Sentence Correction

I will go with C

Gmat_War wrote:Unlike Edgar Allan Poe,whose works were ignored in his native country,the works of Hawthrone were read and appreciated by the public and by contemporary critics.

a.Edgar Allan Poe, whose works were ignored in his native country,the
b.Edgar Allan Poe whose native country ignored his work,the
c.the works of Edgar Allan Poe,ignored in his native country,the
d.the works of Edgar Allan Poe which were ignored in his native country,the
e.the works of Edgar Allan Poe having been ignored in his native country,the

We need to compare works of Edgar with works of Hawthrone, this rules out A and B

E is wordy and uses the the wrong tense. There is no need to use the Present Perfect Tense here.

Between C and D ..This is where it gets interesting.


Here's the problem with Answer Choice C, There are two kind of participles, Present Participles (ending with -ing) i.e. Walking down the road, I slipped and Past Participles (ending with -ed) i.e. Ignored by his team, Joe started crying.

Now the present participles (-ing words) describe what the subject was doing (Walking, Drinking, Crying etc), Past Participles show how the subject felt (Ignored, Subdued etc).

Now if we apply these rules to the answer choice C, the answer choice indicates that "Works of Edward" felt Ignored. Clearly, Works cannot feel ignored, Edward can feel ignored but his works don't have feelings

Hence Answer Choice C is Incorrect.


lets consider answer choice D, we have been told that a answer choice without a comma in front of "which" is almost always incorrect. However, the verb used after which "were" clearly refers to "Works" and not Edgar (Edward is singular, Works is plural) . Hence D is our winner and the correct answer.

Hope this helps.

I Just realized that my answer choice is against the popular choice C. Interesting.
:roll:

mohit11 wrote:

Gmat_War wrote:Unlike Edgar Allan Poe,whose works were ignored in his native country,the works of Hawthrone were read and appreciated by the public and by contemporary critics.

a.Edgar Allan Poe, whose works were ignored in his native country,the
b.Edgar Allan Poe whose native country ignored his work,the
c.the works of Edgar Allan Poe,ignored in his native country,the
d.the works of Edgar Allan Poe which were ignored in his native country,the
e.the works of Edgar Allan Poe having been ignored in his native country,the

We need to compare works of Edgar with works of Hawthrone, this rules out A and B

E is wordy and uses the the wrong tense. There is no need to use the Present Perfect Tense here.

Between C and D ..This is where it gets interesting.


Here's the problem with Answer Choice C, There are two kind of participles, Present Participles (ending with -ing) i.e. Walking down the road, I slipped and Past Participles (ending with -ed) i.e. Ignored by his team, Joe started crying.

Now the present participles (-ing words) describe what the subject was doing (Walking, Drinking, Crying etc), Past Participles show how the subject felt (Ignored, Subdued etc).

Now if we apply these rules to the answer choice C, the answer choice indicates that "Works of Edward" felt Ignored. Clearly, Works cannot feel ignored, Edward can feel ignored but his works don't have feelings

Hence Answer Choice C is Incorrect.


lets consider answer choice D, we have been told that a answer choice without a comma in front of "which" is almost always incorrect. However, the verb used after which "were" clearly refers to "Works" and not Edgar (Edward is singular, Works is plural) . Hence D is our winner and the correct answer.

Hope this helps.

I Just realized that my answer choice is against the popular choice C. Interesting.
:roll:

Mohit I completely agree with your explanation for option D i.e. verb "were" clearly refers to "works"
but still confused with option C...???

Replace Works with say "Statues" . So now our sentence is

Statues created by Edward, Ignored in his native country

Statues - Subject
Ignored - Past Participle

Like I said earlier, Past participles (-ed words) describe how the Subject felt

So "ignored" describes how Statues Felt.

However, a statue (or work) is not a living thing. Therefore it is incapable of feeling anything. Hence this option is incorrect.

Interesting discussion on this one! Mohit, your understanding of past and present participles (doing vs. feeling) definitely seems to have helped you here -- let me offer another way to think about the distinction between C and D, and hopefully clarify a rule about relative pronouns.

Remember that we want to avoid any kind of ambiguity in answer choices -- the GMAT loves clarity and concision. So let's look at answer C:

the works of Edgar Allan Poe, ignored in his native country, the

The meaning isn't totally clear here. Was it the works that were ignored, or Poe himself? Grammatically, either is a possibility, so this choice is ambiguous. Now let's look at answer D:

the works of Edgar Allan Poe which were ignored in his native country, the

Now we have the relative pronoun "which" introducing the modifying clause. "Which" can never refer to a person (we would use "who" instead), so it's clear that the modifier is describing the noun "works." We've eliminated the ambiguity here, so D is correct.

A few of you have mentioned the placement rules for relative pronouns. Remember, a relative pronoun (like "which") must be as close as possible to the noun OR NOUN PHRASE it modifies. The noun phrase in this sentence is "works of Edgar Allan Poe," so a relative pronoun could correctly modify EITHER "works" or "Edgar Allan Poe." We need to use the logic of the sentence to determine the appropriate construction.

'Which' in answer choice D should be preceded by a comma. I hope that the omission of the comma was a typo!



Past participles do not always describe feelings: they can replace the passive voice

All passengers booked on the 1630h flight to ...

Prisoners abused by soldiers are entitled to ...

Films criticized in reviews often go on to ...

jen@knewton wrote:Interesting discussion on this one! Mohit, your understanding of past and present participles (doing vs. feeling) definitely seems to have helped you here -- let me offer another way to think about the distinction between C and D, and hopefully clarify a rule about relative pronouns.

Remember that we want to avoid any kind of ambiguity in answer choices -- the GMAT loves clarity and concision. So let's look at answer C:

the works of Edgar Allan Poe, ignored in his native country, the

The meaning isn't totally clear here. Was it the works that were ignored, or Poe himself? Grammatically, either is a possibility, so this choice is ambiguous. Now let's look at answer D:

the works of Edgar Allan Poe which were ignored in his native country, the

Now we have the relative pronoun "which" introducing the modifying clause. "Which" can never refer to a person (we would use "who" instead), so it's clear that the modifier is describing the noun "works." We've eliminated the ambiguity here, so D is correct.

A few of you have mentioned the placement rules for relative pronouns. Remember, a relative pronoun (like "which") must be as close as possible to the noun OR NOUN PHRASE it modifies. The noun phrase in this sentence is "works of Edgar Allan Poe," so a relative pronoun could correctly modify EITHER "works" or "Edgar Allan Poe." We need to use the logic of the sentence to determine the appropriate construction.

Using logic is always important. Remember that the following relative pronouns never refer to people: which, that
The following relative pronouns always refer to people: who, whom

All of these pronouns can be singular or plural