CAT2 Q23

[gmatwork]

Originally developed by ancient Hawaiians, surfing is appealing because of its unusual confluence of adrenaline, skill, and high-paced maneuvering, because of an unpredictable backdrop that is, by turns, graceful and labored, serene and violent, and because of the camaraderie that often develops among people in their common quest to conquer nature.

a) surfing is appealing because of its unusual confluence of adrenaline, skill, and high-paced maneuvering, because of an unpredictable backdrop that is by turns graceful and labored, serene and violent, and because of the camaraderie that often develops

b) surfing’s appeal is its unusual confluence of adrenaline, skill, and high-paced maneuvering, an unpredictable backdrop that is by turns graceful and labored, serene and violent, and the camaraderie that often develops

c) surfing’s appeal to people is because of its unusual confluence of adrenaline, skill, and high-paced maneuvering, because of an unpredictable backdrop that is by turns graceful and labored, serene and violent, and developing camaraderie

d) surfing is appealing because of its unusual confluence of adrenaline, skill, and high-paced maneuvering, because of a backdrop that is unpredictable and that is by turns gracefully and serenely labored and violent, and the camaraderie that often develops

e) surfing appeals to them because of having an unusual confluence of adrenaline, skill, and high-paced maneuvering, an unpredictable backdrop that is by turns graceful and labored, serene and violent, and the camaraderie that often develops

OA: A

OE for E says that use of the construct because + of + verb(ing)
is wrong? Why?

[jnelson0612]

Please see the last post in this thread: cat-4-q19-policy-makers-remain-t16056.html

[sg2010]

@Jamie:

Could you explain why (D) is incorrect. The manhattan explanation left me a bit confused (see first sentence below). WHy does this change the meaning? I get the "gracefully" part. And I think the last part of the explanation is a typo.

(D) This choice alters the original meaning by stating “a backdrop that is unpredictable and that is, by turns, gracefully and serenely labored and violent.” Additionally, this choice incorrectly changes the adjectives “graceful” and “serene” to adverbs “gracefully” and “serenely”; thus, the adverbs incorrectly modify the adjectives “labored” and “violent” rather than the noun “backdrop.” Furthermore, the third element of the sentence, “developing camaraderie among people,” is not parallel to the first two elements.

[Sage Pearce-Higgins]

Please could you be more specific about which part of the explanation you don't understand? Where do you think there is a typo?

I would encourage you to focus on the parallelism here. "Surfing is appealing because of ..., because of ..., and because of ... " Answer D follows a structure that isn't parallel: "Surfing is appealing because of ..., because of ..., and ...". It's very easy for the ear to miss this, and, especially with parallelism, we need to analyze the sentence to see whether it's parallel.