Question: Rocket Launch

Comment on Rocket Launch

Why is mistaking a launching for an earthquake more logical than mistaking a rocket for an earthquake? (in other words, why was C superior to D?)
gmat-admin's picture

Great question.

In answer choice C, we are comparing the LAUNCHING (with its
related activity) with an earthquake.

In answer choice D, we are comparing a ROCKET with an earthquake.

Answer choice C is a more logical comparison. But answer choice D is a definite silver medal contender.

Cheers,
Brent

Brent, thanks for such a quick answer!

But is there a reason WHY comparing an earthquake with LAUNCHING is more logical than comparing it with a ROCKET? Is it because it makes more sense to have a 'process vs. process' comparison instead of a 'process vs. object' comparison?

For me one option simply does not sound more intuitive than another, they both seem relatively the same from a logic standpoint. Which is why I thought perhaps D would be more likely to be correct, since it changes the structure of the sentence less.
gmat-admin's picture

Those are very valid points.

Yes, I'd say that it has to do with process/event.

LAUNCHING is an event, and ROCKET is a tangible object. Since the other half of the comparison involves an event (EARTHQUAKE), I think LAUNCHING is better.

Cheers,
Brent

Hi,I am facing difficulties in recognizing the exact faults in the Sc, for the above example i couldnt recognize idiom fault. Please help me with some strategies.
gmat-admin's picture

Hi prakap,

The only way to get good at identifying idioms is to memorize them.

Go to https://www.gmatprepnow.com/module/gmat-sentence-correction and download the idiom list, which can be found between videos #34 and #35

I hope that helps.

Cheers,
Brent

Hi Brent! I am really confused since I thought choice D was more parallel than choice C. Choice C says "Mistake "THE launching" for "A minor earthquake"... Hmm... how is this parallel?
Answer D however, says "Mistook A launched rocket for A minor earthquake" - Thanks a lot.
gmat-admin's picture

In answer choice D, if we ignore the modifier LAUNCHED, we get "....mistook a rocket for a minor earthquake"

Notice that it's hard to mistake a rocket (possibly just sitting there doing nothing) for an earthquake. So, it's not the rocket (by virtue of just being a rocket) that could be mistaken for a minor earthquake.

On the other hand the LAUNCHING of a rocket is quite noisy and shaky, so it could be mistaken for a minor earthquake.

Answer choice C compares the LAUNCHING of a rocket with a minor earthquake.
Answer choice D compares a ROCKET with a minor earthquake.

Answer choice C is better.

Does that help?

Cheers,
Brent

Thanks Brent! So meaning > parallelism? or is C still parallel? Thank you.
gmat-admin's picture

There isn't a parallelism issue here. It comes down to a logical comparison.
In this case, it makes more sense to compare an earthquake and a rocket launch.

Cheers,
Brent

Hi Brent,

I was always confused when different prep resources refer to something called "the intended meaning of the passage". I have encountered the idea of answer choice "A" encompassing the intended meaning of a sentence, but I don't know whether I can trust this advice. For me, there is nothing special for the answer choice "A" to be on the first place among all answer choices. It is no more special than B or C or D or E. Therefore, I can't treat it as a role model and "intended meaning" conveyor since it has the same likelihood of being wrong as all other answer choices.

Do you know what I am trying to say?

How can I know what is the intended meaning of a sentence?

Thank you in advance,
gmat-admin's picture

In most cases, "intended meaning" requires us to determine the most logical intent of the sentence, regardless of whether the intended meaning appears in answer choice A.

Take, for example, the sentence: I bought a jacket in a shop made of leather.
Here, we can tell that the intended meaning of the sentence is to have LEATHER modify the noun JACKET.
Of course, this isn't to say that it's impossible to have a shop made of leather, but it makes way more sense for the jacket to be made of leather.

Cheers,
Brent

Hi Brent,

I've chosen option C because it uses "the" instead of "a". My understanding is that "the" refers to a specific incident while "a" can be generalized. In this case, the author is referring to a specific rocket launch in 1985. Is this a possible way to evaluate this question?
gmat-admin's picture

Great question.
Since it's possible there was more than 1 rocket launch in 1985, we can't use THE, since that would suggest there was only one launch.
That said, I don't believe I've ever seen an official GMAT question depend on choosing between the definite article THE versus the indefinite article A.

Okay, I happen to chose C at first and then think "as" is better(I do not know it's an idioms) and got it wrong.

and it happens that if E is correct, then it is less redundancy than C
gmat-admin's picture

Idioms can be difficult.
Here, the idiom is "mistook X FOR Y."
So, we need FOR

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