Question
Unlike the automobile company, whose research was based on crashes involving sport utility vehicles, the research conducted by the insurance company took into account such factors as a driver’s age, sex, and previous driving record.
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
Here’s the sentence structure:
- Unlike the automobile company, (Comparison with the main subject)
- whose research was based on crashes involving sport utility vehicles, (relative clause modifying ‘automobile company’. Subject: research; Verb: was based)
- the research (Main Subject)
- conducted by the insurance company (Verb-ed modifier modifying ‘the research’)
- took into account such factors as a driver’s age, sex, and previous driving record. (Main Verb: ‘took into’)
The sentence intends to say that while the research done by the automobile company was based on crashes involving SUVs, the research done by the insurance company focused on a number of factors.
There is one glaring error in the sentence. It compares automobile company with the research. ‘Unlike’ has to be followed by research done by the automobile company since the main subject is the research done by the insurance company.
Option Analysis
(A) Incorrect. For the error explained above.
(B) Incorrect. Same error as in option A.
(C) Incorrect. Same error as in option A. Besides, the preposition ‘in its research of …’ modifies the main clause ‘the research conducted by the insurance company took…’, leading to a non-sensible meaning that the research conducted by the insurance company, in its research of crashes involving SUVs, took something into account.
(D) Incorrect. ‘having verb-ed’ form is called perfect participle. It is used to present the earlier action in a sequence of actions. The use of ‘having been based’ indicates that ‘based’ is an earlier action and that there is some later action. Since this form requires a sequence of actions, it can modify only the subject here (because only the subject can have a verb as the second action).
However, there is sequence of actions here i.e. ‘having been based’ is not an earlier action than “took into account”. Secondly, Thus, the use of ‘having verb-ed’ is incorrect here.
(E) Correct.
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Hi Sir
I understood E and know its wrong anyway but
Having been based on ….. research by insurance companies took into account…
So Having been based is modifying research by insurance companies..or automobile company grammatically..meaning wise it should do to automobile company..
Unlike her, having been said to stay home Akash went outside home…
Here it will do Akash..
I am just a little bit confused like grammatically that above placed modifier in Question can modify both right? Its just on meaning you said its modifying automobile company research…
I don’t think we can have another modifier modifying the subject after we have introduced the “like” phrase at the beginning.
Hi CJ,
In option C, Preposition ‘in its research of …’ can’t modify ‘the automobile company’ phrase ahead of it because these 2 are separated by comma. Is my understanding correct ?
That’s not the point. When you modify a noun, you create a subset of the noun (People who speak) or talk about a specific noun (The man who shouted). The PP here cannot do any of these with “the automobile company”.
Hi CJ,
In OG official explanation,it is written that “having been based on crashes involving sport utility vehicles” is more inclined to modify “the research conducted by the insurance company” than “the automobile company’s research”.
Could you please help with that?
How is it more inclined to modify “the research conducted by the insurance company” ?
Hi Akhil,
Thank you for your comment! I’ve now changed the explanation for option D. It should probably answer your question.
– CJ
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