Sniper's Bullet - SC

[vjcongmt]

Its is not clear why the usage of "being" is wrong here...

According to the comment as below...

(B) In spite of his right hand and arm being crippled by a sniper's bullet during the First World War
[ "being" should not precede a modifier, but the weird thing is if you remove "being" it doesn't make sense. But in spite of should be followed by a noun, which can have a modifier. I guess the only way this would work is if you turned it into a clause "in spite of the fact that his arm was crippled". experts reply would really help me here!]

"Being" should not precede a modifier... and goes on to state that "in spite of" should be followed by a noun but ends up introducing a clause..."in spite of the fact that his arm was crippled"

Can you please explain why using "being" is wrong here ? and

how is it that introducing a relative clause "in spite of the fact that his arm was crippled" solves the problem. ?

[tim]

there is actually nothing wrong with "being" preceding a modifier. i was basically agreeing with the other stuff Dave said, not that first part. and "fact" is the noun that follows "in spite of", so that works just fine..

[anandmarkande]

Hi Tim,

Thanks for all the answers on the question!

However in this question for the right choice "e" dont you feel the option needs some similar word like "inspite of" to pull off the sentence. So the correct answer should ideally have been:

"Inspite of" his right hand and arm (were) crippled by a sniper's bullet during the first world war, Horace ....

Also, what is your general approach at cracking these questions?

Thanks,
A

[tim]

first --
OFFICIALLY CORRECT ANSWERS ARE CORRECT!
do not question officially correct answers!
far too many students on this forum make the mistake of questioning the correct answers; please note that doing so is a complete waste of your time and effort. i.e., exactly 0% of the time that you spend posting "isn't this official answer wrong?" is productive, and exactly 100% of that time is wasted.

"is this correct?" is never a productive question to ask about one of GMAC's correct answers. the answer is always yes.
"is this wrong?" / "is this X type of error?" is never a productive question to ask about one of GMAC's correct answers. the answer is always no.

instead, the questions you should be asking about correct official answers, if you don't understand them, are:
"why is this correct?"
"how does this work?"
"what understanding am i lacking that i need to understand this choice?"

this is a small, but hugely significant, change to your way of thinking.
you will suddenly find it much easier to understand the format, style, and conventions of the official problems if you retire the idea that they might be wrong.

Please remember, sentence correction is actually not about "correction" at all! Your task is to find four answer choices that DON'T work and then pick the one that remains, NOT to come up with a corrected version in your own mind. There is nothing technically wrong with the correct answer here, even if we would all have preferred to see a different answer if we had the choice.

This gets to the question you asked about my approach to these. I always look for grammar mistakes and make my decision based on process of elimination. Thus when I saw this problem it never even occurred to me to question whether we should have used "in spite of" or anything else. :) (BTW it would actually have been WRONG to use "in spite of", because that phrase requires a noun as an object).

[anandmarkande]

Thanks Chief. I get your point!

[RonPurewal]

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