Sentence Correction

GMATGuruNY wrote:

In 1850 Lucretia Mott published her Discourse on Women, arguing in a treatise for women to have equal political and legal rights and for changes in the married women's property laws.

A.arguing in a treatise for women to have equal political and legal rights
B.arguing in a treatise for equal political and legal rights for women
C.a treatise that advocates women's equal political and legal rights
D.a treatise advocating women's equal political and legal rights
E.a treatise that argued for equal political and legal rights for women

In A, it is unclear whether for women serves as an adjective modifying a treatise (A TREATISE for women) or as an adverb modifying arguing (ARGUING for women).
It must be clear what a modifier is modifying.
Eliminate A.

In B, it is unclear whether for equal political and legal rights for women serves as an adjective modifying a treatise (A TREATISE for equal political and legal rights for women) or as an adverb modifying arguing (ARGUING for equal political and legal rights for women).
It must be clear what a modifier is modifying.
Eliminate B.

In C, a treatise that advocates RIGHTS and FOR changes is not parallel.
Eliminate C.

In D, a treatise advocating RIGHTS and FOR changes is not parallel.
Eliminate D.

The correct answer is E.

Hi Mitch !

I have a query here.If we remove the clear parallelism errors of C, D & E , will these choices be correct?

IMO - an appositive can have it's own tense form , which can be different from the main clause. Can you please confirm my understanding.

Thanks in advance.

Regards
SR

Hello Everyone!

Let's take a closer look at this question and determine the best way to tackle it! Before we dive in, here is the original question with the major differences in each option highlighted in orange:

In 1850 Lucretia Mott published her Discourse on Women, arguing in a treatise for women to have equal political and legal rights and for changes in the married women's property laws.

A. arguing in a treatise for women to have equal political and legal rights
B. arguing in a treatise for equal political and legal rights for women
C. a treatise that advocates women's equal political and legal rights
D. a treatise advocating women's equal political and legal rights
E. a treatise that argued for equal political and legal rights for women

After a quick glance over the options, we see a couple things we can focus on:

1. "arguing in a treatise" vs. "a treatise" (Modifiers)
2. "for women..." / "for equal..." / "women's equal..." (Parallelism)

Let's start with #1 on our list: modifiers! We know that the modifier should be modifying Discourse on Women. What is Discourse on Women? A treatise! So the modifier that comes directly after the title should tell us what it is - it's a treatise, not an argument! Let's see how the options break down:

A. arguing in a treatise for women to have equal political and legal rights
B. arguing in a treatise for equal political and legal rights for women
C. a treatise that advocates women's equal political and legal rights
D. a treatise advocating women's equal political and legal rights
E. a treatise that argued for equal political and legal rights for women

We can eliminate options A & B because they are trying to make the modifier pair up with Mott and not the title of the treatise itself, which is what it should be modifying!

Now that we're left with 3 options, let's move on to #2: parallelism! There are 2 things that the treatise argues for:

1. equal political and legal rights for women
2. changes in married women's property laws

BOTH items need to be written using parallel structure. This means they need to use similar verb tenses, structure, wording, etc. Let's see which of the remaining options uses parallel structure. To make this easier to spot, I've added in the rest of the sentence so you can clearly see both items that need to be parallel:

C. a treatise that advocates women's equal political and legal rights and for changes in the married women's property laws. --> NOT PARALLEL
D. a treatise advocating women's equal political and legal rights and for changes in the married women's property laws. --> NOT PARALLEL
E. a treatise that argued for equal political and legal rights for women and for changes in the married women's property laws. --> PARALLEL

There you have it - option E is the correct choice! The modifier clearly refers to the right thing, and it uses parallel structure!


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