Beat The GMAT a GMAT & MBA community

'E' looks to be the best one for me.


Amit

can you pls explain...thanks

Choice 'C' & 'D' change the meaning , because only is wrongly placed for both cases.

'B' is not parallel though active voice.
'A' is wordy.

That leaves with 'E'.

Amit

level 500 , IMO E

E it is

A collection of 38 poems by Phillis Wheatley, a slave, was published in the 1770's, the first book by a Black woman and it was only the second published by an American woman.
(A) it was only the second published by an American woman
(B) it was only the second that an American woman published
(C) the second one only published by an American woman
(D) the second one only that an American woman published
(E) only the second published by an American woman

We can read it as 'by a Black woman and ..............by an X'. this leaves A,C,E.
'the first book by a Black woman ...and the second one...by an American women'
C and E matches above, C means the collection was published only by an American woman which is not intended
So E is better

What is the OA

OA has to be E

The answer should be B
as B is the one that is parallel. "Was published" is in parallel with "it was ......published"

Can any experts clarify the doubt?

_________________
Regards,
Karthik
The source of the questions that i post from JUNE 2013 is from KNEWTON

---If you find my post useful, click "Thank" ---
---Never stop until cracking GMAT---

Kathik,

A collection of 38 poems by Phillis Wheatley, a slave, was published in the 1770's, the first book by a Black woman and it was only the second published by an American woman.
(A) it was only the second published by an American woman
(B) it was only the second that an American woman published
(C) the second one only published by an American woman
(D) the second one only that an American woman published
(E) only the second published by an American woman

Remove the unwanted modifers.The sentence is of the form

A collection of 38 poems by Phillis Wheatley, a slave, was published in the 1770's, the first book by a Black woman and it was only the second published by an American woman.

Complete Sentene, Modifier1 and Modifier2.
Two complete sentence are always seperated by ',and' and not only 'and'
Since you donot have that, remove all the choices that are complete sentences.

Since the underlined section is Modifier2, it should be parallel to Modifier1 in some way
Also Modifiers are not complete setences, so donot try to make it parallel to complete sentence.

"Was published" is in parallel with "it was ......published --thats the mistake you are doing

A, B are out for same reason as they make complete sentence, and thats exactly we dont want.

Left is C, D and E. All are confusing because of placement of 'only'

check Option A for placement of only:the first book by a Black woman and it was only the second published by an American woman

D looks awkward - with 'that'
If you more confused , try to see which matches the option A more close on the
placement of 'only'. We see it is only E.
So the answer should be E

99% of the time A represents the correct placement of such words.
Always take A more seriously to get the intention of sentence and for the placement of confusing words

Hope this helps.