Aho, a Kiowa matriarch, held festivals in her home, they featured the

A is a runon sentence.

D and E are contenders.. However, E changes the meaning by modifying the house instead of the festivals.

D is the answer.

Basically, "that featured" should modify "festivals," rather than "home."

Hi there,

e-gmat team wishes you all a very Happy New Year.

Aho, a Kiowa matriarch, held festivals in her home, they featured the preparation of great quantities of ceremonial food, the wearing of many layers of colorful clothing adorned with silver, and the recounting of traditional tribal jokes and stories.

It is rather easy to eliminate choices A, B, and C. So let’s analyze the two close answer choices:

(D) In her home, Aho, a Kiowa matriarch, held festivals that featured: Correct. Relative pronoun “that” correctly refers to the preceding noun entity “festivals”.

(E) Aho, a Kiowa matriarch, held festivals in her home that featured: Incorrect. Here “that” refers to “home”. Well, a noun modifier can certainly refer to the slightly far away noun that is the head of the preceding noun phrase of the noun modifier. However, in this case “that” cannot jump over “in her home” to refer to “festivals” because “in her home modifies” the verb “held” and not the noun “festivals”. This is the reason why it can be placed somewhere else in the sentence as seen in the correct choice and thus “that” cannot jump over this prepositional phrase to refer to the far away noun “festivals”.

To know in details when Noun Modifiers can refer to the far away nouns and when they cannot, claick on the following link to read the detailed article:
https://gmatclub.com/forum/noun-modifier ... 35868.html

Hope this helps.
Thanks.
Shraddha

I would go for D,
Aho, a Kiowa matriarch, held festivals in her home, they featured the preparation of great quantities of ceremonial food, the wearing of many layers of colorful clothing adorned with silver, and the recounting of traditional tribal jokes and stories.

(A) Aho, a Kiowa matriarch, held festivals in her home, they featured ---they has no reference
(B) Festivals were held in Aho, a Kiowa matriarch’s home, which featured--- here we have to use 'that' clause and moreover 'which' should modify festivals not homes
(C) Aho, who was a Kiowa matriarch in her home, held festivals featuring ---here featuring is verb, which is present continuos tense,but according to the meaning the verb should be pastense
(D) In her home, Aho, a Kiowa matriarch, held festivals that featured ---here the wrong in c is corrected i.e the tense of 'featured' and the that is correctly referring to festivals
(E) Aho, a Kiowa matriarch, held festivals in her home that featured ---- here that can modify home or festivals.So ambiguous choice

I have doubt on E, why 'that' modifies but not festivals. Because I read a rule 'that' modifies nearest grammatically and logically eligible word. But this questions seems to be an exception. Please explain....

This is not an exception but an illustration of an important rule used frequently in GMAT, the modifier touch rule.

As per modifier touch rule, a modifier should in general refer to the noun it touches. In option E "that" wrongly refers to "home". In option D "that" correctly refers to "festivals". Therefore D is better than E.

I think I am a little late to the party, but here is my question:
Aho, a Kiowa matriarch, held festivals in her home, they featured the preparation of great quantities of ceremonial food, the wearing of many layers of colorful clothing adorned with silver, and the recounting of traditional tribal jokes and stories.

In A, they can refer to festivals as they can refer to non human things. Then, why can the section after comma not be considered an absolute phrase?

P.S.: I understand D is much more direct, but why not A?

POE:
A) Aho, a Kiowa matriarch, held festivals in her home, they featured Incorrect

=> IC,IC (run on sentence)

(B) Festivals were held in Aho, a Kiowa matriarch's home, which featured Incorrect

=> 'which featured..' modifies home. Per the original meaning, festivals fearured..

(C) Aho, who was a Kiowa matriarch in her home, held festivals featuring Incorrect

=> Modifier placement error: Festivals should be held in her home.

(D) In her home, Aho, a Kiowa matriarch, held festivals that featured Correct

(E) Aho, a Kiowa matriarch, held festivals in her home that featured Incorect

=> 'that fearured' should modify festivals not her home.

Posted from my mobile device

Aho, a Kiowa matriarch, held festivals in her home, they featured the preparation of great quantities of ceremonial food, the wearing of many layers of colorful clothing adorned with silver, and the recounting of traditional tribal jokes and stories.

(A) Aho, a Kiowa matriarch, held festivals in her home, they featured -> "they" pronoun doesn't have a precedent. Incorrect.

(B) Festivals were held in Aho, a Kiowa matriarch's home, which featured -> Does home featured something. Incorrect.

(C) Aho, who was a Kiowa matriarch in her home, held festivals featuring -> She was "Kiowa matriarch in her home" doesn't make sense. Incorrect.

(D) In her home, Aho, a Kiowa matriarch, held festivals that featured -> It is better. Let's keep it.

(E) Aho, a Kiowa matriarch, held festivals in her home that featured -> Same as B. Incorrect.

So, I think D.

Can't A be the right answer? Isn't "they featured...." an absolute phrase ??

GMATNinja VeritasKarishma

https://gmatclub.com/forum/about-70-percent-of-the-tomatoes-grown-in-the-united-states-come-from-162915.html
Have a look at this question and please help me understand whether "they featured..." is an absolute phrase or not?


EDIT
I am guessing because of the pronoun "they" it is not an absolute phrase !!
If the second part of the sentence were to start with "she" and were modifying (giving more information about her), then we could have called it an absolute phrase right?

Doesn't ' In her home, Aho , ..' sound like 'In her home' is modifying Aho, and it would mean that Aho refers to the home? I do not think D is 100% ideal

Hi Vishalcv, it's like this

In his career, Tendulkar hit numerous centuries.

Here, the pronoun his is referring to Tendulkar.

In general, whenever a pronoun (her in this case) appears as a part introductory modifier (In her home in this case), the pronoun refers to the noun immediately after the introductory modifier (Aho in this case). Hence, her correctly refers to Aho in option D.

Please note that this is one prominent scenario, wherein the pronoun (her) appears before the noun (Aho).

p.s. Our book EducationAisle Sentence Correction Nirvana discusses cases, wherein the pronoun appears before the antecedent, their application and examples in significant detail. If you or someone is interested, PM me your email-id; I can mail the corresponding section.

Thank you for the classification Sir.

'They featured A, B and C' is an independent clause with its own subject and an action verb. It is not an absolute phrase. We can have pronouns in absolute phrases. An absolute phrase modifies the previous clause as a whole.
'Aho held festivals in her home' is another independent clause. You cannot join the two with a comma as done in (A).

Check here to understand absolute phrases: https://www.gmatclub.com/forum/veritas-prep-resource-links-no-longer-available-399979.html#/2014/0 ... -the-gmat/

Hi All,

Can someone please explain why 'they' in A is incorrect? Isn't it referring to the plural 'festivals' in the sentence?

Also, why are we going for 'that' when 'festivals' is plural. Shouldn't we use 'those' ?

Hi Prachi, you are right. they in A correctly refers to festivals.

However, A is incorrect, because A is (what's called) a run-on sentence: following two Independent clauses, connected by just a comma -

i) Aho, a Kiowa matriarch, held festivals in her home

ii) they featured the preparation of great quantities of ceremonial food, the wearing of many layers of colorful clothing adorned with silver, and the recounting of traditional tribal jokes and stories.

You can watch our video on Independent and Dependent Clauses.


that is used as a relative pronoun here and is a very appropriate usage. For example:

I like cars that run fast.

p.s. Our book EducationAisle Sentence Correction Nirvana discusses run-on sentences and relative pronouns, their application and examples in significant detail. If you or someone is interested, PM me your email-id; I can mail the corresponding section.

"In her home, Aho, a Kiowa matriarch, held festivals that featured..."

Isnt a little odd to start the meaning with the adverbal here? I would have written:

"Aho, a Kiowa matriarch, in her home held festivals that featured".

Posted from my mobile device