Sentence Correction

akash singhal wrote:Scholars who once thought Native Americans literatures were solely oral narratives recorded by missionaries or anthropologists now understand this body of work to consist of both oral literatures and the written works of Native American Authors,who have been publishing since 1772.

A. Scholars who once thought Native Americans literatures were solely oral narratives

B. Scholars thinking of Native American literatures once solely as oral narratives,and

C. Scholars who once had thought of Native American literatures solely as oral narratives,and

D. Native American literatures, which some scholars once thought were solely oral narratives

E. Native American literatures, which some scholars once, thinking they were solely oral narratives

OA I will after some discussion and please give a detailed explanation to eliminate options.
Its a GMATPrep question.

Hello akash singhal,

IMOA.The original statement correctly uses simple tenses to convey the sequence of events. Other options uses incorrect verb forms-either tense or verbal. The past perfect and present participle are redundant. option D and E incorrectly suggest that native American literature now understand....

akash singhal wrote:Scholars who once thought Native Americans literatures were solely oral narratives recorded by missionaries or anthropologists now understand this body of work to consist of both oral literatures and the written works of Native American Authors,who have been publishing since 1772.

A. Scholars who once thought Native Americans literatures were solely oral narratives

B. Scholars thinking of Native American literatures once solely as oral narratives,and

C. Scholars who once had thought of Native American literatures solely as oral narratives,and

D. Native American literatures, which some scholars once thought were solely oral narratives

E. Native American literatures, which some scholars once, thinking they were solely oral narratives

B: Scholars thinking...and recorded by missionaries...
here, recorded by missionaries seems to modify scholars, implying that SCHOLARS were recorded by missionaries.
Not the intended meaning.
Eliminate B.

A conjunction such as and must connect PARALLEL FORMS:
VERB and VERB
NOUN and NOUN
MODIFIER and MODIFIER.
C: Scholars who once had thought...and recorded by missionaries.
Here, and seems to connect a verb (had thought) to a modifier (recorded by missionaries).
Eliminate C.

D and E: Native American literatures...now understand this body of work.
Not the intended meaning.
It is not literatures but SCHOLARS who now understand this body of work.
Eliminate D and E.

The correct answer is A.

Hi GMATGuruNY, have a couple of questions:

- In A, there is no comma before the first "who" and there is a comma before the second "who". Is it related to mandatory and non-mandatory (I forget the exact name).

- Can D and E also be eliminated because the portion of the sentence starting with "which" does not have a "comma" after this portion gets over (after "or anthropologist"). I understand that "or anthropologist" is outside the underline portion and so, we can't do anything about it. But still the fact is that with D and E, there is no comma. Is the thinking correct?

bonetlobo wrote:Hi GMATGuruNY, have a couple of questions:

- In A, there is no comma before the first "who" and there is a comma before the second "who". Is it related to mandatory and non-mandatory (I forget the exact name).

- Can D and E also be eliminated because the portion of the sentence starting with "which" does not have a "comma" after this portion gets over (after "or anthropologist"). I understand that "or anthropologist" is outside the underline portion and so, we can't do anything about it. But still the fact is that with D and E, there is no comma. Is the thinking correct?

Request GMATGuruNY or some other expert to please reply to my query.

bonetlobo wrote:Hi GMATGuruNY, have a couple of questions:

In A, there is no comma before the first "who" and there is a comma before the second "who". Is it related to mandatory and non-mandatory (I forget the exact name).

NOUN + NO COMMA + who:
In this case, the who-clause is RESTRICTIVE, serving to RESTRICT the scope of the preceding noun.
OA: Scholars who once thought Native Americans literatures were solely oral narratives...
Here, not ALL scholars are being discussed.
Under discussion is a SPECIFIC SUBSET of scholars: scholars WHO ONCE THOUGHT NATIVE AMERICAN LITERATURES WERE ORAL NARRATIVES.

NOUN + COMMA + who:
In this case, the who-clause is NONRESTRICTIVE.
It does NOT restrict the scope of the preceding noun but simply provides EXTRA INFORMATION about the preceding noun.
OA: the works of Native American authors, who have been publishing since 1772.
Here, ALL Native American authors are being discussed.
The who-clause simply provides extra information about all Native American authors: they have been publishing since 1772.

Can D and E also be eliminated because the portion of the sentence starting with "which" does not have a "comma" after this portion gets over (after "or anthropologist"). I understand that "or anthropologist" is outside the underline portion and so, we can't do anything about it. But still the fact is that with D and E, there is no comma. Is the thinking correct?

Yes.
In D and E, the which-clause must be followed by a comma because it intercedes between the apparent subject (Native American literatures) and its apparent verb (understand).
That said, it is possible to END a sentence with a which-clause, in which case the which-clause will be followed by a PERIOD.
The OA to SC67 in the OG13:
The 32 species that make up the dolphin family are closely related to whales and in fact include the animal known as the killer whale, which can grow to be 30 feet long and is famous for its aggressive hunting pods.