Charlemagne

Question

Contemporary accounts of the life of Charlemagne, crowned emperor by the pope in 800, show that the founder of the Carolingian renaissance in literature and the arts was himself an illiterate driven by his desire for a civilized state to reform education in his kingdom.

a. that the founder of the Carolingian renaissance in literature and the arts was himself an illiterate driven by his desire
b. that the founder of the Carolingian renaissance in literature as well as in the arts was himself an illiterate and also driven by his desire
c. that the founder of the Carolingian renaissance in literature and the arts was himself an illiterate and that he was driven by his desire
d. that the founder of the Carolingian renaissance in literature as well as in the arts was himself an illiterate and that he was driven by his desire
e. that the founder of the Carolingian renaissance in literature and the arts was himself an illiterate and that his desire drove him

[spoiler]Source : Kaplan Test 1, OA later [/spoiler]

albatross86 · Answer

We need "in literature" and "in the arts" for parallelism. This is because without this, we don't have the intended meaning of "renaissance in the arts", but instead it looks like "the founder of the arts"

Rule out A, C, and E

B. ...himself an illiterate and also driven...
This is not parallel. We would need " and that he was driven" since the main verb here is "show" i.e. Show that A and that B.

D. Perfect. We have" renaissance in literature as well as in the arts" which is parallel, and this corrects the "show that A and that B" error.

Pick D.

sumanr84 · Answer

@albatross86 ..you repeated my mistake..pls try one more time

albatross86 · Answer

sumanr84 wrote:@albatross86 ..you repeated my mistake..pls try one more time

I see, I guess this has something to do with my misunderstanding about "and the arts".

If D is wrong, I feel only A can be correct.

Looking forward to more explanations, thanks!

viju9162 · Answer

Hi sumanr84,

tricky one. I should admit I also arrived at D. As we know it is wrong, I can guess for B.

Contemporary accounts of the life of Charlemagne show

that the founder of the Carolingian renaissance in literature as well as in the arts was himself an illiterate ( Can it read like this)

founder of the Carolingian renaissance in literature
founder of the Carolingian renaissance in the arts

and

also driven by his desire for a civilized state to reform education in his kingdom

Thanks,
Viju

nikhilkatira · Answer

albatross86 wrote:sumanr84 wrote:@albatross86 ..you repeated my mistake..pls try one more time I see, I guess this has something to do with my misunderstanding about "and the arts". If D is wrong, I feel only A can be correct. Looking forward to more explanations, thanks! Confused between A and C

gmatmachoman · Answer

nikhilkatira wrote:albatross86 wrote:sumanr84 wrote:@albatross86 ..you repeated my mistake..pls try one more time I see, I guess this has something to do with my misunderstanding about "and the arts". If D is wrong, I feel only A can be correct. Looking forward to more explanations, thanks! Confused between A and C One more for C

akhpad · Answer

IMO: C

I believe that following is the best construction.

..., show that the founder + ... + and that he was driven by his desire + ...

"as well as" not required. Subject is always singular so WAS is correct.
he was driven by his desire + ... => CORRECT

albatross86 · Answer

Aah true, I forgot about C when I tried the second time.

C actually has the very same parallelism I was describing in D.

I agree now that "as well as" is wrong here, because "Founder of the renaissance in literature and the arts" is actually not incorrect and we don't need the "in" before the arts.

Thanks for the enlightening question!

martin.jonson007 · Answer

akhp77 wrote:IMO: C

I believe that following is the best construction.

..., show that the founder + ... + and that he was driven by his desire + ...

"as well as" not required. Subject is always singular so WAS is correct.
he was driven by his desire + ... => CORRECT

Can You plz explain on

"as well as" not required. or in wch situation it is required... ?

IMO C too, but wud like to see more comments on D..

paes · Answer

C looks fine to me But I am unable to ruled out A. Please explain A and C.

martin.jonson007 · Answer

paes wrote:C looks fine to me But I am unable to ruled out A. Please explain A and C. A is out b'coz structure of sentence is THAT...... THAT

akhpad · Answer

martin.jonson007 wrote: Can You plz explain on

"as well as" not required. or in wch situation it is required... ?

IMO C too, but wud like to see more comments on D..

"as well as" introduce a modifier.

* The mayor as well as his brothers is going to prison.
* The mayor and his brothers are going to jail.

The phrase introduced by "as well as" will modify the earlier word (mayor in this case), but it does not compound the subjects (as the word "and" would do).

One thing, it creates embarrassing to me, is that poster does not post OA. Instead of that, they write "OA latter".

One can post question along with OA and ask for explanation. I believe that this would be a good practice.

sumanr84 · Answer

Thanks to albatross,akhp,martin and others who attempted. However, it turns out to be that I am not the only one with incorrect answer..

Putting answer in spoiler.

[spoiler]OA : A
OE: A glance at the answer choices suggests that the issue here involves the participle “ driven. ” The sentence gives the surprising detail that a person interested in literature was illiterate, and then explains why an illiterate would have such an interest. As such, the participle “ driven ” is an integral description of the word “ illiterate, ” not of the man in general. Therefore, the participle must stand as it is and choice (A) is correct. Each other choice separates illiterate from driven, altering the meaning of the sentence.[/spoiler]

albatross's second instinct was right.. :mrgreen:

Do you all agree with the OE ?

vikas.yaadav · Answer

paes wrote:C looks fine to me
But I am unable to ruled out A.

Please explain A and C.

IMO A:

if we take out prepositional phrases, what we are left with is :

the founder "prepositional phrase" was himself an illiterate driven by his desire.

this is alright sentence. C is also okay as it brings in right parallelism, but why change the sentence when "A" is correct.

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