The Book of Kells, an illumination of the four gospels

OFFICIAL SOLUTION

Notice, the “such … as” construction may involve the two words next to each other, or (as is far more likely on the GMAT SC!) separated by a word or words followed by an extended modifier.  Notice also that the use of “like” for a list of examples is always incorrect on the GMAT.

The second sentence, about the Book of Kells, a work of which I am deeply enamored, explores the “like” / ”as” / ”such as” split in a list of examples.  That sentence gives an example of “foreign pigments”, and the two examples are “indigo from India and lapis lazuli from Afghanistan.”  The possibilities are

Incorrect = “foreign pigments like indigo etc.” (none of the answers)
Correct = “such foreign pigments as indigo etc.” (answers (D) & (E))
Incorrect: “foreign pigments as indigo etc.” (missing the word “such”, answer (C))
Incorrect: “such foreign pigments like indigo etc.” (the disastrous “such…like” combination, answers (A) & (B).

That split immediately narrows the choices down to (D) and (E).  To finish the problem off, we need to consider the near-ubiquitous issue of parallelism.  The words “demonstration/demonstrated” and “incorporation/incorporated” need to be in the same form: in fact, they both need to be verbs, so that the subject “the Book of Kells” has a bonafide verb.  The only answer to get all of these correct is (E).
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I ll go with E.....

Demonstrated correctly modifies The Book of Kells .

Demonstrated and Incorporated - Maintain Parallelism.

such - as construction properly used in option E.

Ans should be A and the analysis below:


Indigo is a noun so Like should be used instead of as. As for Action Like for noun. So C , D and E out
Between A and B. A demonstration of what... : is a noun phrase so it describes about The Book of Kells correctly.
But Still not sure about the ||ism here. incorparated...demonstration looks me odd. Interesting to know the OA.

Careful, pictureperfect. Before worrying about such issues as like vs. as, make sure you have a workable sentence. It helps to ask what the main subject and verb of the sentence are. In A, there is no verb for the subject. Shortening it down, we have "The Book of Kells, an illumination, a demonstration and incorporated." There's no subject-verb pair, so it's not a sentence.

As for "like," that's what we use to compare nouns. To introduce examples, we say "such as" or "such X as." We can see this used correctly in D, E (the correct answer), and in the first line of my post!
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Thanks a lot "DmitryFarber". Completely ignored Such X as Y.

The subject The Book of Kelles requires a verb and not a noun, therefore demonstrated and not a demonstration
Further, the subject demonstrated ... and incorporated ...
Idiomatically the form should be Such X As Y and not Such X like Y
This leaves us only with E which uses the verb correctly and is parallel

For those in a hurry just one step forward. There is a parallelism marker 'and'; Demonstration or demonstrated in one arm should be matched by an equal part of speech on the other arm' Only E does that. You are home already. If you want to affirm you answer, then verify comparison aspects, 'such as' and 'such like'

(A) demonstration of what many consider the pinnacle of Celtic knotwork art and incorporated such foreign pigments like
(B) demonstrated what many consider the pinnacle of Celtic knotwork art and the incorporation of such foreign pigments like
(C) demonstrated what many consider the pinnacle of Celtic knotwork art and incorporating foreign pigments as
(D) demonstrated what many consider the pinnacle of Celtic knotwork art and the incorporation of such foreign pigments as
(E) demonstrated what many consider the pinnacle of Celtic knotwork art and incorporated such foreign pigments as
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Dear tuanquang269,
I'm happy to respond. Always fun to answer a question I have written!

This is a question about the Book of Kells, one of my favorite art works in the world!

Split #1: listing examples. For examples, we need to use "such ... as," and not "like." Choices (A) and (B) are wrong on this count, and choice (C) is questionable. Choice (D) and (E) have the correct structure.

Split #2: parallelism. The first main verb is "demonstrated." We need the second verb to be in parallel with this, "incorporated," not "incorporating" or "the incorporation."

All this is enough to isolate (E) as the only possible answer.

Does all this make sense?
Mike
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and incorporating such foreign pigments like indigo from India and lapis lazuli from Afghanistan.
Either it should be parallel with others by acting as modifier(use comma, instead of and) or should act as verb of main subj(it lacks helping verb)

B. and the incorporation of such foreign pigments like
Again either it should be dependent clause (hence use comma ) and act as modifier or act as Independent clause (lack of verb)
C. Similar error(lack of helping verb)
D. lack of helping verb
E. Two independent clause made parallel with use of and.

Can someone please explain, why (D) is not correct? It has is a slightly different meaning of a sentence, than in (E) (The book demonstrated pinnacle and incorporated pigments). In (D) I do see a parallel structure after "demonstrated": "...demonstrated (the pinnacle) AND (the incorporation)." The only possible wrong thing with (D) could be the wordiness in use of "incorporation" rather than verb "incorporate". Or that book can not demonstrate.

Option (D)

The Book of Kells, an illumination of the four gospels produced in eighth century Ireland, demonstrated what many consider the pinnacle of Celtic knotwork art and the incorporation of such foreign pigments as indigo from India and lapis lazuli from Afghanistan.

Option (E)

The Book of Kells, an illumination of the four gospels produced in eighth century Ireland, demonstrated what many consider the pinnacle of Celtic knotwork art and incorporated such foreign pigments as indigo from India and lapis lazuli from Afghanistan.

Thus parallelism is also at play in full form here...

Hope this helps !!
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Abhishek009 , thank you for your answer. What I mean, is - Option (D) for me looks like:

The Book of Kells, an illumination of the four gospels produced in eighth century Ireland, demonstrated what many consider the pinnacle of Celtic knotwork art and the incorporation of such foreign pigments as indigo from India and lapis lazuli from Afghanistan.

There would be a meaning issue if you consider incorporation parallel to pinnacle.
Many consider it the incorporation of foreign pigments.... the meaning is problematic. Incorporation of foreign pigments is a fact - many consider it incorporation (and a few does not consider it incorporation) does not make sense.

The Book of Kells, an illumination of the four gospels produced in eighth century Ireland, a demonstration of what many consider the pinnacle of Celtic knotwork art and incorporating such foreign pigments like indigo from India and lapis lazuli from Afghanistan.

(A) a demonstration of what many consider the pinnacle of Celtic knotwork art and incorporated such foreign pigments like
(B) demonstrated what many consider the pinnacle of Celtic knotwork art and the incorporation of such foreign pigments like
(C) demonstrated what many consider the pinnacle of Celtic knotwork art and incorporating foreign pigments as
(D) demonstrated what many consider the pinnacle of Celtic knotwork art and the incorporation of such foreign pigments as
(E) demonstrated what many consider the pinnacle of Celtic knotwork art and incorporated such foreign pigments as

Parallelism.!

E is correct

The Book of Kells, an illumination of the four gospels produced in eighth century Ireland, a demonstration of what many consider the pinnacle of Celtic knotwork art and incorporating such foreign pigments like indigo from India and lapis lazuli from Afghanistan.

(A) a demonstration of what many consider the pinnacle of Celtic knotwork art and incorporated such foreign pigments like - "like" not to be used for giving examples + "The book of Kells a demonstration" is of course wrong
(B) demonstrated what many consider the pinnacle of Celtic knotwork art and the incorporation of such foreign pigments like -"like" not to be used for giving examples
(C) demonstrated what many consider the pinnacle of Celtic knotwork art and incorporating foreign pigments as - "as" not to be used for giving examples + "demonstrated" and "incorporating" lacks the // structure
(D) demonstrated what many consider the pinnacle of Celtic knotwork art and the incorporation of such foreign pigments as - "demonstrated" and "the incorporation" do not fit together
(E) demonstrated what many consider the pinnacle of Celtic knotwork art and incorporated such foreign pigments as - "demonstrated" and "incorporated" fit in well together and are //, therefore CORRECT option

(A) a demonstration of what many consider the pinnacle of Celtic knotwork art and incorporated such foreign pigments like - has an idiom error (such...like)
(B) demonstrated what many consider the pinnacle of Celtic knotwork art and the incorporation of such foreign pigments like - has an idiom error (such...like)

(C) demonstrated what many consider the pinnacle of Celtic knotwork art and incorporating foreign pigments as - does not have the word 'such' to complete the 'such... as' idiom structure.

(D) demonstrated what many consider the pinnacle of Celtic knotwork art and the incorporation of such foreign pigments as - has a parallelism error.

(E) demonstrated what many consider the pinnacle of Celtic knotwork art and incorporated such foreign pigments as - has no error. Hence, (E) is the right answer choice.

Hello,

I correctly eliminated options A, B and C and was left with D and E.

I don't know why D is wrong. I think D and E could both be right. I chose D because I believed the pinnacle and the incorporation are parallel. The book of Kells, demonstrated, the pinnacle of knotwork art and the incorporation of (foreign pigments example) - Is this a meaning issue? Couldn't foreign pigments be incorporated in the book as ink etc?

Why is this wrong?

I understand why E is right, but I can't understand why D is more wrong than E, if that makes sense?

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