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by magical cook » Thu May 17, 2007 9:08 pm
503. Margaret Courtney-Clarke has traveled to remote dwellings in the Transvaal to photograph the art of Ndebele women, whose murals are brilliantly colored, their geometrical symmetries embellished with old and new iconography and in a style that varies from woman to woman and house to house.
(A) whose murals are brilliantly colored, their geometrical symmetries embellished with old and new iconography and in a style that varies from woman to woman and house to house
(B) whose murals are brilliantly colored, their geometrical symmetries are embellished with old and new iconography, and their style is varying among women and houses
(C) whose murals are brilliantly colored, their geometrical symmetries are embellished with old and new iconography, and they are in styles that vary from woman to woman and house to house
(D) with murals brilliantly colored, their geometrical symmetries embellished with old and new iconography, and their style varies among women and houses
(E) with murals that are brilliantly colored, their geometrical symmetries embellished with old and new iconography, and their styles vary among women and houses


Hi,
The answer seems A but why B is wrong?
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by Cybermusings » Mon May 21, 2007 4:56 am
The use of the word "whose" is critical to depict that the murals were the art of Ndebele women...Hence eliminate D&E...
B - "and their style is varying among women and houses" is awkward and faulty....
Between C and A I would go with A...
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by crackit » Wed May 23, 2007 3:39 am
the talk is abt the photograph...and its description involving the art, and hence option A clearly explains that without any ambiguity.
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by ashu@gmat » Sat Jun 14, 2008 12:32 pm
I was stuck between C and A ?

Why is C wrong ?
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by erjamit » Sun Jun 15, 2008 3:31 am
I think in C "and they are in styles that vary" is awkward.

I usually compare the options left after POE word by word.
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by loki.gmat » Sun Jun 15, 2008 10:33 am
mural means - a painting executed directly on a wall.
hence usage of "whose" is incorrect in A,B n C.
we normally say " a house ............, with paintings that r brilliantly coloured".
we donot say " a house .............., whose painitings r brilliantly coloured".

D - with murals brilliantly colored - awkward construction.

hence IMO E.

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by [email protected] » Fri Apr 16, 2010 8:29 pm
ashu@gmat wrote:I was stuck between C and A ?

Why is C wrong ?


(C) whose murals are brilliantly colored, their geometrical symmetries are embellished with old and new iconography, and they are in styles that vary from woman to woman and house to house

This option suggests that geometrical symmetries that the author is talking about are of the Photographs whereas actually they are of the murals. That is why Option C is wrong.


Option A clears does not have that fault.
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by pops » Fri Apr 16, 2010 9:50 pm
@loki.gmat: 'whose' can be used for people or thing. so using whose for house in your example is correct.

@ashu@gmat: you said that:
This option suggests that geometrical symmetries that the author is talking about are of the Photographs whereas actually they are of the murals. That is why Option C is wrong.

Option A clears does not have that fault.
I dont see that difference in A and C? Can you please explain what you clearly mean?

(A) whose murals are brilliantly colored, their geometrical symmetries embellished with old and new iconography and in a style that varies from woman to woman and house to house
(C) whose murals are brilliantly colored, their geometrical symmetries are embellished with old and new iconography, and they are in styles that vary from woman to woman and house to house


I still think it should be C :(
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by loveusonu » Sat Apr 17, 2010 11:13 am
A can be the answer for sure
There should be ',and' whenever there is a list of 3 things as mentioned in ron's link: https://www.beatthegmat.com/quiz-7-quest ... tml#242725

Both B\C are grammatically correct. But as C conveys more clear meaning, I would go with C


(A) whose murals are brilliantly colored, their geometrical symmetries embellished with old and new iconography and (require comma here)in a style that varies from woman to woman and house to house

(B) whose murals are brilliantly colored, their geometrical symmetries are embellished with old and new iconography, and their style is varying among women and houses -->sound style is varying among women and houses.

(C) whose murals are brilliantly colored, their geometrical symmetries are embellished with old and new iconography, and they are in styles that vary from woman to woman and house to house -->show Clear difference.

Hope that helps!!
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by lunarpower » Mon Apr 19, 2010 2:01 am
(a) creates a legitimate sentence. the modifier that follows the comma is called an "absolute phrase" -- a modifier that will be totally unfamiliar from spoken language (since it's actually impossible to speak out loud!), but with which you should be familiar because it is actually fairly common on the test.

for more on this type of modifier, see this thread (and the other threads that are referred within it):
https://www.beatthegmat.com/sound-can-tr ... tml#244780

this choice still has somewhat of a pronoun issue, as there is a troubling ambiguity with "their" (which is clearly supposed to refer to the murals, but which technically could also refer to the women). however, we have seen in many problems that pronoun ambiguity is more of a nuisance than an honest error -- i.e., there are many problems in which genuinely ambiguous pronouns are accepted as ok -- so that apparently is not a fatal issue.

also, from the huge problem number, it's clear that this problem is taken from 1000sc. while a lot of the problems in that document are good (mostly because they are stolen from official sources - heh heh), a lot of the other ones are useless or even downright incorrect.

(b) and (c) are run-on sentences; in each of those, the part ending with "colored" is a complete sentence all by itself, and the part after the comma is also a complete sentence all by itself.
although you would be allowed to do that with a semicolon, you are not allowed to do so with a comma. this incorrect construction is called a "comma splice", and is probably the most common type of run-on sentence.

what is the quoted official answer?

there are also some aspects of (b) and (c) that are too awkward for formal english writing, but, since most of the posters on this board are second-language speakers of english, it's best not to delve too far into the topic of "awkwardness" (which is not terribly important to start with, and far too subtle to bother with -- especially given that low importance).
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by lunarpower » Mon Apr 19, 2010 2:03 am
apropos of nothing, is there some collection of problems somewhere in which all of the problems contain absolute phrases? just in the last two or three days, i've answered 4-5 different threads containing absolute phrases -- a number that is roughly equivalent to the number of absolute-phrase questions i saw in the preceding year or so.

this could, of course, just be a giant coincidence, but i would be interested in knowing if such a document exists.
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by loveusonu » Mon Apr 19, 2010 5:01 am
lunarpower wrote:
(b) and (c) are run-on sentences; in each of those, the part ending with "colored" is a complete sentence all by itself, and the part after the comma is also a complete sentence all by itself.
although you would be allowed to do that with a semicolon, you are not allowed to do so with a comma. this incorrect construction is called a "comma splice", and is probably the most common type of run-on sentence.
Hi Ron,

How is the C a RUN ON sentence?
I felt parallelism in: "murals are....., their geometrical symmetries are...., and they are.."
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by lunarpower » Wed Apr 21, 2010 4:24 am
loveusonu wrote:
lunarpower wrote:
(b) and (c) are run-on sentences; in each of those, the part ending with "colored" is a complete sentence all by itself, and the part after the comma is also a complete sentence all by itself.
although you would be allowed to do that with a semicolon, you are not allowed to do so with a comma. this incorrect construction is called a "comma splice", and is probably the most common type of run-on sentence.
Hi Ron,

How is the C a RUN ON sentence?
I felt parallelism in: "murals are....., their geometrical symmetries are...., and they are.."
ah, see, there's the problem -- you have to consider one more word on that left-hand one.

notice the right-hand subjects -- those are independent clauses.
it would be ok if your list consisted ENTIRELY of independent clauses -- but it doesn't; the first item is "whose murals are...", a relative (thus subordinate) clause. ("whose" is the word you forgot to take into consideration.)

once you've pulled the relative-clause trigger, the only clauses you can follow up with are more relative clauses:
whose X are Y, whose Z are A, and whose B are C
--> that would work.
(you can also create a parallel structure with elements that are smaller than clauses, but that's not the dispositive issue here -- the dispositive issue is that you can't put relative clauses in parallel with independent clauses.)

hope that helps
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by [email protected] » Wed Jan 11, 2012 8:42 am
Thanx Ron for a wonderful wonderful explanation!!!
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