Sentence Correction

Q. A mixture of poems and short fiction, Jean Toomer’s Cane has been called one of the three best novels ever written by (Black Americans—the others being Richard Wright, author of Native Son, and Ralph Ellison, author of Invisible Man.)



A) Black Americans—the others being Richard Wright, author of Native Son, and Ralph Ellison, author of Invisible Man

B) Black Americans—including Native Son by Richard Wright and Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

C) a Black American—including Richard Wright, author of Native Son, and Ralph Ellison, author of Invisible Man

D) a Black American—the others being Richard Wright, author of Native Son, and Ralph Ellison, author of Invisible Man

E) a Black American—the others being Richard Wright’s Native Son and Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man







The answer is E...but I'm really confused since B is also attractivre enough. What do you guys think?

To maintain parallelism with all the three novels,
Jean Toomer’s Cane is parallel with Richard Wright’s Native Son and Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man . Only option E has this

Before that the novel is the best written by 1 black american and not
black americans .

This narrows dow the answer choices to c,d and e
both option c and d are wordy

The best option therefore is only E as explained above.

The official answer is B for this. It is paper test problem.

Can anyone explain more?

I'm with E ... "including" is incorrect as given in (B)

IMO B

E maintains parallelism .... So should be the answer..

can some one clarify if B or E is the correct answer...

this problem is in GMAt sets ... and the answer given is B

But this post and Gmat instructor "lunarpower" mentions it as B is incorrect

IMO E should be the answer....

Can our experts comment on it....

Thanks

yeah "b" must be correct....
Jean Toomer’s Cane has been called one of the three best novels ever written by Black Americans...
here black americans refers to three novels rather then best one out of them..
a single american can't write three best novel(rather then in exception case).
..
though "b"is not parellel but it doesn't changes the actual meaning of sentence....


indeed a very good question..

Can you please give an example for partial list

lunarpower wrote:'including' is a problem as well, for two reasons:

1 - the sentence gives an exhaustive list, so 'including' is inappropriate. 'including' is only appropriate in sentences giving a PARTIAL list; complete lists are prefaced by other words, such as 'namely'.

2 - from a purely grammatical standpoint, the sentence is ambiguous: according to the usual interpretation of participial modifiers, it allows the possibility that Cane itself includes the other two books mentioned. (this interpretation is of course ridiculous, but the meaning of a sentence must be grammatically unique without appealing to common sense.)