Sentence Correction

Based on records from ancient Athens, each year young Athenian women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe that they used to dress a statue of the goddess Athena and that this robe depicted scenes of a battle between Zeus, Athena's father, and giants.

A. Based on records from ancient Athens, each year young Athenian women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe that they used to dress
B. Based on records from ancient Athens, young Athenian women had collaborated to weave a new woolen robe with which to dress
C. According to records from ancient Athens, each year young Athenian women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe that they used to dress
D. Records from ancient Athens indicate that each year young Athenian women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe with which they dressed
E. Records from ancient Athens indicate each year young Athenian women had collaborated to weave a new woolen robe for dressing

Source: GMAT Prep
D

It came down to C and D for me, and both have parallelism...but apparently meaning was the deciding factor on this one.

I remember this one from couple of nights ago. It litterally took me 3 min to pick an answer, and I picked D. However for the life of me I have no idea how to differentiate between C and D. "That they" "With which" are both correct, so what gives?

Hey guys,

Great question - this one comes down to parallel structure and just overall sentence construction, and a pretty nice clue with that is the clause "...and that this robe depicted..." well into the non-underlined portion. "...and that" needs to have an antecedent, and it would have to be parallel. The gist of the sentence is that:

Records indicate that women made a robe

...and that this robe depicted scenes

The "that this robe" is pretty telling that the previous clause has to be led by "that" also, so D is perfect:

Records indicate that women made a robe and (records indicate) that this robe depicted scenes


Any of those that don't lead with "Records indicate" miss that structural cue:

Based on records, women collaborated to weave a robe...and that the robe ---> What precedes "that" in this case?


This sentence brings up a pretty good point about longer sentences - they tend to include a lot of "filler", but you still nee to check the pressure points of the non-underlined portion to make sure that any pronouns or connectors ("its" or "and", for example) satisfy proper sentence structure in the underlined portion. As soon as I saw that word "that" in the non-underlined portion, that was a clue to me to check its structure and to ensure that it agreed with the underlined portion.

Hey Brian,

Thank you for the response. I think the hardest thing about this question is that C and D both have "that..." and "that..." in them, although the usage of that between the two are completely different. One is a relative pronoun, and the other is part of the mood (whatever it's called =)). I guess the trick is to invest the time to read the sentence, and do not just blindly choose an answer that exhibits parallelism.

Maybe my sentence correction knowledge is just that off, but I eliminated A, B, and C because of incorrect modifiers. In C, the "According to" phrase is actually acting like a modifier (that's how I read it anyway), so what came after the comma doesn't make logical sense. "Each Year" can't be according to records, if that makes sense, so I eliminated C. It came down to D and E for me. I chose D because the use of the past perfect in choice E is unnecessary. Hope that helps, but in general I haven't looked at this since June, so just wait for Brian to respond to your new question.

According to MGMAT experts, both constructions in C and D work. I wish the construction of C is wrong, because it actually makes breaking down this sentence a little bit easier.

In terms of meaning, C is not as good of an option as D because the non-underlined portion of the sentence uses the past tense. Choice D uses the past tense "dressed", while choice C uses the infinitive. It's not "wrong" but it isn't the best option. Look for clues like verb tense to help you when deciding which sentence conveys the best meaning.

Hey uwhusky,

C is just flat wrong, so rest assured that D is correct and C is incorrect. Look at the construction of C:

Each year women collaborated to weave a robe THAT they used to dress as statue AND THAT this robe depicted scenes...

Linking the clause "AND THAT..." to a prior clause starting with "THAT" begs for parallel structure with each noun after "THAT" corresponding to the robe, and this sentence simply doesn't have it. Even outside of parallel structure, the word "THAT" has to link the robe to a subordinate clause (...a robe THAT they used to dress the statue, as an example). In choice C, it doesn't: "...a robe THAT this robe depicted scenes".

Choice C just doesn't work. Choice D, on the other hand, uses "THAT" appropriately in the second clause: Records indicate that women collaborated...and THAT the robe depicted scenes.

Here, the word "THAT" links both clauses back to the records, so it's parallel and appropriately linked. That's why D is correct.

I agree with Brian, C misses the ||ism.