Joan of Arc, a young Frenchwoman who claimed to be divinely inspired,

Dear Friends,

Here is a detailed explanation to this question-

Meaning is crucial to solving this problem:
Understanding the intended meaning is key to solving this question; the intended meaning of the crucial part of this sentence is that Joan of Arc persuaded Charles VII of France to claim his throne.

Concepts tested here: Meaning + Verb Forms + Grammatical Construction + Idioms

• Semicolons and the “comma + conjunction” construction are used to link two independent clauses; commas are used to link an independent clause with a dependent one; commas cannot be used to join two independent clauses.
• "persuaded + to" is the correct, idiomatic construction.

A: This answer choice incorrectly uses conjunction ("and" in this case) to join the independent clauses "Joan of Arc...turned the tide of English victories in her country by liberating the city of Orléans" and "she persuaded Charles VII of France to claim his throne"; remember, semicolons and the “comma + conjunction” construction are used to link two independent clauses.

B: This answer choice incorrectly uses the unidiomatic construction "persuaded + in"; remember, "persuaded + to" is the correct, idiomatic construction.

C: This answer choice alters the meaning of the sentence through the phrase "persuading that the throne be claimed"; the construction of this phrase leads to an incoherent meaning; the intended meaning is that Joan of Arc persuaded Charles VII of France to claim his throne. Further, Option C incorrectly uses the present participle ("verb+ing" - "persuading" in this sentence) to refer to an action that concluded in the past; remember, the simple past tense is used to refer to actions that concluded in the past.

D: Correct. This answer choice uses the phrase "persuaded Charles VII of France to claim", conveying the intended meaning - that Joan of Arc persuaded Charles VII of France to claim his throne. Further, Option D correctly uses the simple past tense verb "persuaded" to refer to an action that concluded in the past. Additionally, Option D avoids the grammatical construction error seen in Option A, as the sentence formed by Option D contains only one independent clause. Besides, Option D correctly uses the idiomatic construction "persuaded + to".

E: This answer choice alters the meaning of the sentence through the phrase "persuading that Charles VII of France should claim"; the construction of this phrase leads to an incoherent meaning; the intended meaning is that Joan of Arc persuaded Charles VII of France to claim his throne. Further, Option E incorrectly uses the present participle ("verb+ing" - "persuading" in this sentence) to refer to an action that concluded in the past; remember, the simple past tense is used to refer to actions that concluded in the past.

Hence, D is the best answer choice.

To understand the concept of "Simple Tenses" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~2 minutes):



To understand the use of punctuations on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~10 minutes):



All the best!
Experts' Global Team

In this sentence, the verb "persuade" is the same kind of items to be paralleled with "turned", not the same kind of item with "liberating", the verb used to modifies the action of "turned the tide of English victories in her country". Moreover, the idiom: persuade sb to do sth is correct in choice D, makes it to be the best answer.

first step
Joan of Arc, a young Frenchwoman who claimed to be divinely inspired, turned the tide of English victories in her country by liberating the city of Orleans and she persuaded Charles VII of France to claim his throne.

the sentence construction is as follows :-

Joan of Arc,------, turned-------- and she persuaded-----.

the sentence construction should be :-


Joan of Arc,------, turned-------- and persuaded-----.

so strike off A,C & E.

so idiomatically D is the answer.

Claimed is part of the relative clause modifying Joan of Arc.
while "turned" and "persuaded" are part of the parallel independent clauses, sharing common subject "Joan of Arc".

We cannot have by liberating...in claiming

The meaning of the sentence is
Joan of Arc did two actions
1) turned the tide of English victories in her country by liberating the city of Orleans
and
2)persuaded Charles VII of France to claim his throne

The underlined portion and the answer choices show us that there are two problems

Problem 1: Parallelism error (the very obvious one)
Joan of Arc, [long modifier that can be ignored (since it is not underlined)], turned [....] and she persuaded [...].
Rule of parallelism: grammatically equivalent elements should match. So, instead of "she persuaded" we need "persuaded".
That leaves us with answer choice (B) and (D).

Problem 2: Idiom error
Compare "in claiming" vs "to claim"; latter is the correct idiom.
That leaves us with answer choice (D).

Can someone explain when liberating and persuading are not parallel?

Liberating Orleans was part of the act of turning the tide of English victories. Persuading was a totally different act; you can parallellize liberating and persuading only when they are part of a list. In fact correct list is indeed turned and persuaded. That is the reason that they are required to be // rather than liberating and persuading

Concept Tested: Parallelism, Idioms
Difficulty: Moderate
Illustration:
A. The clause after "and" is an independent clause and thus requires a "," before the and.
B. Unidiomatic. "Persuaded X to do Y" is the correct idiomatic construction.
C. Unidiomatic. "Persuaded X to do Y" is the correct idiomatic construction.
D. Correct usage of parallel structure and idioms.
E. Same error as B and C. Also "should" implies moral obligation.

Point to note here is that "she" is not entirely redundant.
Maggie woke up with a rush, and she dressed up as fast as she could to meet her boyfriend.
Nothing is wrong with the above sentence.

Hello all,

I have a question/doubt in this question

Why not liberating is in parallel with persuading ?
It can be viewed as Joan of arc turned the tide of english victories in her country by doing two tasks :

1. by liberating the city of orleans
2. by persuading charles VII of france to claim his throne.

Why these two things not in parallel ??, and thus why C is not an answer??

Yes , C and E have an idiom error, but if we fix the idiom error, they may be the answer ?. So , my basic question is , why the above two are not parallel??

Hope somone would answer my query !! Confused

Alright, so your doubt is in C, so lets get directly down to C.

Apart form obvious idiom error, C doesnt maintain a parallel structure as well if we talk about the two tasks mentioned in your mail..
....... by liberating the city...... and [by] persuading "that"...... are not parallel.
On the other hand,
.......turned 'XYZ'.... and ......persuaded 'PQR'... would be perfectly parallel, as in D.


Without "that" C/E could have been parallel to liberating. However, even then meaning would be distorted.

Hi,

This is query is not related to this question, rather a general one.
For Example if the sentence is

"Joan of Arc, a young Frenchwoman who claimed to be divinely inspired, turned the tide of English victories in her country by doing X and by doing Y"

Can we remove the second by? and if yes, when can we do so ...

"Joan of Arc, a young Frenchwoman who claimed to be divinely inspired, turned the tide of English victories in her country by doing X and doing Y"
is this correct?

Hi - No you can't.

This doesn't make sense

"Joan of Arc, a young Frenchwoman who claimed to be divinely inspired, turned the tide of English victories in her country by doing X and by doing Y"

What you can do though is be more radical and cut out the 'doing' as well. The below sentence works out.

"Joan of Arc, a young Frenchwoman who claimed to be divinely inspired, turned the tide of English victories in her country by doing X and Y"
is this correct?

Hi Mike ,

I am bit confused on choosing elements that needs to be in parallelism.Please find below a problem form OG 13 -127 and my understanding on it.

Joan of Arc, a young Frenchwoman who claimed to be divinely inspired, turned the tide of English victories in her country by liberating the city of Orleans and she persuaded Charles VII of France to claim his throne.

(A) she persuaded Charles VII of France to claim his throne
(B) persuaded Charles VII of France in claiming his throne
(C) persuading that the throne be claimed by Charles VII of France
(D) persuaded Charles VII of France to claim his throne
(E) persuading that Charles VII of France should claim the throne

As per my understanding ,Joan of Arc , ..... , turned the tide of English victories in her country by liberating the city of Orleans and by persuading Charles VII of France to claim his throne.

Shouldn't 'by liberating ' and 'by persuading' be in parallel construction ?

Please Advise.

Thanks,
Vinay

Dear Vinay,
I'm happy to respond.

This is a very subtle logical point. Let's think about this. Joan or Arc "turned the tide of English victories in her country." Exactly how did she do this? Certainly one step was "by liberating the city of Orleans": liberating a major city sounds as if it could constitute a military reversal. Then the next action, "by persuading Charles VII of France to claim his throne" --- is this really the stuff of major military swings? Joan says to Charles VII, "You should claim the throne," and Charles VII says, "OK, I officially claim the throne." In any of that, did anything military happen? Did anything change that would really alter the fate of armies on the battlefield? Probably not. Words and claims, by themselves, rarely have much impact on the way battles turn out. That's why "persuading" is not properly in parallel with "liberating."

Instead, Joan of Arc is famous for two actions:
1) she turned the tide of English victories in her country by liberating the city of Orleans
2) she persuaded Charles VII of France to claim his throne
Action #2 is separate from the military stuff in action #1, and is parallel to it. These two verbs are in parallel in the OA.

Notice, the GMAT is kind to us and doesn't really make us wrestle with this logical subtlety, because the two answers with "persuading" are atrociously incorrect.

Does all this make sense?
Mike

Hi All,

I know that this was touched in many of the previous post's but I still have a question:

Ignoring other idiom issues, I ended up with "e" because i made the error of making "liberating" parallel to "persuading". I did this because I read backwards from "and" and made both ends of "and" parallel (Liberating and persuading).

How would I have known to go and make "turned" parallel to the second half?

Hi russ9,

Let’s try to figure out the difference in the original sentence and options D & E.


• Joan of Arc, a young Frenchwoman
• who claimed to be divinely inspired,
o turned the tide of English victories in her country by liberating the city of Orleans
• and she persuaded Charles VII of France to claim his throne.


MEANING

• The sentence tells us that a young Frenchwoman Joan of Arc turned the tide of English victories in her country. How did she do so? By liberating the city of Orleans.

o By the way, she claimed to be divinely inspired.

• Also, she persuaded Charles VII to claim his throne.


So, Joan of Arc did two things:
1. Turned the tide of English victories.
2. Persuaded Charles VII to claim his throne.



Now, let’s consider option E.

• Joan of Arc, a young Frenchwoman who claimed to be divinely inspired, turned the tide of English victories in her country
• by
o liberating the city of Orleans
o and persuading that Charles VII of France should claim his throne.


MEANING

• Joan of Arc turned the tide of English victories. How did she do so?

o By liberating the city of Orleans.

o And by persuading that Charles VII of France should claim his throne.



ERRORS

1. Now, it’s not clear from the sentence whom did Joan of Arc persuade?

2. Also, the action of persuading did not turn the tide of English victories. It was the action of liberating the city of Orleans that turned the tide.

3. ‘persuade’ is a verb that requires a use of infinitive (to + verb).


I persuaded him that he should go abroad for higher studies. (Incorrect)

I persuaded him to go abroad for higher studies. (Correct)


Option D corrects all these errors. (Note the use of ‘persuaded …. to claim’)

• Joan of Arc, a young Frenchwoman who claimed to be divinely inspired,
o turned the tide of English victories in her country by liberating the city of Orleans
o and persuaded Charles VII of France to claim his throne.


TAKE AWAYS

Our main focus should be on the intended meaning of the sentence. Specially in case of verb-ing modifiers, it becomes more important to focus on the meaning.


Hope this helps!
Manyu