dixitraghav wrote:
The fear of rabies is well founded; few people are known to recover from the disease after the appearance of the clinical symptoms.
(A) few people are known to recover from the disease after the appearance of the clinical symptoms
(B) few people are known to have recovered from the disease once the clinical symptoms have appeared
(C) there are few known people who have recovered from the disease once the clinical symptoms have appeared
(D) after the clinical symptoms appear, there are few known people who have recovered from the disease
(E) recovery from the disease is known for only a few people after the clinical symptoms appear
Tough and good question, IMO.
Before attack this question, there are some basic grammars we need to call in mind.
GRAMMARS:1. FEW vs. A FEW?- Few = not enough
- A few = small number
2. IDIOM: Known people OR people are know to ......- Correct one is: "known to do something............."
3. The rule of thumb: V-A-N- Verb > Adjective > Noun.
GMAT prefers the order Verb (no 1), Adjective (no 2) and Noun (no 3). If you can use verb, use it instead of adjective or noun.
ANSWER:(A) few people are known to recover from the disease after the appearance of the clinical symptoms
Wrong. The structure is not as good as in B because (1) "the appearance" is noun form, thus it does not convey good meaning as verb form - "appear" does; (2) B has parallelism structure: "have recovered"// "have appeared".
(B) few people are known to
have recovered from the disease once the clinical symptoms
have appearedCorrect. As explained above.
(C) there are few known people who have recovered from the disease once the clinical symptoms have appeared
Wrong. We want to convey "a small number of people" NOT "not enough people", thus "few people" is absolutely wrong. The correct structure is "there are
A FEW people".
(D) after the clinical symptoms appear, there are few known people who have recovered from the disease
Wrong. Same error as in C. We have to add "a" before "few people".
(E) recovery from the disease is known for only a few people after the clinical symptoms appear
Wrong. Awkward structure. E changes main subject from "people" to "recovery".
Hope my post helps you to remind some basic grammars and "favorite" rules of GMAT.
Enjoy!