pavanpuneet wrote:
This is a very typical GMAT question .. in which they put in a modifier between and... thereby confusing between the parallel structure. One must closely look at the meaning intended and hence, A should be the right answer!
Hi there,
More than twenty-one centuries ago, the Han dynasty unified China,
subduing warring tribes and forced the vast territory to adopt a single code of laws.
Another very good example of a sentence where meaning plays a crucial role. If we don’t understand the meaning well, most likely we will mark the incorrect answer choice. So let’s begin the meaning analysis.
The sentence says that twenty-one centuries ago, the Han dynasty unified China. So how did they do so? They did so by subduing warring tribes. Then the sentence says that the Han dynasty “forced” the vast territory to adopt a single code of laws. If the Han rulers forced everyone to adopt single code of laws, isn’t that a move towards unifying China? Yes, it is. So the Han dynasty unified China by:
a. subduing warring tribes and
b. forcing the vast territory to adopt a single code of laws.
ERROR ANALYSIS
With this understanding of meaning, it is easy to spot that verb “forced” should be turned into a verb-ing modifier “forcing” to make it parallel to “subduing”. In that case, both the modifiers will present how the Han dynasty unified China.
POE:(A) subduing warring tribes and forced:
Incorrect for the reason discussed above.
(B) subduing warring tribes and forcing:
Correct. “forcing” is now parallel to “subduing”.
(C) subdued warring tribes, and forcing:
Incorrect. This choice changes verb-ing modifier “subduing” to verb “subdued” which is now parallel to “unified”. “and” is the indicator of a parallel list in the sentence. However, the last entity followed by “and”, “forcing” is not parallel to the other two entities. Also, this is not the intended list.
(D) subdued warring tribes, and it forced:
Incorrect. Presence of “it” is incorrect here. If there were no “it”, then all the entities would be parallel. However, this is not the intended list anyway.
(E) having subdued warring tribes, and they forced:
Incorrect. Plural pronoun “they” does not agree in number with its singular antecedent “Han dynasty”.
At
e-gmat we cover in details how to identify the correct parallel list and how to make the list parallel in the sentence in the concepts names
“Parallelism – Identify and Correct” and “Parallelism – Helpful Tips”.Hope this helps.
Thanks.
Shraddha
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