Sentence Correction

In addition to her work on the Miocene hominid fossil record, Mary Leakey contributed to archaeology with her discovery of the earliest direct evidence of hominid activity and painstakingly documenting East African cave paintings.

A. Leakey contributed to archaeology with her discovery of the earliest direct evidence of hominid activity and painstakingly documenting
B. Leakey contributed to archaeology by her discovery of the earliest direct evidence of hominid activity and by painstakingly documenting
C. Leakey was a contributor to archaeology with her discovery of the earliest direct evidence of hominid activity and with her painstaking documentation of
D. Leakey's contributions to archaeology include her discovery of the earliest direct evidence of hominid activity and her painstaking documentation of
E. Leakey's contributions to archaeology include her discovering the earliest direct evidence of hominid activity and painstaking documentation of


Do you need to repeat the preposition to achieve parallelism? For example, do you need the second with to be correct? For C: discovery is parallel with documentation. If you take the second with out is it still parallel?

Side question:

Logical parallelism: I guess its safe to assume GMAT doesn't believe in sarcasm? (serious question).

Im with C

1) Modifier, Leakey
2) Parallel, documentation || discovery

nycknicks11 wrote:In addition to her work on the Miocene hominid fossil record, Mary Leakey contributed to archaeology with her discovery of the earliest direct evidence of hominid activity and painstakingly documenting East African cave paintings.

A. Leakey contributed to archaeology with her discovery of the earliest direct evidence of hominid activity and painstakingly documenting
B. Leakey contributed to archaeology by her discovery of the earliest direct evidence of hominid activity and by painstakingly documenting
C. Leakey was a contributor to archaeology with her discovery of the earliest direct evidence of hominid activity and with her painstaking documentation of
D. Leakey's contributions to archaeology include her discovery of the earliest direct evidence of hominid activity and her painstaking documentation of
E. Leakey's contributions to archaeology include her discovering the earliest direct evidence of hominid activity and painstaking documentation of


Do you need to repeat the preposition to achieve parallelism? For example, do you need the second with to be correct? For C: discovery is parallel with documentation. If you take the second with out is it still parallel?

Side question:

Logical parallelism: I guess its safe to assume GMAT doesn't believe in sarcasm? (serious question).

IMO C
What's d correct answer?

I don't think it is C.

I'd go with B.

C suggests a strange meaning -

In addition to her work on the Miocene hominid fossil record, Mary Leakey was a contributor to archaeology with her discovery of the earliest direct evidence of hominid activity and with her painstaking documentation of East African cave paintings.

In lesser words, option C says that - In addition to X, Mary Leakey was Y.

Now Mary Leakey was definitely not X (her work on the Miocene hominid fossil record)

B is much better.

In addition to her work on the Miocene hominid fossil record, Mary Leakey contributed to archaeology by her discovery of the earliest direct evidence of hominid activity and by painstakingly documenting East African cave paintings.

Or in lesser words, - In addition to X, Mary Leakey contributed to Y. - This makes sense.

In addition to her work on the Miocene hominid fossil record, Mary Leakey contributed to archaeology with her discovery of the earliest direct evidence of hominid activity and painstakingly documenting East African cave paintings.

A. Leakey contributed to archaeology with her discovery of the earliest direct evidence of hominid activity and painstakingly documenting ------> not parallel
B. Leakey contributed to archaeology by her discovery of the earliest direct evidence of hominid activity and by painstakingly documenting -------> parallelism is maintained
C. Leakey was a contributor to archaeology with her discovery of the earliest direct evidence of hominid activity and with her painstaking documentation of -----> passive voice and In addition to X, Contributed Y is the right usage
D. Leakey's contributions to archaeology include her discovery of the earliest direct evidence of hominid activity and her painstaking documentation of ----> wrong modifier
E. Leakey's contributions to archaeology include her discovering the earliest direct evidence of hominid activity and painstaking documentation of ----> wrong modifier


whats the OA?????

Even my pick is Op B not C

Hey @niksworth, nice explanation for Op C, thanks for that brother!!!!

atulmangal wrote: Hey @niksworth, nice explanation for Op C, thanks for that brother!!!!

Anytime man. Just hope that it turns out to be right though!

dudes, the OA is not B. It's C. Hence my questioning surrounding C. This question is about parallelism. As I mentioned, discovery || documentation that's is for sure. Digging a little deeper will it still be paralled without the "with"?

Can someone please confirm the "with" issue. Can you do "with her discovery" and "by documenting" ?
How do you parse sentences? Looking at the subordination clause? or the verb?


B has a lot wrong with it.

1) discovery is not paralleled with documenting
2) contributed with not by. if by then it has to be a verb gerund.

PS this is a gmatprep problem.

Hmmm..So I dug further on this. Looks like this question is quite amazing in the sense that we have three different choices credited as rightat three different times. Here you say that the correct answer is C. Folks at Manhattan GMAT have found that the same question has A and D as the right answer in two different instances of GMAT prep. Perhaps they are different versions of the same question. I am not sure.

https://www.manhattangmat.com/forums/in- ... -t499.html

P.S. After going through the explanations at the above link, I am convinced that D is the best choice.

Phew!

niksworth wrote:Hmmm..So I dug further on this. Looks like this question is quite amazing in the sense that we have three different choices credited as rightat three different times. Here you say that the correct answer is C. Folks at Manhattan GMAT have found that the same question has A and D as the right answer in two different instances of GMAT prep. Perhaps they are different versions of the same question. I am not sure.

https://www.manhattangmat.com/forums/in- ... -t499.html

P.S. After going through the explanations at the above link, I am convinced that D is the best choice.

Phew!

Thanks brother, now even i feel the same, Op D has to be correct....i foolishly thought that Op B and Op C are parallel...dammm...

niksworth wrote:Hmmm..So I dug further on this. Looks like this question is quite amazing in the sense that we have three different choices credited as rightat three different times. Here you say that the correct answer is C. Folks at Manhattan GMAT have found that the same question has A and D as the right answer in two different instances of GMAT prep. Perhaps they are different versions of the same question. I am not sure.

https://www.manhattangmat.com/forums/in- ... -t499.html

P.S. After going through the explanations at the above link, I am convinced that D is the best choice.

Phew!

thanks a lot niksworth..........it was a nice link and I was able to clear my doubt related to this particular question

There are two answers because there are two versions of the question with a slight change. I will post the other variation. According to my document the OA is C. I will double check. I don't like D because "her" refers to who? Mary Leaky is not in that sentence at all.

nycknicks11 wrote:There are two answers because there are two versions of the question with a slight change. I will post the other variation. According to my document the OA is C. I will double check. I don't like D because "her" refers to who? Mary Leaky is not in that sentence at all.

Brother, i think "her" is acting as a possessive pronoun here....for ex

This is HER HOUSE. (her ---> possessive)

Therefore, HER can refer to Mary Leakey's

yes u r correct and yes the answer is D. my source is wrong. i will post the other version later.

+1 for D.

Decpetive question. But an eye opener to keep us alert for possesive pronouns.