Based on Accounts of Various Ancient Writers, Scholars have Painted a Sketchy Picture of the Activities of an All-Female Cult that, Perhaps as Early as the Sixth Century BC, Worshipped a Goddess known as Bona Dea, "the Good Goddess."

Question: Based on accounts of various ancient writers, scholars have painted a sketchy picture of the activities of an all-female cult that, perhaps as early as the sixth century BC, worshipped a goddess known as Bona Dea, "the good goddess."

(A) Based on accounts of various ancient writers
(B) Basing it on various ancient writers' accounts
(C) With accounts of various ancient writers used for a basis
(D) By the account of various ancient writers they used
(E) Using accounts of various ancient writers

“Based on accounts of various ancient writers, scholars have painted a sketchy picture of the activities of an all-female cult that, perhaps as early as the sixth century BC, worshipped a goddess known as Bona Dea, "the good goddess."”- is a GMAT sentence correction question. This particular GMAT sentence correction topic has been taken from the book ‘The Official Guide of GMAT Verbal Review, 2nd Edition, 2009’. This question checks tenses and awkwardness. GMAT Sentence Correction questions comprise 11-16 questions to be completed within 65 minutes. Each Sentence Correction question contains a sentence with an underlined portion that includes 0-2 errors.

Answer: E
Explanation: The key to answering this problem is understanding the basic meaning of the statement, which is that by analyzing the accounts of many ancient writers, scholars have sketched out the activities of an all-female cult that worshipped a goddess by the name of Bona Dea. let us check each option one by one.

(A) Based on accounts of various ancient writers – This option says that scholars themselves are “based on accounts of various ancient writers”. This does not make any sense. Hence, it is incorrect. 

(B) Basing it on various ancient writers' accounts – This one is also incorrect as “it” has no antecedent. Hence, we can eliminate this option too. 

(C) With accounts of various ancient writers used for a basis – This option is definitely wordy. The use of “with” in this sentence is not appropriate. It is a very clunky way to express the fact that scholars used accounts of various ancient writers to accomplish their work. We can eliminate this option too. 

(D) By the account of various ancient writers they used – This option says that the scholars used the various ancient writers. This seems incomplete and doesn’t make a lot of sense. Hence, we will eliminate this option. 

(E) Using accounts of various ancient writers – This answer option accurately modifies "scholars" with the phrase "Using accounts of various ancient writers," giving the sense that the scholars utilized tales of numerous ancient writers to describe the cult's actions.The "-ing" modifier in option E fits perfectly with this instance since the researchers' hazy image was created from the accounts of numerous ancient writers. Option E also avoids the pronoun mistake in Option B because it doesn't utilize any pronouns. Option E is also devoid of awkwardness and repetition.

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