When the Calvinists could not agree with the established religious doc

Hi all,

Two idioms involved here: both X and Y (with X and Y need to be parallel) & Which (not correct in our case because it refers to the wrong word)

Therefore, eliminate A, B, C and E

Answer D!

Can we not choose D over B because of "Differing", as resulting and differing would be parallel to each other

Hi,

Why is C wrong, i didn't understand

WHICH is a MAJOR red flag!

Which refers to the word just next to it: "The flag, which was green, was destroyed" ==> Here which refers logically to the flag

In our case, which refers to Church

which resulted in the Religious Wars of the 16th century, and abandoned the Lutherans, who differed ==> becomes ==> church resulted in the Religious... Here, it makes no sense...

Which needs to be linked with the fact that they "broke" (which means to the action). And here it is not.

Hope it helps!

Hi Mike
I believe in In Option D "Differing" is modifying the action of the previous clause whose subject is They "Calvinists ".
If my understanding is correct then this modifier does not make much sense to me.
Can you please shed some more light on this.

hi,
the Q talks of two actions when the Calvinists could not agree with the established religious doctrine..
1) they broke with the Roman Catholic Church..
the verb+ing modifier " RESULTING" modifies/talks of the action or result of THIS preceding clause.....
SO breaking with the Roman Catholic Church resulted in in the Religious Wars of the 16th century...

2.they abandoned the Lutherans
the verb +ing modifier "DIFFERING" now modifies THIS clause...
SO the action of abandoning the Lutherans was in contrast with the thought process of fellow Protestants

Thanks Chetan
I missed it for some reason.
Anyways congrats for reaching 1000 Kudos (1000th was from me )

pretty straight forward one.
A and C can be eliminated right away, as the relative pronoun illogically refers to the preceded noun.
we need an ing modifier.
B - and the lutherans - looks like a noun without a verb. out.
D. looks good. broke with the church and abandoned the lutherans. 2 verbs for the same subject. ing modifiers correctly used.
E. and also redundant.

Hi mikemcgarry

Can you please help me understand the usage of both in this sentence. Is it not odd to say

"I both finished home work and played outside" as compared to "I did both finished homework and played outside". The non-underlined part uses the first one in the list.

Thanks in advance!

Dear neeraj609,
I'm happy to respond.

First of all, my friend, I am going to make a suggestion. When you are discussing individual words and their usage, please put the word in quote marks to distinguish it. You wrote:
Can you please help me understand the usage of both in this sentence.
At first, I thought you were trying to say:
Can you please help me understand the usage in both of these sentences?
Then I realized, you were trying to say:
Can you please help me understand the usage of "both" in this sentence?
Do you see the confusion caused by what you wrote? Part of studying for the GMAT effectively is learning how to communicate with precision. Imprecise communication in the business world costs millions of dollars in losses!

What you are asking is tricky is because it's not a point of grammar. It's a point of rhetoric. Remember that the GMAT SC is NOT simply a test of grammar. It is a test of grammar, logic, and rhetoric all together, and to pay attention to grammar and ignore the other two is disastrous.

Think about your original sentence, without the word "both."
"I finished home work and played outside."
Of course, this is not a particularly GMAT-like sentence. In this sentence as written, there are no surprises. In fact, the action it describes is entirely cliche. When a young person finishes her homework, we expect that young person to play outside. That is 100% predictable.

In the structure [subject]"both"[verb #1]"and"[verb #2], the word "both" is used for rhetorical emphasis, to highlight an unexpected combination of actions. If the two actions are expected with each other, as in your example sentence, the word "both" is 100% out of place. Consider this sentence:
My friend both dances ballet and practices karate.
In that sentence, the word "both" is entirely justified, because this combination of actions jars our expectations. Ballet is graceful and delicate, and we expect an artistic sensitive person to do that. Karate is a powerful martial art form, and we expect someone tough to practice that. The idea of someone who does both is entirely unexpected, and the word "both" highlights the fact that the combination is beyond our expectations.

This is precisely what is happening in this SC question. Historically, most groups that broke with the Roman Catholic Church during the Reformation banded together in alliance, so the fact that the Calvinist broke with the Catholics and also didn't align with the Lutherans jars our expectations. We wouldn't expect one group to take both of those actions. The word "both" serves rhetorically to highlight this broken expectation.

Does all this make sense?
Mike

Hi both Chetan2u and Mike, the experts. Thanks in advance.
I get all the wonderful explanations you guys made, but in this case what I don't get is the meaningof the sentence. In the second part of the sentence, the modifier "differing. ...is explaining how they did it, and doesn't seem probable that they abandoned the Lutherans by differing from their fellow Protestants on the doctrines of Communion and other theories of worship.

Can anyone explain the changes of meanings in the answer choices A, D & E?

Thanks.

Dear anonimo,
I'm happy to respond. First of all, here's the OA version, with (D):

When the Calvinists could not agree with the established religious doctrine, they both broke with the Roman Catholic Church, resulting in the Religious Wars of the 16th century, and abandoned the Lutherans, differing from their fellow Protestants on the doctrines of Communion and other theories of worship.

My friend, I don't know how much you know about the religious strife in Europe in the 16th century. You don't have to be an expert to approach GMAT SC, but the more you have a general sense of the flow of history, the easier it will be to understand these things in context.

Part of what was happening during this time is that everyone was at war with everyone else. It's not like today's world, in which people can say: "OK, you and I disagree about some political or religious ideal, but we still can live peacefully in the same society." Tolerance and diversity and cultural relativity are very new ideas in the history of humanity, and these most certainly were not widely appreciated in the 16th century. In those days, groups that were in religious/spiritual disagreement were almost automatically in political disagreement and therefore potentially at war with each other. The Roman Catholic Church of those days was as war with just about anyone who disagreed with it, so they were fighting both the Lutherans and the Calvinist. Now, the Calvinist could have done themselves a big favor, and the Lutherans as well, if they decided to cooperate with the Lutherans and form an alliance against the Roman Catholics. According to the sentence, they did not do that. The "abandoned" the Lutherans: this was not just philosophical/theological disagreeing about the Communion; instead, this theological disagreement precipitated a political disagreement, which put the Lutherans and Calvinists essentially at war with one another. It was a crazy time, a time hard to appreciate with our modern values. Today, simply differing in opinions about theological/religious questions would not be enough to cause war, at least among people studying for the GMAT! Of course, there are places of tremendous religious intolerance even in 2016: it might be helpful to realize that much of Europe in the 1500s was similar to these places of intolerance today.

Versions (A) & (E) don't change the meaning. They are just poorly written.

(A) makes a big pronoun mistake, using "which" to refer to an action. That's a classic GMAT grammar mistake. This has nothing to do with meaning. (C) also makes that mistake.

(E) is almost identical to (D), but it tosses in the un-idiomatic word "also." It's idiomatic not to use "also" with "both."
both X and Y = correct idiom
X and also Y = correct idiom
both X and also Y = incorrect idiomatically
Again, this has absolutely nothing to do with a change in meaning. This is purely an idiom mistake.

Does all this make sense?
Mike

Hi anonimo,
the efforts of Mike in giving even the history perspective is commendable..

Ill give you the answer from perspective of someone, who is not aware of the background to conflict..

The Q is..

Quote:

When the Calvinists could not agree with the established religious doctrine, they both broke with the Roman Catholic Church, which resulted in the Religious Wars of the 16th century, and with the Lutherans, differing from their fellow Protestants on the doctrines of Communion and other theories of worship.

A. which resulted in the Religious Wars of the 16th century, and with the Lutherans, differing

B. resulting in the Religious Wars of the 16th century, and the Lutherans, who differed

C. which resulted in the Religious Wars of the 16th century, and abandoned the Lutherans, who differed

D. resulting in the Religious Wars of the 16th century, and abandoned the Lutherans, differing

E. resulting in the Religious Wars of the 16th century, and also abandoned the Lutherans, who differed

You have asked about the choices A, D and E, so i'll restrict to these three choices..

1) whenever you have idioms such as not only X but Y, or both .X. and .Y..,
write both parts separately see if it makes sense..

lets see A..

When the Calvinists could not agree with the established religious doctrine, they both broke with the Roman Catholic Church, which resulted in the Religious Wars of the 16th century, and they with the Lutherans, differing from their fellow Protestants on the doctrines of Communion and other theories of worship.

a) you can see "they with the L" is missing the VERB...
had they said-- they broke both with X and with y-- would be correct
b) usage of "which" tells us that " the Roman Catholic Church" resulted in the Religious Wars of the 16th century-- this is non-sensical meaning..

lets see the D choice

When the Calvinists could not agree with the established religious doctrine, they both broke with the Roman Catholic Church, resulting in the Religious Wars of the 16th century, and abandoned the Lutherans, differing from their fellow Protestants on the doctrines of Communion and other theories of worship.

As I said we will go with the meaning as given to us, since we are not aware about the event..
I take the meaning " the action of abandoning Lutherans is in CONTRAST to what the fellow Ps believe the DOCTRINES stand for..

lets see the E choice

When the Calvinists could not agree with the established religious doctrine, they both broke with the Roman Catholic Church, resulting in the Religious Wars of the 16th century, and also abandoned the Lutherans, who differed from their fellow Protestants on the doctrines of Communion and other theories of worship.
this choice has two faults..
a) meaning issue:- this wrongly suggests that the Lutherans differed from their..., it was not Ls who differed but the action of abandoning Ls that differed from what fellow ...
b) also:- both and also convey the same meaning--- Redundancy

Hope it helps

Thanks again Mike and chetan2u for your elaborate responses. And to Mike also for the "speech", I think I touched your expertise subject..
What I didn't get is the difference between B and D in the modifiers (who vs differing) and now that you explained that the action of that clause is not done by the Ls but by the whole clause, it solves the grammar problem. Now it is just an understanding problem. ..
Thanks anyways.
Nice work you guys are doing!

Thank you for the wonderful discussion and your extensive explanations. One thing that comes into my mind is that I previously learned that ing-modifiers after a clause can be used for two Things:
- Describing the WHY of the clause (e.g. I am killing the snake, using a stick.)
- Result of the clause (e.g. I killed the ailing snake, ending its misery.)

In both cases the modifier should go along with the subject (e.g. I am ending its misery.).

In the example of this thread, the modifier can't go along with the subject in my opinion. The subject are the Calvinists. The Calvinists broke with the Romans, resulting in the Religious Wars. However, "The Calvinists resulting in the Religious Wars" isn't possible. Am I wrong that the modifier has to go with the subject?

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION

The correct response is (D). The word “both” earlier in the sentence comes before the verb "broke", meaning that the second portion of that structure, after "and", must come with its own verb to be parallel. Choices A and B fail to supply such a verb, and are therefore wrong.

Choices A and C commit another error, using the relative pronoun "which" to start the modifier "which resulted in the Religious Wars" - that modifier needs to describe the action of the Calvinists breaking with the Roman Catholic Church, not the church itself, so the participial modifier "resulting" is necessary.

Choice E commits a redundancy error with the word "also" - since the structure is already set up for "both broke...and abandoned", so "also" is superfluous and incorrect. The correct answer is D.

When the Calvinists could not agree with the established religious doctrine, they both broke with the Roman Catholic Church, which resulted in the Religious Wars of the 16th century, and with the Lutherans, differing from their fellow Protestants on the doctrines of Communion and other theories of worship.

A question of parallelism. The first ones to be eliminated are the choices with 'which' because there is no reference for 'which'.

a) which resulted in the Religious Wars of the 16th century, and with the Lutherans, differing ---- no referent for which

b) resulting in the Religious Wars of the 16th century, and the Lutherans, who differed -- resulting and who differed re not parallel.

c) which resulted in the Religious Wars of the 16th century, and abandoned the Lutherans, who differed - no referent for 'which'

d) resulting in the Religious Wars of the 16th century, and abandoned the Lutherans, differing -- correct choice; "broke with RC, resulting in and abandoned the Protestants, differing" is perfect parallelism.

e) resulting in the Religious Wars of the 16th century and also abandoned the Lutherans, who differed -- 'both and also' is redundant.