Guillotined on highly questionable charges at the height of

Guillotined on highly questionable charges at the height of the Reign of Terror, Antoine Lavoisier (1743-1794), now universally recognized as the “Father of Chemistry,” who named both “oxygen” and “hydrogen”, proved that sulfur was an element, contributed to the formulation of what we now know as the metric system, was raised as a nobleman and educated in the leading scientific theories of his day.

Analysis of the sentence:

Subject: Antonie Lavoisier.
Verb: was raised, educated.
Pronouns: who
Parallel lists: 1) who named both O2 and H2, proved that sulfur was an element, contributed to formulation of metric system.
2) was raised as a nobleman and educated in the leading scientific theories of his day.

Modifiers: 1) Guillotined on highly questionable charges at the height of the Reign of Terror
2) now universally recognized as the “Father of Chemistry”

Meaning: This sentence states facts about one Mr. Antonie Lavoisier.

Error analysis: The original sentence has a subject verb pair, pronouns has proper antecedents and parallel lists are properly formed. However, the modifiers are misplaced distorting the meaning of the sentence to mean that-

Antoine Lavoisier was raised as a nobleman and educated in the leading scientific theories of his day because he was Guillotined on highly questionable charges at the height of the Reign of Terror. This obviously is wrong!

So lets check the other answer choices:

A has meaning issue so eliminated.

B) Antoine Lavoisier(subject 1) (1743-1794),

naming both “oxygen” and “hydrogen”, proving that sulfur was an element, and contributing to the formulation of what we now know as the metric system, (when using verb+ing form the choice wrongly makes us to expect an effect of all these actions, which is wrong)

now universally recognized as the “Father of Chemistry,”- There is no verb for the subject.

he was raised as a nobleman and educated in the leading scientific theories of his day, until he was guillotined on highly questionable charges at the height of the Reign of Terror. This means that he was raised and educated until he was guillotined on highly questionable charges. This is nonsensical . Clearly, B can be eliminated.

(C) Antoine Lavoisier (1743-1794), raised as a nobleman and educated in the leading scientific theories of his day, now universally recognized as the “Father of Chemistry,” until guillotined on highly questionable charges at the height of the Reign of Terror, naming both “oxygen” and “hydrogen”, proving that sulfur was an element, and contributing to the formulation of what we now know as the metric system.This choice is a mess, there is no point even in discussing this. Among other issues, there is no subject verb pair Eliminated

(D) Raised as a nobleman and educated in the leading scientific theories of his day, Antoine Lavoisier (1743-1794), now universally recognized as the “Father of Chemistry,” named both “oxygen” and “hydrogen”, proved that sulfur was an element, and contributed to the formulation of what we now know as the metric system, until he was guillotined on highly questionable charges at the height of the Reign of Terror. This option rectifies the original sentence by re-positioning the modifiers correctly. This now unambiguously states the facts.Correct

(E) Now universally recognized as the “Father of Chemistry,” Antoine Lavoisier (1743-1794) was raised as a nobleman and educated in the leading scientific theories of his day, naming both “oxygen” and “hydrogen”, proved that sulfur was an element, and contributing to the formulation of what we now know as the metric system, until guillotined on highly questionable charges at the height of the Reign of Terror.This choice has parallelism issues as highlighted and also distorts the meaning in the same way as choice B does Eliminated

Guillotined on highly questionable charges at the height of the Reign of Terror, Antoine Lavoisier (1743-1794), now universally recognized as the "Father of Chemistry," who named both "oxygen" and "hydrogen", proved that sulfur was an element, contributed to the formulation of what we now know as the metric system, was raised as a nobleman and educated in the leading scientific theories of his day.

1. Guillotined on highly questionable charges at the height of the Reign of Terror, Antoine Lavoisier (1743-1794), now universally recognized as the "Father of Chemistry," who named both "oxygen" and "hydrogen", proved that sulfur was an element, contributed to the formulation of what we now know as the metric system, was raised as a nobleman and educated in the leading scientific theories of his day.

2. Antoine Lavoisier (1743-1794), naming both "oxygen" and "hydrogen", proving that sulfur was an element, and contributing to the formulation of what we now know as the metric system, now universally recognized as the "Father of Chemistry," he was raised as a nobleman and educated in the leading scientific theories of his day, until he was guillotined on highly questionable charges at the height of the Reign of Terror.

3. Antoine Lavoisier (1743-1794), raised as a nobleman and educated in the leading scientific theories of his day, now universally recognized as the "Father of Chemistry," until guillotined on highly questionable charges at the height of the Reign of Terror, naming both "oxygen" and "hydrogen", proving that sulfur was an element, and contributing to the formulation of what we now know as the metric system.

4. Raised as a nobleman and educated in the leading scientific theories of his day, Antoine Lavoisier (1743-1794), now universally recognized as the "Father of Chemistry," named both "oxygen" and "hydrogen", proved that sulfur was an element, and contributed to the formulation of what we now know as the metric system, until he was guillotined on highly questionable charges at the height of the Reign of Terror.

5. Now universally recognized as the "Father of Chemistry," Antoine Lavoisier (1743-1794) was raised as a nobleman and educated in the leading scientific theories of his day, naming both "oxygen" and "hydrogen", proved that sulfur was an element, and contributing to the formulation of what we now know as the metric system, until guillotined on highly questionable charges at the height of the Reign of Terror.

This is one of the most difficult question, I have encountered in my entire GMAT preparation.

Now debatable is why is B wrong, they explain that it has double subject.

Their is one free Video from Magoosh as double subject-
https://gmat.magoosh.com/questions/3569 ... ed_lessons

Shall we conclude Pronoun is always a double subject?

This is actually Rhetoric question, but their is no such category of rhetoric.

Are there any one of the analogous capacity of Bunuel(in quantitative) in this Verbal Section?

This is what they Say-

Split #2: double subject. Choice (B) is very awkward in its overall organization, and in addition, we have the structure "Lavoisier …. he was raised" ---- either "Lavoisier" or "he" could be the subject, but they can't both be the subject of the same verb simultaneously. (B) is incorrect.

Just the question is lengthy , Many grammatical mistakes in all options except D.

Question is not all lengthy, it is of normal length.

It has a particular GMAT rule used, double subject.

yea, we cant use it as a run on sentence. There is a need of semicolon before "he".

Father of chemistry"; he was raised as a nobleman...

This is the easiest one I have ever cracked. Its long and lengthy, but easy nevertheless. Except D, the rest of them are all convoluted and have many obvious errors.

Guillotined on highly questionable charges at the height of the Reign of Terror, Antoine Lavoisier (1743-1794), now universally recognized as the "Father of Chemistry," who named both oxygen and hydrogen, proved that sulfur was an element, contributed to the formulation of what we now know as the metric system, was raised as a nobleman and educated in the leading scientific theories of his day.

A) Guillotined on highly questionable charges at the height of the Reign of Terror, Antoine Lavoisier (1743-1794), now universally recognized as the "Father of Chemistry," who named both oxygen and hydrogen, proved that sulfur was an element, contributed to the formulation of what we now know as the metric system, was raised as a nobleman and educated in the leading scientific theories of his day.
B) Antoine Lavoisier (1743-1794), naming both oxygen and hydrogen, proving that sulfur was an element, and contributing to the formulation of what we now know as the metric system, now universally recognized as the "Father of Chemistry," he was raised as a nobleman and educated in the leading scientific theories of his day, until he was guillotined on highly questionable charges at the height of the Reign of Terror.
C) Antoine Lavoisier (1743-1794), raised as a nobleman and educated in the leading scientific theories of his day, now universally recognized as the "Father of Chemistry," until guillotined on highly questionable charges at the height of the Reign of Terror, naming both oxygen and hydrogen, proving that sulfur was an element, and contributing to the formulation of what we now know as the metric system.
D) Raised as a nobleman and educated in the leading scientific theories of his day, Antoine Lavoisier (1743-1794), now universally recognized as the "Father of Chemistry," named both oxygen and hydrogen, proved that sulfur was an element, and contributed to the formulation of what we now know as the metric system, until he was guillotined on highly questionable charges at the height of the Reign of Terror.
E) Now universally recognized as the "Father of Chemistry," Antoine Lavoisier (1743-1794) was raised as a nobleman and educated in the leading scientific theories of his day, naming both oxygen and hydrogen, proved that sulfur was an element, and contributing to the formulation of what we now know as the metric system, until guillotined on highly questionable charges at the height of the Reign of Terror.

A) Guillotined on highly questionable charges at the height of the Reign of Terror, Antoine Lavoisier (1743-1794), now universally recognized as the "Father of Chemistry," who named both oxygen and hydrogen, proved that sulfur was an element, contributed to the formulation of what we now know as the metric system, was raised as a nobleman and educated in the leading scientific theories of his day.
was at the two places does not follow parallelism

B) Antoine Lavoisier (1743-1794), naming both oxygen and hydrogen, proving that sulfur was an element, and contributing to the formulation of what we now know as the metric system, now universally recognized as the "Father of Chemistry," he was raised as a nobleman and educated in the leading scientific theories of his day, until he was guillotined on highly questionable charges at the height of the Reign of Terror.
ing form not proper.[color=#0000ff] now universally....not modifying the modifier correctly[/color]

C) Antoine Lavoisier (1743-1794), raised as a nobleman and educated in the leading scientific theories of his day, now universally recognized as the "Father of Chemistry," until guillotined on highly questionable charges at the height of the Reign of Terror, naming both oxygen and hydrogen, proving that sulfur was an element, and contributing to the formulation of what we now know as the metric system.
same error as B
D) Raised as a nobleman and educated in the leading scientific theories of his day, Antoine Lavoisier (1743-1794), now universally recognized as the "Father of Chemistry," named both oxygen and hydrogen, proved that sulfur was an element, and contributed to the formulation of what we now know as the metric system, until he was guillotined on highly questionable charges at the height of the Reign of Terror.
correct in parallelism and modifiers
E) Now universally recognized as the "Father of Chemistry," Antoine Lavoisier (1743-1794) was raised as a nobleman and educated in the leading scientific theories of his day, naming both oxygen and hydrogen, proved that sulfur was an element, and contributing to the formulation of what we now know as the metric system, until guillotined on highly questionable charges at the height of the Reign of Terror.problem of parallelism

ans D

Merged similar topics

Follow the rules for posting in verbal section. In particular # 1 . The rules are mandatory for ALL

Thanks

Agree that D is correct but isn't comma before "and contributed to" incorrect??

Posted from my mobile device

Dear rajthakkar,
My friend, that comma is sometimes called the "Oxford comma": the comma in a list after the penultimate item and before the word "and."
J, K, L, and M
The Oxford comma is optional but is almost always used in sophisticated writing. In this vein, the GMAT almost always use the Oxford comma in a list. It's one little indication of high quality writing.

The list can be any items in parallel. In this rather long sentence, we have three verbs in parallel. Think about a simpler example of three verbs in parallel.
Yesterday, I shopped, ate out, and went dancing.
Three verbs in parallel, and in the position after the second verb phrase "ate out" and before the "and," we have the Oxford comma.

The sentence about Lavoisier is much longer, but this is the basic structure of (D): three verb phrases in parallel.
.... Antoine Lavoisier (1743-1794), now universally recognized as the “Father of Chemistry,”
\\ named both “oxygen” and “hydrogen,"
\\ proved that sulfur was an element,
and
\\contributed to the formulation of what we now know as the metric system,
until he was ...

The comma after the word "element" and before "and" is simply the Oxford comma, following the penultimate item on a list in parallel.

Does all this make sense?
Mike

Dear mike,
I am non-native so I was not so aware about oxford comma.
Moreover I got a sentence correction incorrect in MGMAT cat test where there was a comma before and.As far as I remember it was written that comma before and separates the part after comma .

May be I overlooked some info in that question

Posted from my mobile device

Official Explanation

These long sentences with the whole sentence underlined are particularly hard. Incidentally, Lavoisier was a truly great scientist!

Split #1: Rhetorical organization. The elements of this sentence tell the biographical details of a particular individual. While it's not a strict rule, it would make more sense for the events to unfold more or less in chronological order. We could make an exception if there were some clear reason to highlight some particular event or some logic that demanded an alternate order, but this sentence provides us with no such rationale. In this respect, notice that (A) is a disaster, a completely cockamamie sentence that narrates events in reverse chronological order. Sentence (A) is not far from fully grammatically correct -- perhaps missing an "and" to clarify the parallelism -- but it is rhetorically completely unacceptable, both because of the bizarre order, and because the subject and the verb are ridiculously far apart. (A) is incorrect.

In this respect, (D) does a particular good job of presenting events in chronological order. At this point, we will simply notice this and set it aside.

Split #2: double subject. Choice (B) is very awkward in its overall organization, and in addition, we have the structure "Lavoisier …. he was raised" ---- either "Lavoisier" or "he" could be the subject, but they can't both be the subject of the same verb simultaneously. (B) is incorrect.

Split #3: missing verb. In choice (C), the subject "Lavoisier" has no verb in this choice. (C) is incorrect.

Split #4: parallelism problem. In choice (E), we have "naming …. proved …. contributing", a clear failure of parallelism. (E) is incorrect.

For all these reasons, the best answer is (D).

Isn't "was raised as a nobleman and educated in the leading scientific theories of his day, naming both oxygen and hydrogen" also ambiguous? Could refer to scientific theories or Antoine Lavoisier

mikemcgarry In option D the last part "until he was guillotined on highly questionable charges at the height of the Reign of Terror." should not be correct because of "until".

It incorrectly says that all his contributions were valuable and of use, only before he got guillotined.

Can you please explain?