Turning away from literary realism to write romantic stories

[RonPurewal]

We don't use "is" for people who are deceased, unless we're talking about an aspect of the person that still exists (e.g., legacy, reputation).

Elvis Presley was popular among Americans of all ages.
("Was", not "is". He's dead)

Elvis Presley is among the best-known musicians in American entertainment history.
("Is", not "was". We're discussing the present state of people's knowledge of Elvis)

[RonPurewal]

Likewise, since all of the choices in the Stella Adler problem are in the past tense, we can safely infer that Ms. Adler is dead.

This sort of thing will obviously not be a decision point, unless the given context makes explicit whether the person is still alive (and/or whether we're talking about the present status of his/her reputation, etc.)
Without such context clues, one would actually have to know these things about Stella Adler. The test clearly isn't going to expect that.

[RichaChampion]

Ron,

In D and E isn't the use of and and also together redundant?

[tim]

Please quote to us the rule you are referring to as well as the page number of the SC strategy guide or OG source you are quoting from so that we can verify whether your reason for eliminating the answer is correct.

To everyone else: This is my polite way of taking the original poster to task for flat out MAKING UP A RULE. One of the most devastating things you can do to your GMAT score is to make up rules that don't actually exist and then use them as "reasons" to eliminate "incorrect" answers. Please understand that when the original poster fails to provide a quote that says "and also" is redundant, that's your clue that there is nothing actually wrong with saying "and also" on the GMAT. And remember NEVER to believe a "rule" that a fellow student mentions on the forums unless they can back it up with a quote from a trusted source or one of our instructors confirms it.

[RonPurewal]

Ron,

In D and E isn't the use of and and also together redundant?

D is the correct answer.

so...
no.

[thanghnvn]

"as a novelist" implies that you're going to talk about selma in some other capacity later ("as a novelist, she did X; as a woman, she did Y"). so we don't want that.

Ron, Please, explain more of the use of "as a novelist" and its wrongness in choice E. I am confused

Thank you

[RonPurewal]

example:
As a businessman, Harry is very reliable; as a friend, he is much less so.

––> i can depend on harry if i'm doing business with him, but i can't really depend on him if we are just friends.

[kedieez967]

hi Ron,

Turning away from literary realism to write romantic stories about the peasant life and landscape of northern Sweden, in 1909 Selma Lagerlöf was the novelist who became the first woman and was also the first Swedish writer to win

the bold face in choice A seems be ambiguous in meaning, it can be read in following ways:
was the novelist (who became the first woman) and was also the first Swedish writer to win [/b]
OR
was the novelist (who became the first woman and was also the first Swedish writer to win) [/b]

is my idea right?

Thank you very much!

Best wishes!

[RonPurewal]

either way it's nonsense.

the sentence has to say
the first woman and (also) the first swedish writer to win xxxxx award

this construction CANNOT be broken up, because 'to win xxxx award' must describe the first woman AND the first swedish writer.

if this construction is broken up—as in choice A—then the sentence is saying that SL became LITERALLY the first woman (i guess every female before her was an ape/chimpanzee/gorilla/monkey?), and, separately, that she 'was the first swedish writer to win xxxx award'.

clearly, this is a great big bucket of 'no'.

[RonPurewal]

you can also kill A because 'Selma Lagerlof' doesn't follow the modifier.

if a sentence STARTS WITH A MODIFIER describing the following NOUN/subject, then the NOUN must come IMMEDIATELY AFTER the modifier(s)+comma.

so, if you have 'in 1909' in front of 'SL', that's enough to make the sentence incorrect. the main sentence MUST start with 'SL'; there is no latitude on this issue.

[RonPurewal]

here's what i mean:
(MODIFIER1) + subject + .....
= ok.
this is, without a doubt, the form in which you first studied these modifiers.
e.g.,
Having spent the last four hours posting on the forum, Ron needed to get up, straighten his back, and walk around for a while.

(MODIFIER1) + (more modifiers REFERRING TO MOD1) + subject + .....
= also ok.
e.g.,
Having spent the last four hours posting on the forum, with his shoulders hunched over the keyboard, Ron needed to get up, straighten his back, and walk around for a while.

BUT
(MODIFIER1) + (MODIFIER OF MAIN SENTENCE) + subject + .....
NOT ok.
e.g.,
Having spent the last four hours posting on the forum, inevitably Ron needed to get up, straighten his back, and walk around for a while.
nope.

the point here is this:
• the brown stuff can have additional modifiers. (there's nowhere else to put them!)
• the pink stuff MUST start with 'Ron'.

[kedieez967]

(MODIFIER1) + (more modifiers REFERRING TO MOD1) + subject + .....
= also ok.
e.g.,
Having spent the last four hours posting on the forum, with his shoulders hunched over the keyboard, Ron needed to get up, straighten his back, and walk around for a while.

This example contradicts my intuition from OG13.

OG13-106
in the explanation for c, the official guide says that placement of two long modifiers at the beginning of the sentence is awkward and makes difficult to locate the subject.

in OG13-104, the official guide mentions that the sentence awkwardly presents two phrases intended to modify the subject and loses the clarity.

GMAC may think, it is awkward that two modifier in a sequence modify the subject.

could you give a further explanation for this problem?

Thank you very much!
Best wishes!

[RonPurewal]

not the same.

in the colored 'formula' above, note that the second brown thing specifically says "REFERRING TO MOD1".

in other words, i'm NOT talking about
(modifier of the subject) + (ANOTHER modifier of the subject) + subject...,
which is the structure designated as questionable in those problems.

in the specific example i gave, with his shoulders hunched over the keyboard most directly describes how ron spent the last four hours posting on the forum. it's not a random modifier of 'ron'—in fact, it MUST be placed after "spent the last 4 hours posting on the forum" if it is to make any sense.

[RonPurewal]

also, don't forget that 'awkward' and/or 'wordy' is NEVER the only issue with an answer choice.
these things, after all, are not actually errors (though they do constitute bad writing). for a choice to be incorrect, it has to contain something that's actually incorrect.

remember that the OG answer keys are not written by the problem writers (whose time is, presumably, far too valuable and/or expensive to be spent on such peripheral activities). they're written by people who—to be perfectly frank—are nowhere near as good.
as this forum itself attests, it's not easy to explain linguistic issues in the first place (since an 'expert understanding' is almost 100 per cent subconscious). thus, the OG answer keys are very often incomplete, and not uncommonly wrong altogether.

if the OG answer key eliminates a choice only because it is 'wordy' and/or 'awkward', this just means whoever wrote the key couldn't figure out how to explain the real reason(s).

[kedieez967]

i did not pay much attention to your words "more modifiers REFERRING TO MOD1". my bad.
i got it!

Thank you very much.
Have a nice day!