A mixture of poems and short fiction, Jean Toomer's Cane has

[thanghnvn]

Regarding B and E.

the main reason for which B is wrong is that "including..." , the adjectival of " 3 best novels" is far from it.

adjectival modifying the far noun can be acceptable but not prefered. This means we can see the adjectival modifying the far noun in the offical answers in some sc problems but adjectival modifying the far noun can be considered an error when there is better choice. In short, adjectival modifying the far noun is considered correct sometimes and incorrect other times.

"including..." in B is not wrong but if we can see the better choice, "including..." in B is not choosen. E is better.

Students normally make the mistake that whenever they see an adjectival modifying the far noun, they consider this adjectival wrong. The student make mistake because they forcus too much on absolute rule. Gmat dose not test the absolute rule. gmat want us to choose the better choices, not the perfect choice.

There are many similar situations.

objects of a verb should follow the verb. But this is not alway possible. sometimes we see that the object not following the verb is considered wrong because there is better choice. However, objects not following the verb appear in the offical anwers in other sc problem.

even paralelism is not rule but a preference on gmat land because the unparallel patterns appear in the official answers in many sc problem while an unparallel choice is considered wrong when there is better choice. If students eliminate an unparallel choice immediately, they can eliminate the official answer.

the problem is that there is some rules, which is not absolute and gmat want us to find the better choice not the perfect choices. gmat dose not test us the absolute rule. we, students, should think gmat way.

[khushbumerchant]

A mixture of poems and short fiction, Jean Toomer's Cane has been called one of the three best novels ever written by Black Americans"”the others being Richard Wright, author of Native Son, and Ralph Ellison, author of Invisible Man.
A. Black Americans"”the others being Richard Wright, author of Native Son, and Ralph Ellison, author of Invisible Man
B. Black Americans"”including Native Son by Richard Wright and Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
C. a Black American"”including Richard Wright, author of Native Son, and Ralph Ellison, author of Invisible Man
D. a Black American"”the others being Richard Wright, author of Native Son, and Ralph Ellison, author of Invisible Man
E. a Black American"”the others being Richard Wright's Native Son and Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man

OA is E.
This question is a 3-to-2 split question. I wonder why it is "a Black American".
My understanding is that "ever written by Black Americans/a Black American" modifies "the three best novels".
Should those 3 books be written by 3 different blacks (or mixed of them)?
Thanks in advance.

When I came across this question, I noticed 1 parallelism in option E which were not present in any other option.

Sentence: A mixture of poems and short fiction, Jean Toomer's Cane has been called one of the three best novels ever written by a Black American"”the others being Richard Wright's Native Son and Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man

Here it clearly highlights the comparison between the 3 author's books and not the authors themselves.

Was this a correct approach? Or, in such cases, should I still go ahead and look for more errors in sentences?

Please guide. thanks in advance.

[RonPurewal]

Was this a correct approach? Or, in such cases, should I still go ahead and look for more errors in sentences?

Please guide. thanks in advance.

that's an excellent approach.

in response to your other question -- no, it's the other way around. if there's parallelism in a sentence, you should always look for it FIRST.
here's the reason: if you don't notice that there's parallelism, then you might try looking at the two halves of the parallel structure as though they were separate issues. if the issue is their relationship to each other, then that kind of analysis won't work -- but you can't figure that out after the fact. you have to discover the parallel structure (or at least the structures that should be parallel, if they aren't) up front.

[liu1993918]

Thanks for your explanation!
However, I am still confused about the usage of "being" here, maybe that's because I am not a native speaker.

Is "being" used to modify " the others" ?
Why not just say " the others are Richard Wright's Native Son and Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man" ?
To me, that sounds better.

Furthermore, how can I make sure "being" is right in a sentence?
Are there some take-aways about the usage of being？

Thank you so much!

[RonPurewal]

Is "being" used to modify " the others" ?

Yes.

As always, unusual modifier structures are inserted to distract you from MUCH easier things.

You can solve this entire problem by noting that there's only one answer choice in which the book titles are all written in parallel ("____'s ____"). In all four wrong answers, the book titles are written in disparate formats.

If you see structures you don't recognize:
• Ignore them
• Look for an easier decision point
There will be one.

Just to clarify, "don't recognize" means "This is not a correct structure that I know; it's also not an incorrect structure that I know".

[RonPurewal]

Why not just say " the others are Richard Wright's Native Son and Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man" ?
To me, that sounds better.

There's no point in inventing answer choices that aren't there. They give you 5 choices; you deal with them.

DO NOT EVER formulate your own "ideal" version of the sentence.

ALWAYS begin your reasoning/eliminations from SPLITS / DECISION POINTS in the choices!

[RonPurewal]

Furthermore, how can I make sure "being" is right in a sentence?
Are there some take-aways about the usage of being

It follows the normal rules for "__ing" words.

[liu1993918]

Furthermore, how can I make sure "being" is right in a sentence?
Are there some take-aways about the usage of being

It follows the normal rules for "__ing" words.

thanks so much!

[RonPurewal]

Sure.

[SanjayB764]

as i said above, you should NOT use word choice as a #1 method of elimination. although you may think that you're "saving time", you're doing so at the peril of what essentially boils down to taking guesses.

grammar is king. DO NOT split on anything else until you have absolutely exhausted the supply of grammatical splits that you know how to resolve.

I was confused because I don't know when using a singular noun associated with a plural noun (e.g. "a Black African" associated with "3 novels") will create a confusion

i was a bit startled by that difference, too.

in matters of word choice, the only option is simply to look at what gmac does, and try your best to ape whatever that may be.
remember to split on grammar first. especially parallelism (as seen in this problem), which is the single most common grammatical issue on the entire exam.

Thank you very much for the explanation Ron. Your explanations have always been very helpful.

It will be of a great help if you could help me with my below query

I chose choice D over B because 1) D offered better parallelism, ii) I thought the word others being is essential because the list after dash specifies the rest of the two novels; however, including does not serve the same purpose (Is my understanding correct?), and iii) Isn's the phrase "One of the best three novels ever written by a Black American" is rather more accurate than "One of the three novels ever written by Black Americans", because the entire statement before the dash states that X has been one of the three best novels ever written by a Black American. the One of the three novels is singular, and hence "a Black American".

Just would like to check if my understanding is correct (specifically for the highlighted point. Because the earlier discussion in this thread states that the use a Black American is not very much preferable in the context of this statement.

Thanks you very much !!


I

[RonPurewal]

1/
the non-parallelism is equally bad in both B and D.
for each of those choices, the two items within the answer choice are parallel to each other--but not to the third item ("jean toomer's cane").

[RonPurewal]

2/
correct here. "including" specifically implies that the following enumeration is NOT exhaustive.

i.e., "including" is wrong if it's follwed by a list of everything that fits the given description.

[RonPurewal]

3/
maybe it's just my monitor, but i can't read that color against a white background. please re-post your question in the default color. (it's best to avoid colored text, except for highlighting specific words within an example.)

[thanghnvn]

the main problem with B is that
"others" mean "remaining element" and is more suitable in this sentence because there are only two parts, the best one and the two remaining ones.

"including" means there are some elements in many element and we do not divide the thing into two parts.

though I can make the above analyse now, I can hardly do so in the test room, so, this question is very hard

[tim]

Let us know if you have any questions here.