In 1923, the Supreme Court declared a minimum wage for women and child

I'm happy to respond. Here's my analysis.

Split #1: the idiom for "declare." The word declare idiomatically does not take a preposition --- the correct idiom is simply "to declare X Y", where X is some noun and Y is some judgement.
... to declare the assailant guilty ...
... to declare the new discovery invalid ...
... to declare the soup delicious ...
There is no preposition between the noun and the judgement. Putting the preposition "as" into this structure is incorrect:
... to declare the assailant as guilty ...
Every answer choice with the word "as" before the word "unconstitutional" makes this same mistake. On the basis of this split, we immediately can eliminate choices (A), (B), and (E). (Each one of those also has other problems!!)

After one split, we are down to only two choices. Choices (C) & (D) are both grammatically and idiomatically correct. The profound difference is in Rhetorical Construction. For more on that, see:
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2013/rhetorical ... orrection/
Choice (C) is strong, direct, sleek, and powerful. Choice (D) is passive, indirect, flaccid, and mealy-mouthed. The choice between them is stark. Choice (C) is much better, and is clearly the best answer.

Notice that the modifying phrase beginning with the word "ruling" is a verb modifier, a.k.a. an adverbial phrase. Unlike noun modifiers, these are not subject to the Touch Rule, so we don't have to contort the first half of the sentence into a grammatical pretzel just so that the words "supreme court" are touching that modifier. For more on the Touch Rule, see:
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2013/modifiers- ... orrection/

Does all this make sense?
Mike

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 core meaning of this sentence is that the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional a minimum wage for women and children in the District of Columbia, and in the process rules that it was a form of price-fixing.

Concepts tested here: Meaning + Modifier + Grammatical Construction + Parallelism + Awkwardness/Redundancy

• Any elements linked by a conjunction (“and" in this sentence) must be parallel.
• 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; comma cannot be used to join two independent clauses.

A: This answer choice incorrectly uses the "comma + conjunction ("and" in this sentence)" construction to link the independent clause "the Supreme Court declared a minimum wage for women and children in the District of Columbia as unconstitutional" to the dependent clause "ruling that it was a form of price-fixing"; please remember, 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; comma cannot be used to join two independent clauses. Further, Option A fails to maintain parallelism between "declared a minimum wage...unconstitutional" and "ruling that it was a form of price-fixing"; please remember, any elements linked by a conjunction ("and" in this sentence) must be parallel. Additionally, Option A uses the needlessly wordy phrase "declared...as", leading to awkwardness and redundancy.

B: This answer choice incorrectly uses the "comma + conjunction ("and" in this sentence)" construction to link the independent clause "the Supreme Court declared as unconstitutional a minimum wage for women and children in the District of Columbia" to the dependent clause "ruling that it was a form of price-fixing"; please remember, 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; comma cannot be used to join two independent clauses. Further, Option B fails to maintain parallelism between "declared as unconstitutional...Columbia" and "ruling that it was a form of price-fixing"; please remember, any elements linked by a conjunction ("and" in this sentence) must be parallel. Additionally, Option B uses the needlessly wordy phrase "declared as", leading to awkwardness and redundancy.

C: Correct. This answer choice acts upon the independent noun "the Supreme Court" with the active verb "declared" to form a complete thought, leading to a complete sentence. Further, Option C uses the active voice clause "the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional a minimum wage for women and children in the District of Columbia"; thus the noun "the Supreme Court" is acted upon by "ruling that it was a form of price-fixing", conveying the intended meaning - that the Supreme Court ruled that a minimum wage for women and children in the District of Columbia was a form of price-fixing. Additionally, Option C correctly uses a comma to link the independent clause "the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional a minimum wage for women and children in the District of Columbia" to the dependent clause "ruling that it was a form of price-fixing". Moreover, Option C avoids the parallelism error seen in Options A and B, as it uses no conjunctions. Besides, Option C is free of any awkwardness or redundancy.

D: This answer choice alters the meaning of the sentence through the clause "a minimum wage for women and children in the District of Columbia was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court"; the use of the passive voice leads to the noun "a minimum wage" being acted upon by "ruling that it was a form of price-fixing", illogically implying that a minimum wage for women and children in the District of Columbia ruled that it was a form of price-fixing; the intended meaning is that the Supreme Court ruled that a minimum wage for women and children in the District of Columbia was a form of price-fixing.

E: This answer choice fails to form a complete sentence; "In 1923", "when the Supreme Court declared...unconstitutional", and "ruling that it was a form of price-fixing...contract" are all modifiers; thus there is no independent noun or clause for the modifier to act upon. Further, Option E uses the needlessly wordy phrase "declared as", leading to awkwardness and redundancy.

Hence, C is the best answer choice.

To understand the usage of punctuation on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~9 minutes):



All the best!
Experts' Global Team

I think C is better than D. "ruling" in C modifies the supreme court whereas it modifies a minimum wage in D.

The gist of the passive voice sentence in D is: A minimum wage was declared illegal by the Supreme court. This act must have been done by
A body of people such as Supreme court or the Legal Dept and so on. The declaration could not have been made by the minimum wage. For a logical predication, it requires SC to act as the doer of the action. That is the reason it requires a clause which is active rather than passive.

This is my opinion.

Whenever you spot an and, please make sure the structure following the and is grammatically similar with something preceding the and (for the simple reason that and joins two or more entities).

In A, and B, the structure following the and is: (and) ruling that it was a form of price fixing
But there is nothing preceding the and that is grammatically similar to this structure.

So, A and B would have been better if the non-underlined portion had: ..and ruled.. (and not ..and ruling..), because in that case the portions before and after and would have been grammatically similar: ...the supreme court declared...and ruled...

Reiterating, the structure in A and B: ...the supreme court declared...and ruling... is not a grammatically parallel structure.

Hi Mike,

1. In answer choice C, isn't it idiomatically incorrect? Declared a X(minimum wage) as Y(unconstitutional)?

2. Out of curiosity , which verb is the above highlighted verb modifier referring to ?

3. The idiom "Declared A B" is equivalent to "Consider A B", isn't it? Are there any other words that run along the same lines?

Dear russ9
With all due respect, I don't believe the word "as" even appears in choice (C).

You are perfectly correct that declare X as Y would be idiomatically incorrect.



Here's the OA version:
In 1923, the supreme court declared unconstitutional a minimum wage for women and children in the district of Columbia, ruling that it was a form of price fixing and, as such, an abridgment of the right of contract.
The participle "ruling" is a verb-modifier, or one might say a "clause modifier" --- there's actually not a sharp distinction between a verb modifier and a clause modifier. It provides the content of the court's decision, the effect of their action. This is typical for a verb modifier.
I told Kevin he was very smart, making him feel good about himself.
The bond market fell precipitously, sending stocks into a panic.
At Austerlitz, Napoleon crushed the Third Coalition, bringing an end to the Holy Roman Empire.
In each one, the first part, in green, is an independent clause, and the second part, in purple, is a verb-modifier giving the effect of the action, the result.

Does this make sense?



In terms of common words, likely to appear on the GMAT, there are no other words in this pattern. BTW, here are some free GMAT Idiom Flashcards:
https://gmat.magoosh.com/flashcards/idioms
Mike

(A) the Supreme Court declared a minimum wage for women and children in the District of Columbia as unconstitutional, and:
*AS+NOUN: IN THE ROLE OF- NONSENSICAL HERE
* AND: CANNOT BE USED FOR JOINING A CLAUSE WITH VERBING MODIFIER (RULING)


(B) the Supreme Court declared as unconstitutional a minimum wage for women and children in the District of Columbia, and:
SAME ERRORS AS A

(C) the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional a minimum wage for women and children in the District of Columbia,:
CORRECT

(D) a minimum wage for women and children in the District of Columbia was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court,:
SUBJECT 'A MINIMUM WAGE' DOESN'T MAKE SENSE WITH VERBING MODIFIER 'RULING'

(E) when the Supreme Court declared a minimum wage for women and children in the District of Columbia as unconstitutional,:
NO MAIN CLAUSE IN THE SENTENCE

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GMATNinja , GMATNinjaTwo , egmat

I thought D was the correct answer because the non -underlined word 'ruling' correctly modifies the 'supreme court' at the end of the sentence. Is that correct?
Also how do we realize which word the modifier is modifying (in this case - 'ruling'). Sometimes it could be the subject at the start of the sentence or sometimes the last word of the sentence.
Your reply would be well appreciated.

Hello Deepit,

Thank you for your query.


The verb-ing modifiers modify the preceding noun entities when they are NOT preceded by a comma. For example:

The man wearing the red hat is my uncle.

In the above-mentioned sentence, wearing modifies the preceding noun The man.

When a verb-ing modifier is preceded by a comma and is placed after a clause, then it modifies the action in the preceding clause. In such a modification, the action presented by the comma + verb-ing modifier must make sense with the doer of the modified action.

Same is the structure we see in the correct answer choice of this official sentence as well.

In 1923, the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional a minimum wage for women and children in the District of Columbia, ruling that it was a form of price-fixing and, as such, an abridgment of the right of contract.

As you can see, the verb-ing modifier ruling is preceded by the comma and placed after the clause. Hence, it is an action modifier. It modifies the action declared in the preceding clause.

The sentence intends to say that the Supreme Court declared xyz unconstitutional. In doing so, the court ruled something. So you see, in choice C, the action of ruled makes sense with the doer - the Supreme Court - of the modified action declared.

But this is not the case with Choice D. Choice D seems to suggest that a minimum wage did the action of ruling. This is certainly not the intended logical meaning.

You can learn all about the Verb-ing Modifiers at e-GMAT by simply registering at e-gmat.com for free. This concept is part of our Free Trial course.


Hope this helps.
Thanks
Shraddha

Hey there,

I am quite confused by answer choice c, because it sounds as the court declared a minimum wage for women and that was unconstitutional.
But in my point of view it should be "the court declared X as Y".
Can anyone help me with this? I am not a native speaker.

Hi Echterlini , I will be happy to help but I cannot tell which part of the discussion above does not make sense.

This sentence is really hard for native speakers (we do not typically speak this way)—for non-native speakers I think the sentence must sound a little crazy.


Either unconstitutional or a is not in the right place to sustain your interpretation.

The official version:
(C) the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional a minimum wage for women and children in the District of Columbia,
This option describes what the Supreme Court decided about a minimum wage [law].
The Court decided that the law was unconstitutional and declared it unconstitutional.

Here is the version that would support your [incorrect] interpretation:
The Supreme Court declared (established) an unconstitutional minimum wage for women and children in the District of Columbia
This option is someone's opinion about the character of a law that the Court itself established (declared).
A commentator analyzes the minimum wage "declared" by the Court itself and announces that the Court's new rule is unconstitutional.

• Idiom Declare X Y

Above, Mike McGarry wrote, "declare X as Y would be idiomatically incorrect."
The official explanation for this question says the same thing: "This sentence depends on the correct use of an idiom: the court declares x unconstitutional."

About options A, B, and E, in which Declare X as Y is used, the author of the OE reiterates that "Declared as . . . unconstitutional is not the correct idiom."

• Structure of the idiom and function in this sentence
Declare (NOUN X) (NOUN Y)
or
Declare (NOUN X) (ADJECTIVE Y) ← this sentence uses this version

The noun, X, is minimum wage [for women and children in D.C.]
The adjective, Y, is unconstitutional

We need to invert the form in option C because the noun minimum wage is followed by modifiers that make the noun phrase very long.

If we tack on Y = "unconstitutional" after all those prepositional phrases,
we lose the direct connection between declared and unconstitutional,
a connection that is required by the idiom Declare X Y

Idioms can be strange. This one, as mentioned above, resembles Consider X Y.

One way to think about this idiom is that some words are omitted—just do not insert those words.
-- He declared the chocolate layer cake [to be] a culinary masterpiece.
-- He declared the chocolate layer cake [as] delicious beyond description
(I am NOT saying that these renditions are correct. They are not. They might help to clarify the logic.
Even if the logic does not make sense, memorize this one. Often we cannot explain why idioms are the way they are.)

I hope that helps.

Hi GMATNinja generis

Just to clear my concept on something.

In choice (C) if instead of 'a minimum wage', 'THE minimum wage' is used, will it mean that one particular wage was declared unconstitutional ? The 'a minimum wage' correctly points to the 'minimum wage' as a statute and not as a number ?

Sure, you could argue that by using "a" instead of "the", it's possible that there are multiple minimum wages, only one of which was deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1923. But that interpretation doesn't really make much sense given the context:

• Does the District of Columbia have multiple minimum wages? I guess it's possible to have different minimum wages that, for example, apply to different groups of people.
• But without any other information, this sentence certainly suggests that there is only one single minimum wage in the District of Columbia.

That said, I do think that there is a subtle meaning difference between "a minimum wage" and "the minimum wage"...

• If we use "THE minimum wage" in this context, it sounds like we are referring to a minimum wage that already existed -- one that the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional in 1923.
• However, if we use "A minimum wage" in this context, it sounds like the minimum wage has not yet been implemented -- as though a minimum wage was proposed but struck down before it was ever implemented.

Is that interpretation debatable? Absolutely. Can we come up with black and white rules dictating the meaning nuances of "a" vs "the"? Absolutely not. We have to pay close attention to the context in each new question and think really hard about what makes the most sense.

Luckily, all five answer choices use "a minimum wage," so clearly the GMAT doesn't want us to worry too much about this subtle point.

I hope that helps!

I went with option D, as "declared unconstitutional a minimal wage" sounded awkward than a passive voice.
#1) Is this same as "declared a minimum wage for women and children unconstitutional,"?
#2) does this mean, the X,Y in idioms like "declare X Y" and "consider X Y" is interchangeable?

Looking for a general rule and more examples of this sort.

Appreciate your help!

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First, the bad news: there is no general rule here. In some instances, "consider X Y" and "consider Y X" will both make sense. Other times, they won't. It all depends on the context of the sentence.

For example, I can consider the terrible storm a hurricane. And I can consider the hurricane a terrible storm. In this case, while the declarations aren't identical, they provide similar information and are both logical.

But that won't always be the case. For instance: I can consider Tim a menace to his children. But I probably wouldn't consider a menace Tim to his children, since this would mean that I'm first thinking about an abstract menace, and then naming it for someone's kids. That would be very weird.

This is all to say: as with many constructions, there's no general that you can apply blindly. You're going to have to reason through the logic of unique constructions in real time. This is what makes the GMAT so hard -- otherwise, we'd all just memorize what we needed to memorize and then shift into autopilot once the exam began.

As others have noted, a good reason to eliminate (D) is that it sounds as though the minimum wage is what's doing the ruling, an interpretation that's clearly illogical. So rather than agonizing about "awkwardness" -- which is inherently subjective -- we can get to the correct answer with a more objective analysis: does this phrase make sense?

The takeaway: if, during the exam, you find yourself asking the question "is this a rule?" assume that there is no rule. (Even if there is one, a rule that you don't know won't help you!) Instead, default to meaning and clarity, since we know for sure that an illogical option cannot be the correct answer.

I hope that helps!