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1000 SC 321

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by iwill » Sun Aug 24, 2008 9:34 am
From the bark of the paper birch tree the Menomini crafted a canoe about twenty feet long and two feet wide, with small ribs and rails of cedar, which could carry four persons or eight hundred pounds of baggage so light that a person could easily portage it around impeding rapids.

(A) baggage so light
(B) baggage being so light
(C) baggage, yet being so light
(D) baggage, and so light
(E) baggage yet was so light

Official Answer: E

Thanks,Iwill.
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Re: 1000 SC 321

by codesnooker » Sun Aug 24, 2008 10:14 am
iwill wrote:From the bark of the paper birch tree the Menomini crafted a canoe about twenty feet long and two feet wide, with small ribs and rails of cedar, which could carry four persons or eight hundred pounds of baggage so light that a person could easily portage it around impeding rapids.

(A) baggage so light
(B) baggage being so light
(C) baggage, yet being so light
(D) baggage, and so light
(E) baggage yet was so light

Official Answer: E

Thanks,Iwill.
This is simple too. You need to show the contrast that though cedar pick so heavy weight but still is so light to...

This rules out choices (A), (B) and (D).

Between choices (C) and (E), (C) uses word being, which is wordy and makes sentence usually (99%) awkward. Hence choose (E).
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by pepeprepa » Sun Aug 24, 2008 10:38 am
I don't understand why you can't chose D) for example
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by codesnooker » Sun Aug 24, 2008 11:13 am
pepeprepa wrote:I don't understand why you can't chose D) for example
You need contrast in the sentence that is absent in (D). Therefore, we can't choose (D).

Check the sentence again:

which could carry four persons or eight hundred pounds of baggage so light that a person could easily portage it around impeding rapids.

You can ignore the initial part of the sentence, it is waste for us. Check the remaining part that I have marked bold above. The sentence is taking about something that is capable of lifting heavy weight but still feel light that makes transportation easier.

Check the contrast mark above with in the underlined portion. The same thing you need to show in the given sentence.

Hope this helps...
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by madhur_ahuja » Tue Jul 14, 2009 5:23 am
In this question, option E, don't we need comma after baggage ?
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by goelmohit2002 » Tue Jul 14, 2009 6:51 am
madhur_ahuja wrote:In this question, option E, don't we need comma after baggage ?
IMO No....because.....if we shall put the comma...then yet thing will become part of main clause....

but we need to put the same in the which clause only to show the contrast...

which could carry XYZ....yet was so light...
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by Stacey Koprince » Wed Jul 15, 2009 11:56 am
Received a PM asking me to respond on the correct answer (E) and why it's okay to have "yet without a comma."

"Yet" is what's called a coordinating conjunction, so it can be used to connect two independent clauses (or full sentences). When you use it for this purpose, you do need to use a comma. But - this is not the only way to use the word "yet" in a sentence.

So if I wanted to say:

"I want to the store to buy some milk. They were all out."

I could say:
"I went to the store to buy some milk, yet they were all out."

Now check out the above problem. Does E follow that same pattern - the sentence before "yet" is a complete sentence and the stuff after "yet" is a complete sentence?

Nope. "was so light that a person could..." isn't a complete sentence. So "yet" isn't being used to connect two complete sentences in this circumstance. Comma not required.

I don't really like this question overall for other reasons though. I personally wouldn't study this one. :)
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by goelmohit2002 » Wed Jul 15, 2009 12:14 pm
Stacey Koprince wrote:I don't really like this question overall for other reasons though. I personally wouldn't study this one. :)
Hi Stacey,

This is OG-10, Q114. So no option but to study and understand :-)
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by Stacey Koprince » Wed Jul 15, 2009 1:18 pm
Still don't like it. :)
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by pjain01 » Sat Apr 24, 2010 2:49 am
Hi Stacy,
why the option D is wrong?
Can't we use 'And' for showing the contrast between two things.

Regards,
Parveen
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by Stacey Koprince » Sat Apr 24, 2010 9:46 am
This book is no longer published, so I will discuss it briefly - it's kind of in a grey zone as far as copyright is concerned.

There are two problems with D. First, "and" does not show a contrast between two things, no. "And" is either neutral or indicates that the two things go together in some way.

Second, the biggest thing "and" indicates is parallelism, and D isn't parallel. A similarly-constructed sentence:

<The Menomini crafted a canoe> <about 20 ft long and 2 ft wide>, <with S>, <which could carry A or B>, and <so light that Y>.

The "and" at the end indicates parallelism ("and" always indicates some form of parallelism). The stuff after the "and" is one of the two items that need to be made parallel. What's the other? There are potentially two different ways to interpret this (and both are wrong):

<The M crafted a canoe> <about 20 ft long AND 2 ft wide AND so light that Y>. In this example, the "so light that Y" part is parallel to the other prepositional phrase descriptor that comes after "canoe." One problem with this is that the double "and" construction is awkward. The other problem is that the meaning of the sentence is now changed / obscured. The point is to make a contrast between how much weight it can carry and how light it is. We've lost that meaning.

<The M crafted a canoe> <about 20 ft long and 2 ft wide>, <with S>, <which> <could carry A or B>, AND <so light that Y>. In this example, the two items after "which" are parallel, and both apply to the "which." So we have "which could carry A or B, and (which) so light that Y." In the first item, "which" is followed by a verb. In the second, it isn't. Not parallel.
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by FightWithGMAT » Sat Apr 24, 2010 10:05 am
Stacey Koprince wrote:This book is no longer published, so I will discuss it briefly - it's kind of in a grey zone as far as copyright is concerned.

There are two problems with D. First, "and" does not show a contrast between two things, no. "And" is either neutral or indicates that the two things go together in some way.

Second, the biggest thing "and" indicates is parallelism, and D isn't parallel. A similarly-constructed sentence:

<The Menomini crafted a canoe> <about 20 ft long and 2 ft wide>, <with S>, <which could carry A or B>, and <so light that Y>.

The "and" at the end indicates parallelism ("and" always indicates some form of parallelism). The stuff after the "and" is one of the two items that need to be made parallel. What's the other? There are potentially two different ways to interpret this (and both are wrong):

<The M crafted a canoe> <about 20 ft long AND 2 ft wide AND so light that Y>. In this example, the "so light that Y" part is parallel to the other prepositional phrase descriptor that comes after "canoe." One problem with this is that the double "and" construction is awkward. The other problem is that the meaning of the sentence is now changed / obscured. The point is to make a contrast between how much weight it can carry and how light it is. We've lost that meaning.

<The M crafted a canoe> <about 20 ft long and 2 ft wide>, <with S>, <which> <could carry A or B>, AND <so light that Y>. In this example, the two items after "which" are parallel, and both apply to the "which." So we have "which could carry A or B, and (which) so light that Y." In the first item, "which" is followed by a verb. In the second, it isn't. Not parallel.
This is awesome explanation!!! The explanation could be used to crack many tough questions.
Thanks.
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