Sentence Correction

In February, 1983, brush fires had swept the drought-parched southeastern coast of Austrailia, at least 69 people being killed, and thousands of homes and acres of farmland were left smoldering.

A) had swept the drought-parched southeastern coast of Austrailia, at least 69 people being killed, and thousands of homes and acres of farmland were left smoldering

B) swept the drought-parched southeastern coast of Austrailia, having killed at least 69 people, and thousands of home and acres of farmland were left smoldering

C) swept the drought-parched southeastern coast of Austrailia, killing at least 69 people, and had left thousands of homes and acres of farmland smoldering

D) swept the drought-parched southeastern coast of Austrailia, killing at least 69 people, and leaving thousands of homes and acres of farmland smoldering

E) swept the drought-parched southeastern coast of Austrailia, killing at least 69 people, and left smoldering thousands of homes and acres of farmland

OA D

why not E ?

Thanks

Hi parisi04 --

E isn't parallel - "killing" and "leaving" both refer to what the fires' impact was; those two ideas are related. The main sentence states the action - "fires swept" - then the remainder of the sentence is presenting the effect of that action, thus those second two verbs need to be parallel with each other.

EssaySnark

essaysnark wrote:Hi parisi04 --

E isn't parallel - "killing" and "leaving" both refer to what the fires' impact was; those two ideas are related. The main sentence states the action - "fires swept" - then the remainder of the sentence is presenting the effect of that action, thus those second two verbs need to be parallel with each other.

EssaySnark

Hi EssaySnark, between choice D and E, I have confusion that in choice D, leaving was interfere by comma. So far, I know that X and Y. Why structure "X, and Y" here is correct? Due to this thought, I final chose E and got incorrect choice ?

Ah, the comma. Yes, it's difficult, because commas are often optional in English!! We probably can't come up with simple rules to look for in regards to commas, unfortunately.

In this case, the parallelism required with "killing" and "leaving" takes higher priority over use of a comma. E is grammatically wrong due to "left" and so it must be ruled out. So that leaves D as best choice. Yes, sometimes we have to choose answers that still seem flawed!! This may be one of those cases.

The purpose of a comma is to insert a "pause" in the sentence. In this case, the writer used a comma to add emphasis. The sentence is about a significant event that caused loss of life and property damage. Using the comma in this case adds "weight" (if that makes sense) to the writer's meaning.

It's implicitly saying, "The fire was bad. It did this bad thing. AND it did this other bad thing too." It's adding more emphasis to either parts.

This is not a rule though! This is one of those cases where the comma is optional - the sentence would have been correct without it, as well.

(Even the sentence we just wrote could have worked without a comma! Commas are often - but not always - stylistic or used to add nuance and heighten a sentence's meaning in a subtle way. Yes, difficult!!!)

Hope this helps.
EssaySnark

Hi EssaySnark,

Why can't we consider the expression "killing at least 69 people" (delimited by trailing and leading commas) a modifier to the catastrophic situation that resulted from the sweeping fires. And the verb left in the past tense parallel to the simple past tense swept. Why this construction can' be true ?
Here's an example, what's wrong with it ?
Last year, John had a very good season, scoring more than hundred goals, and promoted his team to league A.

Thanks

essaysnark wrote:Ah, the comma. Yes, it's difficult, because commas are often optional in English!! We probably can't come up with simple rules to look for in regards to commas, unfortunately.

In this case, the parallelism required with "killing" and "leaving" takes higher priority over use of a comma. E is grammatically wrong due to "left" and so it must be ruled out. So that leaves D as best choice. Yes, sometimes we have to choose answers that still seem flawed!! This may be one of those cases.

The purpose of a comma is to insert a "pause" in the sentence. In this case, the writer used a comma to add emphasis. The sentence is about a significant event that caused loss of life and property damage. Using the comma in this case adds "weight" (if that makes sense) to the writer's meaning.

It's implicitly saying, "The fire was bad. It did this bad thing. AND it did this other bad thing too." It's adding more emphasis to either parts.

This is not a rule though! This is one of those cases where the comma is optional - the sentence would have been correct without it, as well.

(Even the sentence we just wrote could have worked without a comma! Commas are often - but not always - stylistic or used to add nuance and heighten a sentence's meaning in a subtle way. Yes, difficult!!!)

Hope this helps.
EssaySnark

Thanks. I think we should set priority in the meaning rather than the un-absolute rule. In this case, I have small problem with understanding that why I get wrong. Thank you a lot.

parisi04 wrote:Why can't we consider the expression "killing at least 69 people" (delimited by trailing and leading commas) a modifier to the catastrophic situation that resulted from the sweeping fires. And the verb left in the past tense parallel to the simple past tense swept. Why this construction can' be true ?
Here's an example, what's wrong with it ?
Last year, John had a very good season, scoring more than hundred goals, and promoted his team to league A.

Hi parisi04--

Your example differs from the problem we're discussing here.

For the original problem, as explained above, "killing" and "leaving" are the outcomes of the base sentence "brush fires swept"; they are both statements of the results of the fires. They are not modifying anything. This is not a modifying phrase problem.

Your sentence also does not seem to have a modifying phrase - again, EssaySnark is no GMAT expert, we're just a passable writer/editor of English. We've now spent about half an hour trying to figure out whether your sentence does or does not have a modifying phrase - we think it's the same as the original problem (that it does not have a modifying phrase) but we honestly cannot say! We have only confused ourself beyond all hope.

What we can offer is that while your sentence does not appear to be grammatically incorrect, it most definitely is awkward - if we saw it in an essay we would ask that it be rewritten. The meaning is not as clear is it should be. We think you mean that John got his team promoted based on his strong performance.

To say that John "promoted his team" means that he had the authority to issue the promotion, that he was the one who did it. Instead, we think you mean that his performance earned the promotion. So, the sentence would need to be phrased differently to capture this truth. (Apologies if we are off on a tangent that is not what you were asking about, but meaning and clarity are just as important with GMAT problems!!).

We would rephrase your sentence to:

Last year, John had a very good season, scoring more than a hundred goals, and his team was promoted to league A.

You could also say, in an example that more closely matches the original problem:

Last year, John had a very good season, scoring more than a hundred goals, and getting his team promoted to league A.

The reason for the use of the commas in this last example is that there was a sequence to the events: first John scored 100 goals, and then that resulted in his team being promoted. In this last example, the second comma is technically optional; the sentence would still be correct without it (the first comma is necessary though).

We doubt that this long post has helped anyone since all it did to us was cause befuddlement. If anyone can offer additional clarity it would be most welcome!

EssaySnark

Thank you EssaySnark for the explanation.