you can ever place "likely" after a verb that isn't one of the verb types mentioned above. in particular, i can't think of any examples in which "likely" can follow an action verb, as in your second sentence above.

so, for instance, the following two sentences are correct:
spencer is likely to fail his driving test tomorrow.
spencer will likely fail his driving test tomorrow.

... but you can't put "likely" after "fail".