Sentence Correction

1) George Sand (Aurore Lucile Dupin) was one of the first European writers to consider the rural poor to be legitimate subjects for literature and portray these with sympathy and respect in her novels.

A) to be legitimate subjects for literature and portray these
B) should be legitimate subjects for literature and portray these
C) as being legitimate subjects for literature and portraying them
D) as if they were legitimate subjects for literature and portray them
E) legitimate subjects for literature and to portray them

I got the question right and I am convinced with the OA E

Which one is better among the options below and can someone explain why ?

1)legitimate subjects for literature and to portray them
2)legitimate subjects for literature and portray them

(observe that I have removed to before portray )
wouldn't the sentence still be parallel ?

the parallel is between: "to consider" and "to portray"

George Sand... the first European writers to consider... and [to] portray...

also, ABCD can be eliminated because consider...as... is wrong, consider...to be... is wrong, consider...should... is wrong. Only "consider" by itself is accepted in GMAT

IMO both are correct the [to] is optional.

1>When consider means "regard as" as should not be used.
2>Consider should be not be followed by infinitive like to be


Above two points leaves behind B and E.


B is a awkward construction(portray these ).

select E and have fun![/u]

E) legitimate subjects for literature and to portray them

Them clearly points back to its antecedent "the rural poor".

But that does not make sense to me because "them" is plural to me yet "the rural poor" is singular and moreoever, the rural poor is a place. I though them can only refer to people or objects.

Can someone please clarify for me please!

hongwang9703 wrote:E) legitimate subjects for literature and to portray them

Them clearly points back to its antecedent "the rural poor".

But that does not make sense to me because "them" is plural to me yet "the rural poor" is singular and moreoever, the rural poor is a place. I though them can only refer to people or objects.

Can someone please clarify for me please!

"the rural poor" is a group of people, not a place, and is plural, not singular.

"the rural poor" means "poor people from the country".

To the original query, "to" is optional - both versions of what you posted are correct. The stylistic difference is so small, however, that you will never be forced to make that choice on the GMAT.

Here's the rule for omitting words like "to" in those cases:

if the word fits in every part of the list, then you can either put it just in front of the first item or in front of every item; and

if the word doesn't fit in every part of the list, then you need to put the appropriate words in the appropriate places.

i want to know if my analysis is right or not

1)legitimate subjects for literature and to portray them
2)legitimate subjects for literature and portray them

in these two options literature is noun and portray is action (verb)
therefore option 2 is not right as it is not parallel
it should be either preposition +noun or preposition + verb
(portraying should be portraying (gerund) for 2nd option to be correct

please let me know if it right .

i want to know if my analysis is right or not

1)legitimate subjects for literature and to portray them
2)legitimate subjects for literature and portray them

in these two options literature is noun and portray is action (verb)
therefore option 2 is not right as it is not parallel
it should be either preposition +noun or preposition + verb
(portraying should be portraying (gerund) for 2nd option to be correct

please let me know if it right .

i want to know if my analysis is right or not

1)legitimate subjects for literature and to portray them
2)legitimate subjects for literature and portray them

in these two options literature is noun and portray is action (verb)
therefore option 2 is not right as it is not parallel
it should be either preposition +noun or preposition + verb
(portraying should be portraying (gerund) for 2nd option to be correct

please let me know if it right .

deepti1206 wrote:i want to know if my analysis is right or not

1)legitimate subjects for literature and to portray them
2)legitimate subjects for literature and portray them

in these two options literature is noun and portray is action (verb)
therefore option 2 is not right as it is not parallel
it should be either preposition +noun or preposition + verb
(portraying should be portraying (gerund) for 2nd option to be correct

please let me know if it right .

Hi Deepti,

Let me explain you with the full sentence:

to consider the rural poor to be legitimate subjects for literature and portray these.....This is the sentence here. Here we are making two actions (verbs) parallel ( consider and Portray...I don't know why would you consider the making your sentence parallel with literature. The meaning of the sentence wants two actions to be parallel as I mentioned above. Even if you put portraying (gerund) in the second place it won't be parallel because we need a verb after "and" here to make the two actions parallel.

Now your reason just to ignore the second option is wrong and second option is indeed parallel and correct.
2)to consider legitimate subjects for literature and portray them ( I have added the red part for better understanding)
here we have two actions and we don't need "two" in front of both of them even the sentence written as it is...is correct.

Example:
John loves to play and eat. ( here is is fine and perfectly parallel because "to" from the first is automatically assumed with the second after the "and")
John loves to play and to eat.( it is fine too and perfectly parallel)
John loves to play, eat and to watch movie ( here is it not parallel because we have missed the "to" in the second verb if we would have missed "to" in the third aswell it would have been correct)
John loves to play, eat, and watch movie ( This sentence is parallel here because "to" in the first verb is assumed to be with 2nd and third verb.)

Hope this helps.

Stuart Kovinsky wrote:

hongwang9703 wrote:E) legitimate subjects for literature and to portray them

Them clearly points back to its antecedent "the rural poor".

But that does not make sense to me because "them" is plural to me yet "the rural poor" is singular and moreoever, the rural poor is a place. I though them can only refer to people or objects.

Can someone please clarify for me please!

"the rural poor" is a group of people, not a place, and is plural, not singular.

"the rural poor" means "poor people from the country".

To the original query, "to" is optional - both versions of what you posted are correct. The stylistic difference is so small, however, that you will never be forced to make that choice on the GMAT.

Here's the rule for omitting words like "to" in those cases:

if the word fits in every part of the list, then you can either put it just in front of the first item or in front of every item; and

if the word doesn't fit in every part of the list, then you need to put the appropriate words in the appropriate places.

I got the answer right. But, during analysis I was confused with this too. Because, in GMAT usually "group of people" e.g. Army, etc is considered singular. Then, why "the rural poor" is considered plural here, and not singular?