paes wrote:Thanks Guru to address my concern.

I agree E is right but still I am unable to discard A.

I am seeing A as :

The diet of the ordinary Greek was X (largely vegetarian-vegetables ， fresh cheese，oatmeal，and meal cakes) ， and Y (meat rarely) ．

How the above parallelism is wrong ?

A is wrong for two reasons:

Parallelism:
largely vegetarian (adverb + adjective) is not parallel with meat rarely (noun + adverb)

Meaning:
meat should not be included in the list vegetables, fresh cheese, oatmeal, and meal cakes, and meat because meat is not one of the vegetarian foods. The conjunction and implies that meat is part of the list.

got it Guru.

So I hope following sentence should be correct :

The diet of the ordinary Greek in classical times was largely vegetarian-vegetables ， fresh cheese，oatmeal，and meal cakes， and rarely non-vegetarian.

paes wrote:got it Guru.

So I hope following sentence should be correct :

The diet of the ordinary Greek in classical times was largely vegetarian-vegetables ， fresh cheese，oatmeal，and meal cakes， and rarely non-vegetarian.

Awkward, but yes, better than choice A.


As mentioned above, A is wrong for the following reason:

the diet is vegeterian. this makes sense
the diet is meat, this doesn't

paes wrote:Thanks Guru to address my concern.

I agree E is right but still I am unable to discard A.

I am seeing A as :

The diet of the ordinary Greek was X (largely vegetarian-vegetables ， fresh cheese，oatmeal，and meal cakes) ， and Y (meat rarely) ．

How the above parallelism is wrong ?

If both X and Y are equal- shown by AND
we need to show that the diet lacks something. Means vegetables were the main components and meat was less important component.

paes wrote:got it Guru.

So I hope following sentence should be correct :

The diet of the ordinary Greek in classical times was largely vegetarian-vegetables ， fresh cheese，oatmeal，and meal cakes， and rarely non-vegetarian.

let me try:

When we make a list like 'X, Y, and Z', that list will be fine. The last item of the list will be at end and it will be preceded by an AND, so no extra AND is required after the name of the last item.


The diet of the ordinary Greek in classical times was largely vegetarian-vegetables, fresh cheese, oatmeal, and meal cakes, and meat rarely.

(A) and meat rarely
(B) and meat was rare
(C) with meat as rare
(D) meat a rarity
(E) with meat as a rarity

We can rule out the options A and B for using extra AND.

Comma + preposition can modify the entire preceding clause. In the option D, meat as rarity is a NOUN phrase. Which one is being modified by that noun? No one. So, it is not correct to use this. OUT D.

Rare is an adjective. So, we can not say "as rare". C is out.

Answer is E.

paes wrote:got it Guru.

So I hope following sentence should be correct :

The diet of the ordinary Greek in classical times was largely vegetarian-vegetables ， fresh cheese，oatmeal，and meal cakes， and rarely non-vegetarian.

Better but not great.

The inclusion of both largely vegetarian and rarely non-vegetarian would create an error of redundancy because the two phrases mean the same thing.

The list of vegetarian items would need to be set off by dashes on each side of the list:

The diet of the ordinary Greek in classical times was largely vegetarian - consisting of vegetables, fresh cheese, oatmeal, and meal cakes - and only rarely non-vegetarian.

Hope this helps!

The list of vegetarian items would need to be set off by dashes on each side of the list:
this is a new finding for me.

Thanks a lot to make the things clear.

The diet of the ordinary Greek in classical times was largely vegetarian-vegetables, fresh cheese, oatmeal, and meal cakes, and meat rarely.

(C) with meat as rare
(E) with meat as a rarity

eliminated (C) because rare is ADJECTIVE and we can associate meat(noun) with rarity(noun).

'AS' used as a substitute for "in the capacity of". Eg. As the president of USA, George Bush

GMATGuruNY wrote:

paes wrote:The question is discussed multiple times.

The diet of the ordinary Greek in classical times was largely vegetarian-vegetables, fresh cheese, oatmeal, and meal cakes, and meat rarely.

(A) and meat rarely
(B) and meat was rare
(C) with meat as rare
(D) meat a rarity
(E) with meat as a rarity

[spoiler]OA is E.
Why A is wrong. I am seeing a parallelism in A

The diet of the ordinary Greek was X any Y. -> what's wrong with this sentence ??

X -> largely vegetarian-vegetables ， fresh cheese，oatmeal，and meal cakes
Y -> meat rarely[/spoiler]

When you see conjunctions such as and, but, or, etc. changing in the answers, ask yourself:

Is the correct conjunction being used?
Is the conjunction in the right place?

In the original sentence above, the list of vegetarian items is vegetables, fresh cheese, oatmeal, and meal cakes. Meat is not included in this list, so we can't say and meat rarely because the conjunction and is incorrect. We need a conjunction that indicates contrast.

Eliminate A and B.

A conjunction is needed in D. Eliminate D.

Answer choice C changes the meaning. The phrase meat as rare suggests meat that was cooked only for a short period. The intended meaning of the sentence is that meat was uncommon. Eliminate C.

The correct answer is E.

Sir,

You said that We need a conjunction that indicates contrast.

But in e with is not a Conjunction? Am I right. Do you think that I am missing something?

richachampion wrote:Sir,

You said that We need a conjunction that indicates contrast.

But in e with is not a Conjunction? Am I right. Do you think that I am missing something?

with is not a conjunction but a preposition.
I've amended my post above as follows:

We can't say and meat rarely because and cannot serve to introduce a contrast.

As the OA illustrates, it is not necessary that the contrast be introduced by a conjunction.

GMATGuruNY wrote:

richachampion wrote:Sir,

You said that We need a conjunction that indicates contrast.

But in e with is not a Conjunction? Am I right. Do you think that I am missing something?

with is not a conjunction but a preposition.
I've amended my post above as follows:

We can't say and meat rarely because and cannot serve to introduce a contrast.

As the OA illustrates, it is not necessary that the contrast be introduced by a conjunction.

Thank you for replying sir. Its not that I didn't understand the question or I could not solve this, but the issue is I am analyzing one problem till the point comes when I clears all the things that are tested in a question.

A and B can be easily eliminated because it violates ||'sm. Now coming down to C, D and E.
Why D couldn't be correct?

Why was With required, what sentence structure is Violated in D that the usage of with corrects?

richachampion wrote:A and B can be easily eliminated because it violates ||'sm. Now coming down to C, D and E.
Why D couldn't be correct?

Why was With required, what sentence structure is Violated in D that the usage of with corrects?

C: with meat as rare
as rare as WHAT?
Since the intended meaning is incomplete, eliminate C.

An absolute phrase is composed of COMMA + NOUN + OTHER WORDS.
The purpose of an absolute phrase is to modify the entire preceding clause.
In an absolute phrase, the NOUN after the comma must refer to the PRECEDING SUBJECT.
Mary entered the room, her face beaming.
Here, the portion in red is an absolute phrase serving to modify the preceding clause.
Note the following:
her face (the noun after the comma) correctly refers to Mary (the preceding subject)

D: The diet of the ordinary Greek was largely vegetarian, meat a rarity.
Here, the portion in red seems to be serving as an absolute phrase, but the noun after the comma (meat) does not refer to the diet.
Eliminate D.