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Official Guide #12 Question #26

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by aztec » Sun Apr 15, 2012 3:35 am
Question no 26 of Sentence Correction on the Official Guide # 12 :
Emily Dickinson's letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson were written over a period beginning a few years before Susan's marriage to Emily's brother and ending shortly before Emily's death in 1886, outnumbering her letters to anyone else.

The answer given in the Official guide is : Dickinson, which were written over a period beginning a few years before Susan's marriage to Emily's brother and ending shortly before Emily's death in 1886, outnumber

Though i agree that parallelism is only found out in this option and this option looks much better than the rest, my question is that modifier 'which' in the answer is acting as a Noun Modifier and is modifying the noun 'letters'. Shouldn't 'which' in this case touch the noun it is modifying(letters).

Would appreciate if anyone can tell me where i went wrong.

[Moderator Edit: Moved the post to a relevant forum - neelgandham]
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Source: — Sentence Correction |

by Bill@VeritasPrep » Sun Apr 15, 2012 7:54 am
"to Susan Huntington Dickinson" is a prepositional phrase modifying "letters," so the relative clause beginning with "which" applies to the noun phrase (noun + prepositional phrase).
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by GMATGuruNY » Sun Apr 15, 2012 9:10 am
aztec wrote:Question no 26 of Sentence Correction on the Official Guide # 12 :
Emily Dickinson's letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson were written over a period beginning a few years before Susan's marriage to Emily's brother and ending shortly before Emily's death in 1886, outnumbering her letters to anyone else.

The answer given in the Official guide is : Dickinson, which were written over a period beginning a few years before Susan's marriage to Emily's brother and ending shortly before Emily's death in 1886, outnumber

Though i agree that parallelism is only found out in this option and this option looks much better than the rest, my question is that modifier 'which' in the answer is acting as a Noun Modifier and is modifying the noun 'letters'. Shouldn't 'which' in this case touch the noun it is modifying(letters).

Would appreciate if anyone can tell me where i went wrong.

[Moderator Edit: Moved the post to a relevant forum - neelgandham]
I posted an explanation here:

https://www.beatthegmat.com/dickinson-le ... 00035.html

Here's the OA:

Emily Dickinson's letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson, which were written over a period beginning a few years before Susan's marriage to Emily's brother and ending shortly before Emily's death in 1886, outnumber her letters to anyone else.

The referent for which cannot be a person; to refer to people, we typically use who or whom.
Thus, which clearly doesn't refer to Emily Dickinson.
The plural verb were written makes it clear that which refers to the nearest preceding PLURAL noun: letters.
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by aztec » Mon Apr 16, 2012 8:58 am
Bill@VeritasPrep wrote:"to Susan Huntington Dickinson" is a prepositional phrase modifying "letters," so the relative clause beginning with "which" applies to the noun phrase (noun + prepositional phrase).
Thanks Mitch and Bill for a prompt response.
So i understand that if a noun is followed by a prepositional phrase, it is not necessary for 'which' to touch the noun. Can you please also list down other exceptions or conditions where 'which' need not have to follow the noun it is modifying.

Thanks in advance.
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