Minivans carry as many as seven passengers

[RonPurewal]

Is possible to have 2 "and" in a list???
"Minivans carry ....AND....cost less, get better..., allow....AND have....
I discarded A for this reason, but it is wrong!

these two "and"s are not both in the list.
the list begins with "cost less".

analogy:
i went to the grocery store and bought food, got money from the ATM, and sampled dishes from the deli.
this is fine, since the list (3 things that i did at the store) STARTS with "bought food". "went to the store" is not part of the list.

[melvinjose]

Can part of option A be inferred also in the following manner?

Minivans cost less, get better gas mileage, allow passengers to get in and out more easily (comma eliminated) and (allow passengers to) have a smoother ride.

And if it were to be so, would it be incorrect as the last element in the list (allow) is not preceeded by an 'and'?

Thanks in advance.

[RonPurewal]

Can part of option A be inferred also in the following manner?

Minivans cost less, get better gas mileage, allow passengers to get in and out more easily (comma eliminated) and (allow passengers to) have a smoother ride.

And if it were to be so, would it be incorrect as the last element in the list (allow) is not preceeded by an 'and'?

Thanks in advance.

i'm sorry, i don't understand your question here. (i don't know what you mean by "can part of option (a) be inferred...?")

in any case, it appears to me that you're (1) changing the answer choice - you're randomly discarding a comma that is part of the official choice - AND (2) questioning an officially correct answer.

as for (1), we don't want to start criticizing answer choices that are not actually present in the problem.
as for (2), it is always a complete waste of your time to question officially correct answers. if GMAC says that a sentence is correct, then you must consider it correct. period. end of story.

in any case - please try to rephrase your original question, as i couldn't figure out what you were asking. thanks.

[rajinikanth]

Can we eliminate B,C and E based on they? as it can point to passengers or is this elimination wrong? Can they point to minivans even when there is another plural noun in between, or is it possible to say that they can be used here as it points to the subject correcly?

Thanks,
Raj

[RonPurewal]

Can we eliminate B,C and E based on they? as it can point to passengers or is this elimination wrong?

you should be loath to eliminate choices based on the ambiguity of pronouns; there are lots and lots of situations in which technically ambiguous pronouns are tolerated by the gmat.
generally, the only time you can be 100% confident in eliminating an ambiguous pronoun is when that pronoun is parallel to the wrong noun, and NOT parallel to the correct noun. that's not the case here.

these choices are run-on sentences: each contains a sentence that is written with two subjects.
eliminating modifiers from choice (b) yields "Minivans, they cost less..."
eliminating modifiers from choice (c) yields "Minivans, they get better gas mileage..."
eliminating modifiers from choice (e) yields "Minivans, the cost is lower..."

Can they point to minivans even when there is another plural noun in between, or is it possible to say that they can be used here as it points to the subject correcly?

the gmat is frustratingly inconsistent on the issue of ambiguous pronouns, so the only way to really make these judgments is to look at two things:
1) correct answers that contain ambiguous pronouns (since everything in a correct answer must be correct)
2) incorrect answers that ONLY differ from the correct answer in their use of an ambiguous pronoun (since the presence of any other errors casts doubt on whether the ambiguous pronoun is actually considered an error)

absent this sort of evidence, i am quite reluctant to issue any sort of declarations on the subject.

the simplest rule i can put forth on the subject is this:
* if you see an actual split in the answer choices between an ambiguous pronoun and a SPECIFIC noun, you should probably go with the specific noun.
* if there is no such split, and the ambiguous pronoun is just sort of random (i.e., it's not in opposition to a specific noun in other choices), i would not be confident in eliminating choices containing it.

[thanhan.k43ftu]

eliminating modifiers from choice (b) yields "Minivans, they cost less..."

So, if we throw the word "they" in choice B and just say"
"minivans, which carry as many..., compared with.., cost less...".
Is it grammatically correct?

[RonPurewal]

eliminating modifiers from choice (b) yields "Minivans, they cost less..."

So, if we throw the word "they" in choice B and just say"
"minivans, which carry as many..., compared with.., cost less...".
Is it grammatically correct?

the result of doing that would be (1) extremely ugly, to the point of being basically unreadable, and (2) still somewhat ambiguous, since there would be some lack of clarity as to exactly what would be being modified by "compared with most sport utility vehicles".

the advantage of choice (a) is that the clever edition of "and" before the comma precludes the modifier from being attributed to those words. because of this addition, we know for sure that the modifier ("compared with most sport utility vehicles") modifies the FOLLOWING clause.

[rohitmaram]

Ron,
can you please explain the difference between the usage of " and, " and ", and" ..

What if we had the later ", and " usage in the choice a i.e :

Minivans carry as many as seven passengers, and compared with most sport utility vehicles, cost less

Would A be still correct then

[mschwrtz]

Jimmyyeh1982, was your question not addressed by Ron's initial post?

The first "and" joins "carry..." to the entire list "cost...,allow..., and have...." The second "and" joins "in" to "out." The final "and" along with the three final commas joins "cost...,allow..., and have...."

Would a simpler sentence with a similar structure help?

Doug and Jean spent Christmas with his parents, and Thanksgiving and Labor day with her parents.

[rohitmaram]

Jimmyyeh1982, was your question not addressed by Ron's initial post?

The first "and" joins "carry..." to the entire list "cost...,allow..., and have...." The second "and" joins "in" to "out." The final "and" along with the three final commas joins "cost...,allow..., and have...."

Would a simpler sentence with a similar structure help?

Doug and Jean spent Christmas with his parents, and Thanksgiving and Labor day with her parents.

Thanks for the reply mschwrtz! I do get this.. But I want to understand whats the difference between :

Minivans carry as many as seven passengers and, compared with most sport utility

Minivans carry as many as seven passengers, and compared with most sport utility -- Does this sentence still convey the point that the first sentence conveys ?? Here i have just switched places for " comma" and first "and" .

Thanks..

[RonPurewal]

Jimmyyeh1982, was your question not addressed by Ron's initial post?

The first "and" joins "carry..." to the entire list "cost...,allow..., and have...." The second "and" joins "in" to "out." The final "and" along with the three final commas joins "cost...,allow..., and have...."

Would a simpler sentence with a similar structure help?

Doug and Jean spent Christmas with his parents, and Thanksgiving and Labor day with her parents.

Thanks for the reply mschwrtz! I do get this.. But I want to understand whats the difference between :

Minivans carry as many as seven passengers and, compared with most sport utility

Minivans carry as many as seven passengers, and compared with most sport utility -- Does this sentence still convey the point that the first sentence conveys ?? Here i have just switched places for " comma" and first "and" .

Thanks..

nope, you can't switch that comma.

in this sentence, the modifier is "compared with most sport utility vehicles". therefore, since we are blocking off this modifier with commas, we need the first comma to be placed directly at the beginning of this modifier.

in general, the construction "X, and Y" is used when the elements X and Y are themselves clauses (i.e., each could stand on its own as a complete sentence). if the word "and" is used to connect 2 smaller elements -- that is, elements that are not complete clauses on their own -- then there is usually no comma between them (unless that comma is used to block off some other modifier that is not part of the parallel structure).

[alexei600]

Dear Instructor,
For "D" is it correct to conclude that there are to modifiers that are connected with a comma. Describing the same noun "minivans"
This connection type is considered wrong on GMAT?
Thanks

[RonPurewal]

Dear Instructor,
For "D" is it correct to conclude that there are to modifiers that are connected with a comma. Describing the same noun "minivans"
This connection type is considered wrong on GMAT?
Thanks

no, it's possible to have two modifiers, connected by a comma, modifying the same noun. (<-- look, i just did it)
here's an official problem in which it happens:
the-anasazi-settlements-at-chaco-canyon-were-built-t2236.html

the main problem with choice (d) is the fact that "carrying..." is written as a modifier, so that there is an implication that it describes the following clause. i.e., the implication in choice (d) is that those comparative facts about minivans vs. other vehicles are only true when the minivans are actually "carrying up to seven passengers".

these facts -- the fact that minivans carry up to seven passengers, and the fact that they are X and Y and Z in comparison to other vehicles -- should be in parallel (as they are in the correct answer), since they are separate facts, of the same type, of equal priority.

[aps_asks]

Hi Instructors ,

In choice A ) , there is have after the second and ......What is it parallel with ?

NOte : i am not trying to work against correct answer choices.Just i was concerned with parallelism

[tim]

cost, get, allow