Sentence Correction

David@VeritasPrep wrote:I did a little research on the problem. This is what I found.

This is from Aristotle and it #33.

The sentence however, has been lifted entirely from the New York Times from November 9,2010 edition of that newspaper.
"The report urges convening a White House conference, encouraging Congress to appropriate more money for schools and establishing networks of black mentors."

You will notice that, although this is a list of three things, the second comma is omitted and so it is not necessarily clear to those who are used to a comma before the "and."

This is a direct quote from the Aristotle website "Serial comma is never a must, which is exactly the point. Though the OG always uses one, it doesn't ever test you on the usage of one. However, in the updated edition (which should be out sometime in June) we will be using the serial comma just to maintain consistency with the OG."

I am glad to hear that this will be edited. This sentence was lifted directly from the New York Times and it was without the second comma, yet on the GMAT the second comma is always there.

So choice A is correct because the addition of the proper second comma makes this clearly a list of three things, "encouraging" "convening" and "establishing." The other choices are not parallel.

Without the comma C is still incorrect, however, as Frankenstein said, you would have to say "urges convening a white house conference AND encouraging Congress."

C is still incorrect, however, as Frankenstein said, you would have to say "urges convening a white house conference AND encouraging Congress."

David@VeritasPrep wrote:The answer to your questions is "yes" but that is not what this sentence says!!

As I said above:

C is still incorrect, however, as Frankenstein said, you would have to say "urges convening a white house conference AND encouraging Congress."

But the option as written has the comma and not the "and" It says " urges convening a white house conference, encouraging Congress..."

No "and"

So you reading to charitably!! You have to be a little meaner (like the people who write the test are)

David@VeritasPrep wrote:The answer to your questions is "yes" but that is not what this sentence says!!

As I said above:

C is still incorrect, however, as Frankenstein said, you would have to say "urges convening a white house conference AND encouraging Congress."

But the option as written has the comma and not the "and" It says " urges convening a white house conference, encouraging Congress..."
No "and"

So you reading to charitably!! You have to be a little meaner (like the people who write the test are)

and

David@VeritasPrep wrote:But answer choice A is a list of three! You use a comma between the first two items of a list of three..."apples, bananas, and mangoes"

If I say "run, jump and swim" OR "run, jump, and swim" (the GMAT always has the second comma) I need a comma between the first two.

But C is not a list of three -- only 2. So there you would say "bananas and mangoes." So in this case "convening and encouraging"

Sorry I was not clearer before does this help?

David@VeritasPrep wrote:But answer choice A is a list of three! You use a comma between the first two items of a list of three..."apples, bananas, and mangoes"

If I say "run, jump and swim" OR "run, jump, and swim" (the GMAT always has the second comma) I need a comma between the first two.

But C is not a list of three -- only 2. So there you would say "bananas and mangoes." So in this case "convening and encouraging"

Sorry I was not clearer before does this help?

David@VeritasPrep wrote:mundasingh -

I was replying to aspirant. I did not see your post until later. You are correct of course! The -ing in C is a modifier and no need of a list!

The problem is that you cannot separate two parallel terms with a comma -- and the two terms I am speaking of are "encouraging" and "establishing".

David@VeritasPrep wrote:Now that is not what I said. If you look back through the discussion I never mention change in meaning. You must now that I have done research on change in meaning and you cannot use change in meaning as a reason to eliminate an answer choice. You can eliminate a choice for an illogical meaning, but that would apply to A just as easily as any other choice.

This is the link to my discussion of not eliminating a choice for "changing the meaning." It is one of my most popular postings. https://www.beatthegmat.com/the-truth-ab ... tml#342304

In this case we do not have to think about the meaning because there is a clear problem with the grammar. The problem is that you cannot separate two parallel terms with a comma -- and the two terms I am speaking of are "encouraging" and "establishing". As you have mentioned, in C we are not concerned about "urges convening" as this is the main stem of the sentence and it is the two modifiers that we are looking at here.

I may have mentioned "convening" and "encouraging" before as being parallel. If so I apologize it is the latter two terms that are joined (like running and jumping) and they cannot be joined with a comma they need an "and."