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GMATPrep...............Tough Modification and Parallelism

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GMATPrep...............Tough Modification and Parallelism

by Mo2men » Wed Aug 09, 2017 3:23 am
It was only after Katharine Graham became publisher of The Washington Post in 1963 that it moved into the first rank of American newspapers, and it was under her command that the paper won high praise for its unrelenting reporting of the Watergate scandal.

A) It was only after Katharine Graham became publisher of The Washington Post in 1963 that it moved into the first rank of American newspapers, and it was under her command that the paper won high praise
B) It was only after Katharine Graham's becoming publisher of The Washington Post in 1963 that it moved into the first rank of American newspapers, and under her command it had won high praise
C) Katharine Graham became publisher of The Washington Post in 1963 and only after that did it move into the first rank of American newspapers, having won high praise under her command
D) Moving into the first rank of American newspapers only after Katharine Graham became its publisher in 1963, The Washington Post, winning high praise under her command
E) Moving into the first rank of American newspapers only after Katharine Grahame's becoming its publisher in 1963, The Washington Post won high praise under her command

OA: A
[spoiler]
1- In OA, What does 'it' refer to? is it 'Empty it' like first one in the beginning of the sentence.? Which parts are in parallel by 'and'?

2- Is 'Graham's becoming publisher of the WP' correct? if not, why on one of OG questions is 'human beings' burning of fossil' correct? Is it usually 'possessive +VERBing wrong?

3- Why choice E is wrong?[/spoiler]
Last edited by Mo2men on Thu Aug 10, 2017 10:05 am, edited 1 time in total.
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by DavidG@VeritasPrep » Wed Aug 09, 2017 6:24 am
1- In OA, What does 'it' refer to? is it 'Empty it' like first one in the beginning of the sentence.? Which parts are in parallel by 'and'?
It was only after Katharine Graham became publisher of The Washington Post in 1963 that it moved into the first rank of American newspapers, and it was under her command...

The "it"s in red are dummy pronouns or expletives, meaning that they have no conventional referent. Rather, they're used as placeholders, indicating that the subject will come later in the sentence.( Notice that the conjunction "and" is connecting two clauses here.) The "it" in green is a conventional pronoun that prefers to The Washington Post.
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by DavidG@VeritasPrep » Wed Aug 09, 2017 6:35 am
2- Is 'Graham's becoming publisher of the WP' correct? if not, why on one of OG questions is 'human beings' burning of fossil' correct? Is it usually 'possessive +VERBing wrong?

It's true that you rarely see "possessive +VERBing" in an OA, but as you noted, we can't make the sweeping generalization that it's always wrong. It's just typically not preferred. Here is the relevant clause in the OA for the example you cited: The world wildlife fund has declared that global warming a phenomenon that most scientists agree is caused by human beings' burning of fossil fuels...

You can see that we actually need an object to follow "caused by." In other words, it's true that without context, if I were given the choice between "Human being's burning of fossil fuels... " and "Human beings burned fossil fuels..." I'd prefer the latter construction. But in the OA above, that construction won't work. First the sentence wishes to convey that it's the burning of fossil fuels that's responsible for global warming, not just "human beings" and two, grammatically, we can't follow "caused by" with an independent clause. So these choices are always rooted in both the logic and the context of the given sentence.
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by GMATGuruNY » Wed Aug 16, 2017 5:36 am
I received a PM requesting that I comment.
1- In OA, What does 'it' refer to? is it 'Empty it' like first one in the beginning of the sentence.?
Check my second post here:
https://www.beatthegmat.com/sentence-str ... 82034.html
Which parts are in parallel by 'and'?
It was only after Katharine Graham became publisher of The Washington Post in 1963 that it moved into the first rank of American newspapers, and it was under her command that the paper won high praise for its unrelenting reporting of the Watergate scandal.
Here, COMMA + and serves to connect the independent clause in red to the independent clause in blue.
2- Is 'Graham's becoming publisher of the WP' correct? if not, why on one of OG questions is 'human beings' burning of fossil' correct? Is it usually 'possessive +VERBing wrong?
The following structure is unlikely to appear in an OA:
POSSESSIVE + VERBing + NOUN or NOUN PHRASE.
The reason is that the intended meaning can be misinterpreted.

Katherine Graham's becoming publisher.

Interpretation 1: Graham's = possessive
In this case, becoming publisher is an action attributed to Katharine Graham.
Interpretation 2: Graham's = contracted form of Graham is
In this case, the conveyed meaning is as follows:
Katharine Graham is becoming publisher.
Interpretation 3: becoming = adjective describing publisher
As an adjective, becoming means attractive.
In this case, an attractive publisher is attributed to Katharine Graham.

While the intended meaning can likely be determined from context, the potential for misinterpretation renders this structure unlikely to appear in an OA.
3- Why choice E is wrong?
E: Moving into the first rank of American newspapers only after Katharine Graham's becoming its publisher in 1963, The Washington Post won high praise under her command.
As mentioned above, the structure in red -- POSSESSIVE + VERBing + NOUN PHRASE -- is unlikely to appear in an OA.
Also, E implies that the The Washington Post was MOVING into the first rank AT THE SAME TIME as it WON high praise.
Not the intended sequence.
The intended sequence is that the Post moved into the first rank in 1963 -- when Katharine Graham became its publisher -- and that under her command it SUBSEQUENTLY won high praise .
Eliminate E.

Note:
As David mentions in his response, POSSESSIVE + VERBing + PREPOSITIONAL PHRASE is a viable structure.
OA: human beings' burning of fossils fuels
The phrase above allows for only one interpretation:
The burning of fossil fuels is an action attributed to human beings.
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