Sentence Correction

Written early in the French Revolution, Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Man (1790) and A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) attributed Europe's social and political ills to be the result of the dominance of aristocratic values and patriarchal hereditary privilege.


A) Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Man (1790) and A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) attributed Europe's social and political ills to be the result of

B) Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Man (1790) and A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) attributed Europe's social and political ills to result from

C) Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Man (1790) and A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) attributed Europe's social and political ills to

D) in A Vindication of the Rights of Man (1790) and A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), Mary Wollstonecraft attributed Europe's social and political ills to have been the result of

E) Mary Wollstonecraft, in A Vindication of the Rights of Man (1790) and A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), attributed Europe's social and political ills to

OA: C

Hello Everyone!

Let's take a look at this question, one problem at a time, to determine the best way to tackle such a long sentence! Before we dive in, here's the original question with any major differences highlighted in orange:

Written early in the French Revolution, Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Man (1790) and A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) attributed Europe's social and political ills to be the result of the dominance of aristocratic values and patriarchal hereditary privilege.

(A) Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Man (1790) and A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) attributed Europe's social and political ills to be the result of
(B) Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Man (1790) and A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) attributed Europe's social and political ills to result from
(C) Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Man (1790) and A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) attributed Europe's social and political ills to
(D) in A Vindication of the Rights of Man (1790) and A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), Mary Wollstonecraft attributed Europe's social and political ills to have been the result of
(E) Mary Wollstonecraft, in A Vindication of the Rights of Man (1790) and A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), attributed Europe's social and political ills to

After a quick glance over the options, we have 2 major issues to deal with:

1. Proper use of comma placement/non-essential clauses/modifiers in options D & E
2. attributed X to / to result from / to have been the result of / to be the result of

Since #1 involves an easy way to check for errors, let's start there. To make sure these extra commas and re-arranged phrases work, here is each sentence in its entirety, with any non-essential clauses (anything that is placed between commas) edited out. Remember - for non-essential clauses to work, removing them MUST NOT change the overall meaning of the sentence:

(D) Written early in the French Revolution, [spoiler]in A Vindication of the Rights of Man (1790) and A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792)[/spoiler], Mary Wollstonecraft attributed Europe's social and political ills to have been the result of the dominance of aristocratic values and patriarchal hereditary privilege.

This is INCORRECT because the modifier phrase "Written early in the French Revolution" is being used to modify Mary Wollstonecraft. Mary wasn't written during the French Revolution - her books were! This is a case of a misplaced modifier!

(E) Written early in the French Revolution, Mary Wollstonecraft, [spoiler]in A Vindication of the Rights of Man (1790) and A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792)[/spoiler], attributed Europe's social and political ills to the dominance of aristocratic values and patriarchal hereditary privilege.

Again, this is also INCORRECT because the modifier is placed next to Mary, suggesting Mary was written, not her books.

So - we can eliminate options D & E because re-arranging the sentences and adding in commas created problems with modifiers!

Now, let's move on to #2 on our list: how to phrase clauses that refer to attribution! The proper idiom format for this is:

[Person] attributed X to Y

That's it. There is no need to add extra words, such as "attributed X to result from Y" or "attributed X to have been the result of Y." Both of those options are clunky and overly wordy. The GMAT prefers concise writing whenever possible, so let's see which options use concise and correct idiomatic structure here:

(A) Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Man (1790) and A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) attributed Europe's social and political ills to be the result of --> INCORRECT (overly wordy/awkward)

(B) Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Man (1790) and A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) attributed Europe's social and political ills to result from --> INCORRECT (overly wordy/awkward)

(C) Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Man (1790) and A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) attributed Europe's social and political ills to --> CORRECT (concise and follows idiomatic rules)

There you have it - option C is the correct choice!


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