Unlike the steam locomotive, which required an hour or two of firing up before it was possible to move under its own power, nearly full power could be summoned almost instantly from the cold engine of a diesel locomotive.

(A) it was possible to move under its own power, nearly full power could be summoned almost instantly from the cold engine of a diesel locomotive
(B) it was possible to move under its own power, the diesel locomotive's engine, when cold, could produce nearly full power almost instantly
(C) it could move under its own power, the diesel locomotive could summon nearly full power from a cold engine almost instantly
(D) moving under its own power, the cold engine of the diesel locomotive could produce nearly full power almost instantly
(E) moving under its own power, almost instantly a diesel locomotive could summon nearly full power from a cold engine

I picked d,which is the OA, But a second glance at E really confuses me
except for the missing of "could", what's the problem with the placement of "almost instantly"?
whats the difference between putting it at the start of the sentence and at the end?
thanks in advance!!!

I think the OA is wrong, it should be C; in D you are comparing an engine with a locomotive......

I agree - the OA cannot be D.

It is C - correct comparison b/w steam and diesel locomotive

why is not E

It cannot be E because there is no proper comparison. Answer should be C

the original comparison starts with "Unlike the steam locomotive, ...", followed by a modifier. you can kill this modifier in your consideration of the basic structure of the sentence, as modifiers don't count as part of basic structure.
the next part is the main clause. because the comparison is to the steam locomotive, you MUST start the main clause with "the diesel locomotive". you shouldn't precede that with anything - such as the adverb (almost instantly) in choice (e). in order for the comparison to be clear, you MUST begin the main clause with the item that provides the other half of the comparison.

Ron-

It would be extremely helpful if you tell us the answer to the stated question above and eplain it.

Some of the post dont have a definite ansswer and that causes confusion ( sometimes instructors answers and explanation conflict.....creates more mess:)

Thanks

Perhaps we should be more clear. However, if you follow Ron's explanation above, you'll notice that C is the only possible right answer, for it is the only one that starts with "the diesel locomotive" after the long modifier.

what is the difference between possible and can/could/may in a b c?

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stephen

the difference isn't between the words themselves; it's between the grammatical structures that contain those words.

in (a) and (b), "it was possible to move" doesn't specify that "it" is the locomotive. that's bad.

i think you've seen these posts before:

at-one-time-the-majestic-american-chestnut-was-so-prevalent-t2587.html

post35590.html#p35590

here's an analogy:

* it is possible to swim across the Atlantic Ocean. --> this sentence DOES NOT require an antecedent for "it"; we are not specifying, in any way, who/what is swimming across the ocean

* it could swim across the Atlantic Ocean --> this sentence REQUIRES an antecedent for "it" (probably some animal mentioned in a previous clause).

in the current problem, we need the "it" to stand for the steam locomotive. in (a) and (b), this is not the case; in (c), it is.

really make sense! Ron, i have spent a whole afternoon in study your posts,especially the post repling to me. it is amazing; i learned a lot.

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stephen

Hi,

I eliminated E) because I thought that "which required an hour or two of firing up before moving under its own power" is not a correct sentence. The word "before" was treated as a prep. and followed by a present participle "moving". My reasoning was that prep. has to be followed by either a noun or noun phrase, and since "moving under its own power" is a present participle phrase, hence E) is incorrect.

Can anyone help confirm whether my reasoning was correct?

TIA,
Al

no -- you can use "before" (and "after") with -ing constructions.

if you really like grammatical analysis, consider that the -ing construction in this case counts as a gerund, not as a participle. since gerunds function grammatically as nouns, this construction is ok under the criterion that you've specified.

of course, what you really want to learn here is just that constructions that look like this one are ok. (you should be able to make this recognition without conducting a full grammatical analysis, for which you simply won't have time during the official test.)

Thanks, Ron.

glad it helped