Question: Discovered by a French soldier in 1799, the Rosetta Stone was inscribed with three distinct scripts in two languages, Egyptian and Greek, and were instrumental in helping scholars decipher the hieroglyphs used by ancient Egyptians.
A) and were instrumental in helping scholars decipher the hieroglyphs used by ancient Egyptians
B) instrumental in helping scholars decipher the hieroglyphs that had been used by ancient Egyptians
C) which was instrumental in helping scholars decipher the hieroglyphs used by ancient Egyptians
D) and was instrumental in helping scholars decipher the hieroglyphs used by ancient Egyptians
E) and was instrumental in its deciphering of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, which helped
Answer: D
Explanation: To convince someone to modify their language, provide the following justification:
A: Incorrect
A is an incorrect choice. This response option refers to the singular noun "Rosetta Stone" with the plural verb "were." As a result, this response option is flawed.
B: Incorrect
This choice is an incorrect one. The term "instrumental in helping..." in this answer option should be applied to the noun phrase "two languages," not the noun "Rosetta Stone," because the stone, not the languages, was crucial to the researchers' efforts. As a result, this response option is flawed.
C: Incorrect
It is an incorrect choice. The phrase "which was instrumental..." is wrongly added to the noun phrase "Egyptian and Greek," which refers to the ancient Egyptian and Greek languages. As was already indicated, the stone, not the languages, was essential to the scholars' work. As a result, this response option is flawed.
D: Correct
It is the correct choice. This response option retains proper subject-verb agreement and the sentence's sense. So, this is the right response option.
E: Incorrect
This is an incorrect choice. The word "scholars" is omitted from this answer choice's use, and the phrase "its deciphering" implies that the Rosetta Stone itself performed the deciphering. E further changes the meaning of the statement by adding the modifier "which helped" to the noun "hieroglyphs". As a result, this response option is flawed.
Note:
The word is regularly tested by GMAC.
Some of you have learned that COMMA + WHICH only modifies the noun that comes right after it or the primary noun in a noun phrase.
No, never.
Even if it is uncommon, the antecedent of which can nevertheless be quite a distance from which.
predicate compound?
Concerning the lingo, don't worry.
Just be aware of what should take place, which is that a subject should not be repeated, a pronoun should not be added, and a comma should not be added before the second verb when a subject is connected to a compound predicate.
The section of the sentence that has the verb or verb phrase is known as the predicate.
The same subject can be shared by two verbs.
Or, to put it another way, a subject may be followed by two verbs.
One person can carry out two actions (or, in this case, one subject can have two actions performed upon it).
In (D), two parallel verbs—was engraved and was instrumental—are tied to the single subject, Rosetta Stone.
When we have a compound predicate, we nearly never repeat the subject or its pronoun and almost never put a comma before the second verb.
Note the almost universal qualifier.
On the GMAT, the following statements are probably false.
Most likely incorrect: Aisha walked to the store and purchased an apple.
(In a compound predicate, there is no comma before the second verb)
Most likely incorrect: Aisha walked to the store and purchased an apple.
(A pronoun for the subject should not be repeated.)
Most likely incorrect: Aisha walked to the store and purchased an apple.
(Avoid making both mistakes)
In formal written English, this strategy is accepted.
The subject and its verbs should remain as closely related as feasible. The second verb is "interrupted" by a comma before it.
We want to keep it brief. It is unnecessary to keep repeating the subject (or a pronoun for the subject).
I draw attention to this problem because I want you to be wary of sentences that do not adhere to the rules I have outlined.
The majority of the time, they are mistaken.
More importantly, most of the time there will be another mistake in these statements.
“Discovered by a French soldier in 1799, the Rosetta Stone was inscribe” is a GMAT sentence correction question. The text that is underlined in these questions has grammatical mistakes, and we must select the right response from the list of possibilities. The GMAT verbal section includes GMAT sentence correction.
Suggested GMAT Sentence Reasoning Questions
*The article might have information for the previous academic years, please refer the official website of the exam.