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Many of the earliest known images of Hindu

by deepakk » Mon Dec 09, 2013 10:16 am

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Many of the earliest known images of Hindu deities in India date from the time of the Kushan
empire, fashioned either from the spotted sandstone of Mathura or Gandharan grey schist.
A. empire, fashioned either from the spotted sandstone of Mathura or
B. empire, fashioned from either the spotted sandstone of Mathura or from
C. empire, either fashioned from the spotted sandstone of Mathura or
D. empire and either fashioned from the spotted sandstone of Mathura or from
E. empire and were fashioned either from the spotted sandstone of Mathura or from

How to approach this question?
I know its among B,D,E
But I am not able to find the correct answer.
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by Mike@Magoosh » Mon Dec 09, 2013 2:52 pm

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deepakk wrote:Many of the earliest known images of Hindu deities in India date from the time of the Kushan
empire, fashioned either from the spotted sandstone of Mathura or Gandharan grey schist.
A. empire, fashioned either from the spotted sandstone of Mathura or
B. empire, fashioned from either the spotted sandstone of Mathura or from
C. empire, either fashioned from the spotted sandstone of Mathura or
D. empire and either fashioned from the spotted sandstone of Mathura or from
E. empire and were fashioned either from the spotted sandstone of Mathura or from

How to approach this question?
I know its among B,D,E
But I am not able to find the correct answer.
Dear deepakk,
I'm happy to help. :-)

First of all, we don't want to say that the Kushan empire was "fashioned either from spotted sandstone", so we don't want a participial phrase there, modifying the empire. Choice (A) & (B) & (C) are all wrong because of this.

To choose between (D) & (E), we need to use the "one outside or twice inside" rule for parallelism. See this blog:
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2013/gmat-paral ... ce-inside/
The "either ... or" split contrasts the different materials used. We could have either ...
from either X or Y (the once outside option)
or
either from X or from Y (the twice inside option)
Choice (D) misplaces the "either" entirely, putting it in front of "fashioned", which makes no sense. Choice (E) has the correct "twice inside" construction. Choice (E) is the best answer.

Does all this make sense?
Mike :-)
Magoosh GMAT Instructor
https://gmat.magoosh.com/
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by lydiaxuxin » Wed Jun 25, 2014 3:41 am

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Mike@Magoosh wrote:
deepakk wrote:Many of the earliest known images of Hindu deities in India date from the time of the Kushan
empire, fashioned either from the spotted sandstone of Mathura or Gandharan grey schist.
A. empire, fashioned either from the spotted sandstone of Mathura or
B. empire, fashioned from either the spotted sandstone of Mathura or from
C. empire, either fashioned from the spotted sandstone of Mathura or
D. empire and either fashioned from the spotted sandstone of Mathura or from
E. empire and were fashioned either from the spotted sandstone of Mathura or from

How to approach this question?
I know its among B,D,E
But I am not able to find the correct answer.
Dear deepakk,
I'm happy to help. :-)

First of all, we don't want to say that the Kushan empire was "fashioned either from spotted sandstone", so we don't want a participial phrase there, modifying the empire. Choice (A) & (B) & (C) are all wrong because of this.

To choose between (D) & (E), we need to use the "one outside or twice inside" rule for parallelism. See this blog:
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2013/gmat-paral ... ce-inside/
The "either ... or" split contrasts the different materials used. We could have either ...
from either X or Y (the once outside option)
or
either from X or from Y (the twice inside option)
Choice (D) misplaces the "either" entirely, putting it in front of "fashioned", which makes no sense. Choice (E) has the correct "twice inside" construction. Choice (E) is the best answer.

Does all this make sense?
Mike :-)
But does "fashioned" in A&B must modify empire? in the sentence I read in other post:
John left the building, excited that he had just aced the GMAT
clearly "excited" modifies John, not the building

I am confused is there any specific rule for comma+v-ed that it should modify the nearest noun?
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by Mike@Magoosh » Wed Jun 25, 2014 12:59 pm

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lydiaxuxin wrote:But does "fashioned" in A&B must modify empire? in the sentence I read in other post:
John left the building, excited that he had just aced the GMAT
clearly "excited" modifies John, not the building

I am confused is there any specific rule for comma+v-ed that it should modify the nearest noun?
Dear lydiaxuxin,
I'm happy to respond. :-)

As you may know, for most noun modifiers, the Modifier Touch Rule is in effect. This is a very important rule to know. See:
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2013/modifiers- ... orrection/

What you are calling the verb-ed is technically called the past participle. It's good to learn the grammatical names if you want to understand grammar in depth. Participles are considerably more flexible --- they can be noun-modifiers, verb-modifiers, etc. In the sentence you quote, it's not clear whether "excited" is a noun-modifier modifying "John," or a verb-modifier modifying the verb or the entire clause. Verb-modifiers are NOT subject to the Touch Rule. Furthermore, in that simple sentence there are only two nouns, and it's clear that "building" is the not target. That sentence is unambiguous.

Now, think about (A): Many of the earliest known images of Hindu deities in India date from the time of the Kushan empire, fashioned either from....
That's a lot of nouns!! The modifier beginning "fashioned" is clearly a noun-modifier. The default assumption is that the target noun, the noun modified, is the noun it touches, "Kushan empire." Now, if the predicate were short, the target noun could be the subject, but this is a LONG predicate with whole string of nouns, any one of which grammatically could be the target noun if we are suspending the Touch Rule. There is, at the very least, some ambiguity about the target of the modifier, and this ambiguity is fully resolved by changing the past participle noun-modifier "fashioned" to a full past tense verb "were fashioned" in parallel to the first verb: then quite obviously, the subject is the same, and we know exactly what "were fashioned."

Also, notice that all the answers other than the OA, (D), completely fail the Once Outside, Twice Inside rule for Parallelism. For more on that, see:
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2013/gmat-paral ... ce-inside/

Does all this make sense?
Mike :-)
Magoosh GMAT Instructor
https://gmat.magoosh.com/
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by [email protected] » Tue Apr 02, 2019 9:02 am

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Hello Everyone!

Let's tackle this question, one problem at a time, and narrow it down to the correct option! To begin, here is the original question with any differences between the options highlighted in orange:

Many of the earliest known images of Hindu deities in India date from the time of the Kushan empire, fashioned either from the spotted sandstone of Mathura or Gandharan grey schist.

(A) empire, fashioned either from the spotted sandstone of Mathura or
(B) empire, fashioned from either the spotted sandstone of Mathura or from
(C) empire, either fashioned from the spotted sandstone of Mathura or
(D) empire and either fashioned from the spotted sandstone of Mathura or from
(E) empire and were fashioned either from the spotted sandstone of Mathura or from

If we glance over the options quickly, we clearly see 2 places we can focus on:

1. How to handle the verb "fashioned" (modifiers, punctuation, parallelism)
2. or / or from (parallelism)

Let's start with #1 on our list. If we look closely, it appears that options A, B, and C use a comma after the word "empire," which turns the rest of the sentence into a modifier. Options D & E use the word "and" to connect the two parts into one statement. So - which one should we use?

Remember that whenever we see modifiers, we need to make sure they're placed directly before or after what they're modifying. Let's start by checking to see if options A, B, and C use modifiers correctly:

Many of the earliest known images of Hindu deities in India date from the time of the Kushan empire, fashioned either from the spotted sandstone of Mathura or Gandharan grey schist.

modifier = fashioned either from the spotted sandstone of Mathura or Gandharan grey schist.
antecedent (What is it modifying?) = images

We can see from the options available, NONE of them place the modifier next to "images." Instead, they're all incorrectly trying to modify the word "empire":

(A) empire, fashioned either from the spotted sandstone of Mathura or
(B) empire, fashioned from either the spotted sandstone of Mathura or from
(C) empire, either fashioned from the spotted sandstone of Mathura or

This means we can eliminate options A, B, and C because the punctuation turns them into incorrectly placed modifiers.

Now that we're left with only 2 options, let's tackle #2 on the list: parallelism! The word "either" is a tip-off that we need to be careful that both items are written using parallel structure. Let's see how they stack up:

(D) empire and either fashioned from the spotted sandstone of Mathura or from Gandharan grey schist.

...either fashioned from X or from Y = WRONG

Anything that is written AFTER the word "either" needs to be written in both items! For this to be parallel, it would have to say "...either fashioned from X or fashioned from Y."

(E) empire and were fashioned either from the spotted sandstone of Mathura or from Gandharan grey schist.

...fashioned either from X or from Y = CORRECT!

This is parallel! The word "fashioned" appears before the word "either," so it doesn't have to be in both items. However, the word "from" is after the word "either," and it should be included with both items (and it is).

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


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by rishab0507 » Sat Sep 07, 2019 8:34 am

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A. empire, fashioned either from the spotted sandstone of Mathura or : either from not parallel with OR
B. empire, fashioned from either the spotted sandstone of Mathura or from : from either, not parallel to or FROM,
C. empire, either fashioned from the spotted sandstone of Mathura or : either + verb, OR + adjective : Not parallel
D. empire and either fashioned from the spotted sandstone of Mathura or from : either +verb - or from : not parallel .
E. empire and were fashioned either from the spotted sandstone of Mathura or from : use of were is correct, either from and or from parallel


This problem is really simple as it test the idiom EITHER X OR Y , but the catch is it has to be parallel, i.e if its either+verb, then it should be or+ verb . or it can be verb either ... or. I.e mentioned 1 times should refer to both. Rule of once outside or twice inside
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