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Hawaii

by kaulnikhil » Tue May 25, 2010 11:42 am
Hawaii is the only one of the fifty states that still has active volcanoes, and where these mounds are considered enough of a threat to influence residential zoning laws.

(A) that still has active volcanoes, and where
(B)where there are still active volcanoes, and where
(C) still having active volcanoes and where
(D) where the volcanoes are still active,
(E) where there are still active volcanoes and where

[spoiler]The difference between B and E is a comma before and. Is E right because where acts as a modifying clause and hence cannot act alone in the sentence [/spoiler]
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by Osirus@VeritasPrep » Tue May 25, 2010 11:51 am
In general if you combine two clauses with a comma and the conjunction "and" what follows the "and" has to be an independent clause. Choice B is wrong because the clause that follows the comma and the "and" is a dependent clause.
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by Patrick_GMATFix » Tue May 25, 2010 2:40 pm
osirus0830 wrote:In general if you combine two clauses with a comma and the conjunction "and" what follows the "and" has to be an independent clause. Choice B is wrong because the clause that follows the comma and the "and" is a dependent clause.
I respectfully disagree with the claim that "and" must be followed by an independent clause. Below is a simple counter-example:

I want to tell you that I love you and that I miss you. "that I miss you" is a subordinate clause, similar to "that I love you".

Another example is this very sentence. The right answer (E) follows "and" with a subordinate clause. "Hawaii is the only state where there are active volcanoes and where volcanoes influence laws"

The better perspective is that "and" denotes the end of a list, so it should pair up items that are grammatically parallel. This essentially means that if the first clause in the list is independent, so too must the 2nd clause be independent: "I went to my room and I cried myself to sleep." This sentence has two independent clauses. However if the 1st clause is subordinate (dependent), then the other clause that is part of the same list (linked by "and") ought to also be subordinate.

Back to this example, I've never ever seen a GMAT question in which the only difference between two answers is the presence of a comma. That said, I think that what makes E better than C is that there is no need for a comma before the last item in a list (I don't know whether this is a hard rule or a stylistic issue). For instance "a, b and c" is fine; no need for "a, b, and c"

To your question Kaulnikhil What I can say for sure is that in both B and E, the "where" clause is a modifier of the main clause. the presence of a comma doesn't change that.

Best of luck,
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by karthikpandian19 » Mon Jun 18, 2012 11:42 pm
The question here is wrongly written, hence the corrected version is given below:

Hawaii is the only one of the fifty states that still has active volcanoes, and where these mounds are considered enough of a threat to influence residential zoning laws.


(A) that still has active volcanoes, and where

(B) that still has active volcanoes, where

(C) still having active volcanoes and where

(D) where the volcanoes are still active,

(E) where there are still active volcanoes and where
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by shekhar.kataria » Mon Jun 18, 2012 11:59 pm
This is the same rule what MGMAT also suggests.
Osirus@VeritasPrep wrote:In general if you combine two clauses with a comma and the conjunction "and" what follows the "and" has to be an independent clause. Choice B is wrong because the clause that follows the comma and the "and" is a dependent clause.
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by Patrick_GMATFix » Tue Jun 19, 2012 4:57 am
"and" does not necessarily introduce an independent clause. "and" simply introduces an equal clause. In other words, if the first clause was independent, "and" will introduce an independent clause:

"Jack took the GMAT and scored 600" contains two independent clauses linked with "and".
On the other hand, "Normandy is the city where I was born and where the D-day invasion began" contains one independent clause (Normandy is the city) and two dependent clauses linked with "and".

In this sentence, "Hawaii is the only one of the fifty states" is the only independent clause. "that still has active volcanoes" and "where these mounds are considered..." are two dependent clauses both describing "the only one".

We do need "and" before the last clause, not because it is an independent clause (it's not) but because it closes a list of clauses. Without it the sentence is as bad as "John has x,y" vs "John has x and y". Some conjunction is needed to close that list.

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by karthikpandian19 » Tue Jun 19, 2012 6:47 am
Patrick,

As per your comments, the answer should A or E right?

Which one do you prefer?

I prefer E as there is parallelism btwn clauses
Patrick_GMATFix wrote:"and" does not necessarily introduce an independent clause. "and" simply introduces an equal clause. In other words, if the first clause was independent, "and" will introduce an independent clause:

"Jack took the GMAT and scored 600" contains two independent clauses linked with "and".
On the other hand, "Normandy is the city where I was born and where the D-day invasion began" contains one independent clause (Normandy is the city) and two dependent clauses linked with "and".

In this sentence, "Hawaii is the only one of the fifty states" is the only independent clause. "that still has active volcanoes" and "where these mounds are considered..." are two dependent clauses both describing "the only one".

We do need "and" before the last clause, not because it is an independent clause (it's not) but because it closes a list of clauses. Without it the sentence is as bad as "John has x,y" vs "John has x and y". Some conjunction is needed to close that list.

-Patrick
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