Bluegrass musician Bill Monroe, whose repertory, views on

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Bluegrass musician Bill Monroe, whose repertory, views on musical collaboration, and vocal style were influential on generations of bluegrass artists, was also an inspiration to many musicians, that included Elvis Presley and Jerry Garcia, whose music differed significantly from his own.
(A) were influential on generations of bluegrass artists, was also an inspiration to many musicians, that included Elvis Presley and Jerry Garcia, whose music differed significantly from
(B) influenced generations of bluegrass artists, also inspired many musicians, including Elvis Presley and Jerry Garcia, whose music differed significantly from
(C) was influential to generations of bluegrass artists, was also inspirational to many musicians, that included Elvis Presley and Jerry Garcia, whose music was different significantly in comparison to
(D) was influential to generations of bluegrass artists, also inspired many musicians, who included Elvis Presley and Jerry Garcia, the music of whom differed significantly when compared to
(E) were an influence on generations of bluegrass artists, was also an inspiration to many musicians, including Elvis Presley and Jerry Garcia, whose music was significantly different from that of

A is wordy

C and D use "was", it shoule be plural.

E uses, were and was and unclear singular/plural

B is correct.

B is direct, active and succint where as rest are passive, indirect and wordy.

I want to know whether E is gramatically wrong.

The construction "...., also inspired" is quite awkward, isn't it?

Can someone try to explain why 'whose music was significantly different from that of his own' is wrong in E.

E is wrong for one reason and not preferred over B for another.

1) B is preferred over E because views influenced is better than views were influential. Reason: verb is preferred over an action noun.

2) views..... were influential......, was also inspired. grammatically incorrect.

Look the question on the whole.

E is in passive. Avoid passive sentence whenever possible. Since B is the most direct sentence, it is the most preferred over all others that are in passive.

The part you mentioned and the whole sentence is in passive. So E is wrong.

ill go with E
"whose music was significantly different from that of his own" sounds better idiomatically compared to
"whose music differed significantly from his own"

B but complicated one

Bluegrass musician Bill Monroe, whose repertory, views on musical collaboration, and vocal style were influential on generations of bluegrass artists, was also an inspiration to many musicians, that included Elvis Presley and Jerry Garcia, whose music differed significantly from his own.
(A) were influential on generations of bluegrass artists, was also an inspiration to many musicians, that included Elvis Presley and Jerry Garcia, whose music differed significantly from -->here it refers to vocal style and should be was
(B) influenced generations of bluegrass artists, also inspired many musicians, including Elvis Presley and Jerry Garcia, whose music differed significantly from-->aptly put ..no redundancy too .
(C) was influential to generations of bluegrass artists, was also inspirational to many musicians, that included Elvis Presley and Jerry Garcia, whose music was different significantly in comparison to-->supposed to be were ,it refers to view of Bill monoroe
(D) was influential to generations of bluegrass artists, also inspired many musicians, who included Elvis Presley and Jerry Garcia, the music of whom differed significantly when compared to-->verbose and also modifier error
(E) were an influence on generations of bluegrass artists, was also an inspiration to many musicians, including Elvis Presley and Jerry Garcia, whose music was significantly different from that of -->subject verb disagreement

The question basically tests the fundamentals in subject and verb agreement .

Hi,

The issue with choice E is that it uses an expression that is considered unidiomatic. The expression "were an influence on" in choice E is that expression.

Also, GMAT emphasizes on concise expressions and use of fewer words to effectively convey the meaning of the sentence. In choice E, we have a few very wordy expressions: "was also an inspiration to" ans "whose music was significantly different from that of". The first expression can be written as "inspired". Also active voice is preferred here because the emphasis is on the doer. The sentence talks about Bill Monroe who is the subject in the sentence. Hence it is better to keep all the actions in active voice for clarity and conciseness.

The second expression includes a contrast between the music of Bill Monroe and Elvis Presley and Jerry Garcia. Notice that in choice B, this contrast reads as: "whose music differed significantly from his own (music)." The word "music" is understood after "own" as it appears already in the sentence. Hence the use of "that of" becomes wordy in choice E. These are the reasons why choice E is eliminated and choice B is the correct answer.

@saikarthikreddy: I don't see any SV number agreement issue in choice E.

The detailed video solution to this OG V2 question is available to the e-gmat customers. The solution is included in our course OG V2 Solutions.

Thanks.
Shraddha

The answer choices that starts with the word "was" or "were" are incorrect as the use of "was" or "were" is not very clear and it is confusing. B is only ans option that starts without these words. so B is the correct answer.

@shraddha -yes it was an error in my analysis ,thanks for the correction .

Hey guys, sorry to bring this up again but I just wanted to look at this question from a different angle:

Do this question in under 30 seconds:

RULE Relative pronouns THAT vs WHICH: one cannot use 'that' with a comma:

Hence A and C are out.

Contenders remaining: B,D,E

D: The music of whom (sounds awkward) ELIMINATED.
E: whose music was significantly different from that of : here that is redundant OR 'influential on' is an unidiomatic structure ELIMINATED.

Thus B is correct.

Note: The use of were vs was:
Bluegrass musician Bill Monroe, whose repertory, views on musical collaboration, and vocal style were...
In this instance the use of the underlined were is correct because it refers to repertory,views on musical collaboration and vocal style and not Bill Munroe.
But as we just discussed, this sentence has other issues.
We could have eliminated D this way too...

was also an inspiration to many musicians,.......
In this part, 'was' refers to Bill Munroe and is therefore correct.

Just another was to eliminate choices....