gmatdriller wrote:Please what are the errors (and differences) in the 2 sentences below?

(A) John F. Kennedy (1917 - 1963), who was born into a Native American family and attended Havard College in Massachusetts, served as a senator before becoming the president of the US.

(B)John F. Kennedy (1917 - 1963), born into a Native American family and attended Havard College in Massachusetts, served as senator before he become the president of US.

B is incorrect; BECOME should have been BECAME; "A" is missing in-front of SENATOR

patanjali.purpose wrote:

gmatdriller wrote:Please what are the errors (and differences) in the 2 sentences below?

(A) John F. Kennedy (1917 - 1963), who was born into a Native American family and attended Havard College in Massachusetts, served as a senator before becoming the president of the US.

(B)John F. Kennedy (1917 - 1963), born into a Native American family and attended Havard College in Massachusetts, served as senator before he become the president of US.

B is incorrect; BECOME should have been BECAME; "A" is missing in-front of SENATOR

Sorry, that was a typo.... B should be "became"

B also has a pretty major problem with the second portion of the modifier, "attended". You can certainly say:

John F. Kennedy, born into a Native American family, served...

and you can say:

John F. Kennedy, educated at Harvard, served...

but you can't say:

John F. Kennedy, attended Harvard, served...

And because that second sentence includes the word "and" between two verbs, both verbs need to be able to perform that same function, so "JFK, born to a Native American family and attended..." does not work. The lesson? Be careful with the word "and" in modifiers, as the first portion of a modifier could look correct, but the second might not.

A- who was born(Passive construction) into a Native American family and attended( parallelism not preserved) Harvard College in Massachusetts, served as a senator before becoming(parallelism with "served" not preserved) the president of the US.

B- in this construction the thing between commas is starting with a verb whose subject is supposed to be JFK but that is separated by comma, therefore I think a relative pronoun will do " JFK, who born.."
[/b]

Brian@VeritasPrep wrote:B also has a pretty major problem with the second portion of the modifier, "attended". You can certainly say:

John F. Kennedy, born into a Native American family, served...

and you can say:

John F. Kennedy, educated at Harvard, served...

but you can't say:

John F. Kennedy, attended Harvard, served...

And because that second sentence includes the word "and" between two verbs, both verbs need to be able to perform that same function, so "JFK, born to a Native American family and attended..." does not work. The lesson? Be careful with the word "and" in modifiers, as the first portion of a modifier could look correct, but the second might not.

Brain,

Thanks. But, how would ATTENDED be fine in A then. IMO if ATTENDED in not ok in B then its not ok in A as well.

Is my understanding correct?

"attended" is ok in a) because "attended" is a verb. in a) we need verb for subject "who"
who was born into a Native American family and attended Havard College in Massachusetts

in b) we need a participle to make it parallel to another participle "born". we can certainly do that using "attending" instead of "attended"
born into a Native American family and attending Havard College in Massachusetts

hth

A:
I can now understand why A is better and the OA:

"JFK, who was born" can pair with "and attended"- "who" can be applied to "attended"
What about the 2nd part "served as a senator before
becoming the president"

B:
"JFK, born into...and attended" The "attended" serves as Verb-ED action or doing word
but "born" acts as modifier. so not parallel. Is my reasoning correct?
Meanwhile,
"JFK,BORN into ...,SERVED as a senator before he BECAME the president of the US"
looks correct.

TAKEAWAYS:
NOUN, MODIFIER, VERB+... OK
NOUN, VERB+... NOK.... The COMMA should be removed to make this one correct.
but
modifier

see my reponses in green

gmatdriller wrote:A:
I can now understand why A is better and the OA:

"JFK, who was born" can pair with "and attended"- "who" can be applied to "attended"
What about the 2nd part "served as a senator before
becoming the president"
"served" is main verb and "before becoming the president" is prepositional phrase that is acting as adverb (precisely adverb of time)

B:
"JFK, born into...and attended" The "attended" serves as Verb-ED action or doing word
but "born" acts as modifier. so not parallel. Is my reasoning correct? YES
Meanwhile,
"JFK,BORN into ...,SERVED as a senator before he BECAME the president of the US"
looks correct.

TAKEAWAYS:
NOUN, MODIFIER, VERB+... OK
NOUN, VERB+... NOK.... The COMMA should be removed to make this one correct.
but
modifier