SC- coordinate illustrations

[zoe]

Hi instructors,
please help me the following SC

Beatrix Potter, in her book illustrations, carefully coordinating them with her
narratives, capitalized on her keen observation and love of the natural world.
(A) Beatrix Potter, in her book illustrations, carefully coordinating them with her narratives,
(B) In her book illustrations, carefully coordinating them with her narratives, Beatrix Potter
(C) In her book illustrations, which she carefully coordinated with her narratives, Beatrix Potter
(D) Carefully coordinated with her narratives, Beatrix Potter, in her book illustrations
(E) Beatrix Potter, in her book illustrations, carefully coordinated them with her narratives and

IMO, (A) and (B), comma + -ing, does this modifier modify the preceding clause? I read some thread said "comma+-ing" modifier modifies illustration is illogical, so eliminate, I don't think so.
I have an example,
Coming home from school, I was blown off my bike by the wind

so , for this SC, I think " coordinating" modifies BP,
(D), -ed modifier as initial modifier, any -ed modifier modifies the immediately noun?
(E)I don't know whats wrong.

Please help

thanks a lot
have a nice day

>_~

[zoe]

anyone can help??

[dustystormy]

[A]"carefully coordinating them with her" and "in her book illustrations" can both modify Beatrix Potter (BP) therefore [A] is ambiguous ----wrong
"carefully coordinating them with her narratives" modifies the preceding noun book illustrations---wrong
[C]this sentence clearly shows who did the coordinating (removes error of )---correct
[D]"Carefully coordinated with her narratives" modifies Beatrix Potter ----wrong
[E]this sentence is awkward

[zoe]

thanks for your help.
I am still confused,

[A]"carefully coordinating them with her" and "in her book illustrations" can both modify Beatrix Potter (BP) therefore [A] is ambiguous ----wrong

why ambiguous if both modify?

"carefully coordinating them with her narratives" modifies the preceding noun book illustrations---wrong

IMO, comma + -ing, does this modifier modify the preceding clause?
I have an example,
Coming home from school, I was blown off my bike by the wind
obviously, -ING modifies the latter cause.

[GMATGuruNY]

Check my posts here:
https://www.beatthegmat.com/og-13-sc-q-1 ... tml#779018

[zoe]

Check my posts here:
https://www.beatthegmat.com/og-13-sc-q-1 ... tml#779018

thanks for your quick reply.
I think I did not describe very clear..
I can understand how to approach this question,
but I am confused the following question about what will be modified by "-ING modifier"
IMO, comma + -ing, does this modifier modify the preceding clause?
I have an example,
Coming home from school, I was blown off my bike by the wind
obviously, -ING modifies the latter cause.

and another question is :
dustystormy wrote:
[A]"carefully coordinating them with her" and "in her book illustrations" can both modify Beatrix Potter (BP) therefore [A] is ambiguous ----wrong

why ambiguous if both modify?

thanks a lot
have a nice day
>_~

[[email protected]]

Hello Everyone!

This is a great example of a GMAT question that deals with verb consistency and modifiers! Let's start off by highlighting any major differences we can find between the options in orange, so we can focus on them later:

Beatrix Potter, in her book illustrations, carefully coordinating them with her narratives, capitalized on her keen observation and love of the natural world.

(A) Beatrix Potter, in her book illustrations, carefully coordinating them with her narratives,
(B) In her book illustrations, carefully coordinating them with her narratives, Beatrix Potter
(C) In her book illustrations, which she carefully coordinated with her narratives, Beatrix Potter
(D) Carefully coordinated with her narratives, Beatrix Potter, in her book illustrations
(E) Beatrix Potter, in her book illustrations, carefully coordinated them with her narratives and

As I said earlier, we have 2 main grammar issues to focus on here:

1. coordinating vs. coordinated (Verb Consistency)
2. Placement of modifier "in her book illustrations" (Modifiers)

Let's start with #1 on our list: coordinating vs. coordinated. No matter which one we choose, it will eliminate 2-3 options rather quickly! If we look at the entire sentence, we can find a clue as to which verb we need to match up to:

Beatrix Potter, in her book illustrations, carefully coordinating them with her narratives, capitalized on her keen observation and love of the natural world.

We know that all of the actions Potter takes need to use the same verb tense, so let's see how each option handles this:

(A) Beatrix Potter, in her book illustrations, carefully coordinating them with her narratives,
(B) In her book illustrations, carefully coordinating them with her narratives, Beatrix Potter
(C) In her book illustrations, which she carefully coordinated with her narratives, Beatrix Potter
(D) Carefully coordinated with her narratives, Beatrix Potter, in her book illustrations
(E) Beatrix Potter, in her book illustrations, carefully coordinated them with her narratives and

There you go - we can eliminate options A & B because they don't use consistent verb tenses for the two actions Potter took with her books!

Now that we have it narrowed down to just 3 options, let's focus on modifiers. We need to make sure the modifiers are clear and placed directly before or after their antecedents. To make problems easier to spot, I've added in the remainder of the sentence.

(C) In her book illustrations, which she carefully coordinated with her narratives, Beatrix Potter capitalized on her keen observation and love of the natural world.

This is CORRECT! The two modifiers are placed in the correct order. The modifier "which she carefully coordinated with her narratives" is referring to the illustrations, so it needs to go directly after it. Then both modifiers are placed before Beatrix Potter, which makes it clear they're both referring back to her. It also places the subject (Beatrix Potter) and the verb (capitalized) next to each other, which makes this much easier to follow.

(D) Carefully coordinated with her narratives, Beatrix Potter, in her book illustrations capitalized on her keen observation and love of the natural world.

This is INCORRECT because the modifier "Carefully coordinated with her narratives" is right before "Beatrix Potter," which is NOT what it's modifying - it should modify "illustrations!" There should also be a comma after "illustrations" to show that's a modifier and not the subject.

(E) Beatrix Potter, in her book illustrations, carefully coordinated them with her narratives and capitalized on her keen observation and love of the natural world.

This is INCORRECT for a couple reasons. First, the placement of the phrase "in her book illustrations" in between commas indicates that it's not important information that can be removed. This creates a unique problem. See the pronoun "them" in red? If we remove the phrase "in her book illustrations," the pronoun "them" becomes vague! It has nothing to tie back to. It also strangely could be misunderstood to mean that Beatrix Potter puts herself in the book illustrations, which isn't right.


There you go - option C is the correct choice! If we focus on the "either/or" items first, we can narrow things down to make them more manageable!


Don't study for the GMAT. Train for it.