Shipwrecks are more likely to be found :: Manhattan GMAT Forums

Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2008 2:11 pm

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.

RPurewal wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2008 3:14 am

Raj wrote:

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.

Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2008 3:19 am

Manish wrote:

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.