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From plant dyes and other natural ingredients

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From plant dyes and other natural ingredients

by patanjali.purpose » Sat Oct 27, 2012 11:48 am
From plant dyes and other natural ingredients, nineteenth-century cosmeticians developed makeup that could even out complexions and vastly improve a woman's appearance so subtle that even close acquaintances were not aware that she was wearing it.
A) appearance so subtle
B) appearance being so subtle
C) appearance, yet being so subtle
D) appearance, and so subtle
E) appearance, yet be so subtle

Kaplan; Why A and C are wrong; OA-E
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by anuprajan5 » Sat Oct 27, 2012 10:14 pm
There is a connection between both parts of the sentence. In terms of meaning the sentence says that the cosmeticians developed makeup such that they could vastly improve a woman's appearance and yet be so subtle that close acquaintances could not know.

A) appearance so subtle - Doesnt show this flow in the sentence

C) appearance, yet being so subtle - Progressive action. Incorrect when the same can be described through present tense.
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by GmatKiss » Mon Oct 29, 2012 11:54 am
From plant dyes and other natural ingredients, nineteenth-century cosmeticians developed makeup that could even out complexions and vastly improve a woman's appearance so subtle that even close acquaintances were not aware that she was wearing it.

A) appearance so subtle - Appearance is not subtle; makeup is.
B) appearance being so subtle
C) appearance, yet being so subtle
D) appearance, and so subtle
E) appearance, yet be so subtle

Yet is required to emphasis the differences.
However is tricky to select between C and E. Experts please help!
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by GMATGuruNY » Mon Oct 29, 2012 1:39 pm
patanjali.purpose wrote:From plant dyes and other natural ingredients, nineteenth-century cosmeticians developed makeup that could even out complexions and vastly improve a woman's appearance so subtle that even close acquaintances were not aware that she was wearing it.
A) appearance so subtle
B) appearance being so subtle
C) appearance, yet being so subtle
D) appearance, and so subtle
E) appearance, yet be so subtle

Kaplan; Why A and C are wrong; OA-E
Subtle means difficult to detect.
A and B imply that the woman's APPEARANCE was subtle -- a nonsensical meaning.
It was not the woman's appearance but the MAKE-UP that was difficult to detect -- the meaning conveyed by E:
Nineteenth-century cosmeticians developed MAKE-UP THAT COULD EVEN OUT complexions and VASTLY IMPROVE a woman's appearance, YET BE SO SUBTLE.

Please note that the non-underlined portion includes a pronoun error: she (a SUBJECT pronoun) cannot serve to refer to woman's (a possessive pronoun serving as an ADJECTIVE).
Last edited by GMATGuruNY on Wed Oct 31, 2012 11:02 am, edited 1 time in total.
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by whats_in_the_store » Tue Oct 30, 2012 8:41 pm
Sorry Mitch, not able to grasp.
Why is that be can refer to the makeup and being can't?
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by vikram4689 » Wed Oct 31, 2012 12:33 am
between C and E parallelism plays the role. i think mitch mistakenly wrote that "A & C imply..." as that would be the case if "," was not present in c).

X could even out complection yet be so subtle ; 'could'(hypothetical subjunctive) is parallel to 'be'(present tense)
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by GMATGuruNY » Wed Oct 31, 2012 11:28 am
whats_in_the_store wrote:Sorry Mitch, not able to grasp.
Why is that be can refer to the makeup and being can't?
In B, being is not preceded by a comma.
The implication is that being modifies appearance, the preceding noun.
Not the intended meaning: it was not the woman's APPEARANCE that was BEING subtle.

A conjunction such as yet must connect PARALLEL forms.
In C, there is no preceding form that is parallel with being.
The result is that the function of being is unclear.

In E, be is parallel with even out:
...make-up that could EVEN OUT complexions yet {could] BE so subtle...
Here, it's clear that it was the MAKE-UP that could BE so subtle.
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