OG240

xrtnju

240. What brought the automobile company back from the verge of bankruptcy shortly after the Second World War was a special, governmentally sanctioned price increase allowed during a period of wage and price controls.

(A) What brought

(B) The thing that brought（A）

(C) That which brought

(D) Bringing

(E) What has brought

Choice A is best. The verb tense is correct and the pronoun what refers most concisely and idiomatically to the noun increase. It may help to imagine a simplified version of the sentence and substitute the other answer choices for “The price increase was what brought...”Both B and C are unnecessarily wordy, and C is awkward and unidiomatic.

What's wrong with B?  I can't tell it is 'unnecessarily wordy'. Like OG's explaination of choice A "The price increase was what brought...”, I can change choice B to "The price increase was the thing that brought...”. I think it is fine.

Thank you.

rhod

从纯粹的语法角度来看，B不错。

但是GMAT语法除了讲究一个correct, 还讲究一个effective, 要求简洁。简单来说，就是数字数, 呵呵。能够用1个字说的，决不用3个字。所以从GMAT语法来看，B错了。

xrtnju

谢谢 rhod的解释

可是用疑问词What总觉得没有thing名词顺。那是不是遇到这种情况就只有凭单词个数来选择了？还是这两个词确实what的用法比thing好？

rhod

不是。

The thing that永远是不简洁的。一般来说the thing是主句里的一个部分，可能是主语可能是宾语。而that引导了从句，作从句的主语。What的好处是，它既可以是主句的一部分，同时也是从句的一部分，一个词可以起两个功能，所以what比the thing that高效，简洁。

xrtnju

Thank you so much. rhod

titatita

the thing that=what