Question
Written early in the French Revolution, Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Man (1790) and A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) attributed Europe’s social and political ills to be the result of the dominance of aristocratic values and patriarchal hereditary privilege.
Option A
Option B
Option C
Option D
Option E
(This question is from Official Guide. Therefore, because of copyrights, the complete question cannot be copied here. The question can be accessed at GMAT Club)
Solution
Sentence Analysis
- Written early in the French Revolution, (Verb-ed modifier modifying the subject of the main clause)
- Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Man (1790) (First part of the Main Subject)
- and A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) (Second Part of the Main Subject)
- attributed Europe’s social and political ills to be the result of the dominance of (Main verb – “attributed”)
- aristocratic values
- and patriarchal hereditary privilege.
- attributed Europe’s social and political ills to be the result of the dominance of (Main verb – “attributed”)
The sentence talks about two works of MW. These two works were written in the French revolution, and they say that the dominance of aristocratic values and patriarchal hereditary privilege was the cause of Europe’s social and political ills.
The sentence has one error: it uses an incorrect version (attribute x to be the result of y) of the correct idiom “attribute X to Y”. To learn more about this idiom, follow this link.
Option Analysis
(A) Incorrect. For the error mentioned above.
(B) Incorrect. “attribute x to result from y” is non-idiomatic.
(C) Correct. This option uses the correct idiom “attribute x to y”.
(D) Incorrect. For the following reasons:
- The verb-ed modifier “written” modifies the noun Mary Wollstonecraft (the two works appear in a prepositional phrase and thus cannot be modified by a beginning verb-ed modifier). Thus, this option creates an illogical meaning that MW was written!!
- “attribute x to have been result of y” is non-idiomatic.
(E) Incorrect. Error no. 1 of option D.
Hello,
In error 1 of option D, can we not think of the verb modifier modifying MW as “…written by MW” instead thinking of it as “MW was written”? Because the former does make sense right?
That’s not the reason. WHENEVER a verb-ed modifier modifies a noun, the meaning has to be in the form that the noun becomes the subject and the verb-ed modifier a verb in a PASSIVE construction. Thus, it has to be MW was written (‘was’ or some form of “is” is inserted to make the sentence passive).
Okay. Thank you Sir.
Just for clarification, could you please explain a generic rule and give a similar example for an Active construction?
Verb-ed modifiers always form a passive construction with the modified entity.
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