The pioneering research of Lewis Latimer and Thomas Edison, who became

Official Explanation

In the original sentence, the pronoun “his” lacks a clear antecedent, making it unclear whether it was “Lewis Latimer” or “Thomas Edison” who “became known for his invention of the light bulb.” In fact, the plural phrase "Lewis Latimer and Thomas Edison" leads us to expect a plural pronoun later on; if we only wish to refer to "Thomas Edison," we should position the modifying phrase so as to refer to "Thomas Edison" only.

Also, the construction “who became known for his invention” is wordy and could be replaced by the more concise form “known for his invention.”

(A) This choice is incorrect as it repeats the original sentence.

(B) This answer choice replaces the wordy construction “who became known for his invention” with the more concise form “known for his invention,” but retains the original ambiguity stemming from the lack of a clear antecedent for the pronoun “his.”

(C) CORRECT. By placing the modifier “known for his invention of the light bulb” immediately after “Thomas Edison” and prior to the introduction of “Lewis Latimer,” this answer choice resolves the original ambiguity and makes it clear that the pronoun “his” refers to “Thomas Edison” rather than “Lewis Latimer.” The construction “known for his invention” is also more concise than the original form “who became known for his invention.”

(D) This answer choice illogically states that it was the “pioneering research” rather than “Thomas Edison” that became “known for his invention of the light bulb,” thus altering the original meaning of the sentence. Further, this answer choice retains the original problem of ambiguity by failing to provide a clear antecedent for the pronoun “his.”

(E) This answer choice uses the passive construction “research that was conducted by Thomas Edison” rather than the more direct and concise form “research of Thomas Edison.” Further, while the placement of the modifier “who became known for his invention of the light bulb” next to Thomas Edison and prior to the introduction of “Lewis Latimer” resolves the ambiguity, the phrase “who became known for his invention” is wordy; the more concise form “known for his invention” is preferable.

Answer: C

C seems best here: of Thomas Edison, known for his invention of the light bulb, and Lewis Latimer

faults in bold :
of Lewis Latimer and Thomas Edison, who became known for his invention of the light bulb,
• of Lewis Latimer and Thomas Edison, known for his invention of the light bulb,------------>if you want to describe something about "Thomas Edison" then this construction is inferior to the one used in option C
• of Thomas Edison, known for his invention of the light bulb, and Lewis Latimer
• of Lewis Latimer and Thomas Edison became known for his invention of the light bulb and
• that was conducted by Thomas Edison, who became known for his invention of the light bulb, and Lewis Latimer

"known for his invention" is better construction that "who became known"

The pioneering research of Thomas Edison, known for his invention of the light bulb and Lewis Latimer, accelerated the development of the first power plant, which opened in New York City in 1882.

Correct answer must be (C) for the highlighted errors in the options...
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Please help me understand why options A and B are wrong and option C is right.

2 Errors in each of the options A and B:

1. The modifier ("who became known for his invention of the light bulb" in A / "known for his invention of the light bulb" in B) may wrongly refer to both Latimer and Edison.

2. It is not clear whom the pronoun "his" refers to, Latimer or Edison.

Dear experts,
Can you explain why should I choose option C over E?
IMO, option C says research of Thomas Edison + modifier + and latimar accelerated the development. Isn't it non-sensical to say that? I mean, the research of a person accelerated the the development? or it should be research + by someone which accelerated the development?

Because of the above confusion I marked option E.
daagh GMATNinja sayantanc2k

Writing "research of Thomas Edison" sounds like someone was researching thomas edison. That doesn't make much sense does it. Could you elaborate on the meaning of this sentence?

In this case, "the research of Thomas Edison" is meant to convey a meaning similar to that conveyed by "Thomas Edison's research."

While the interpretation that you have suggested would perhaps make sense in a different context, the context in which the wording "research of Thomas Edison" appears in this sentence indicates that the wording is not meant to convey that the research was about Thomas Edison but rather that the research belonged to or was possessed by Thomas Edison.

This advantage of using the "the research of" structure is that it allows conciseness and allows for the placement of the modifier "known for the invention of the light bulb" directly after "Thomas Edison."

If the sentence were to use "Thomas Edison's research" and "Lewis Latimer's research," it would be repetitive and less concise, and indicating that Thomas Edison is known for the invention of the light bulb would be challenging.
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Wouldn't it be much more clear if it was written as E in that case? It is perfect clear in E that the research was conducted BY thomas edison, not on thomas edison

I find (C) to be sufficiently clear. That it is is just my take.

At the same time, I don't find anything particularly wrong with (E), and perhaps what you are really asking is what to do should you, when taking the GMAT, run into a choice like the choice between (C) and (E). The answer to that question is that there is almost no chance that you will have to make such a choice. The wrong answers in the SC questions on the actual GMAT will be more clearly wrong than is choice (E), which has no clear issues.
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My understanding is that a relative pronoun mustn't follow a comma (or possibly leading within a comma pair) -- is this correct?

And because of this, having "known" leading within the comma pair is a better choice than "who." Thus, A is incorrect.

That's not a silly question at all. In fact, I see a lot of people using the same "rule" here on GMAT club. The thing to keep in mind (this is not specific to this question) is that there is no such rule. That is, this kind of who may or may not refer to the noun immediately before it. This is not to say that we shouldn't check a who/that/which if we see it in an option. It's just that we should not assume that a relative pronoun will always refer to the noun just before it.
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This is what I was searching.
Ah! finally I met someone who is thinking in my way.
I also have same doubt.

The research of Thomas Edison.....seems weird, isn't it?
Is someone is researching Thomas. I think it would be better if sentence were that "the research by Thomas...."

Please let me know if I am wrong.

Hi gvij2017,

You're not wrong, but research of can be used both ways. The research of XYZ could mean either research into XYZ or research conducted by XYZ.
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can't we reject C because it gives different meaning than E over what is known for his invention
read it again:
The pioneering research of Thomas Edison, known for his invention of the light bulb

But E has no such ambiguity.

2. of is not repeated after "and" . it could give parallelism error : research and Lewis in parallel which is WRONG

please suggest

sayantanc2k MartyTargetTestPrep AjiteshArun daagh GMATNinja egmat

Hi,

The commas are separating the modifier "known for his invention of the light bulb" from the rest of the sentence. Without the commas, the modifier would look out of place. The second comma is as necessary as the one just before 'known'.

The confusion probably arises because the conjunction (joining word) 'and' is present immediately after the modifier. However, the conjunction 'and' has been used to connect the nouns Thomas Edison and Lewis Latimer. The modifier is just an extra piece of information in between that gives us some information about Thomas Edison, and therefore has to be separated from the rest of the sentence with commas.

I hope this helps:)

Jayanthi Kumar.
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Hi itsSKR,

You may want to also tag one or more Manhattan instructors on this one. For what it's worth, research of {someone} is quite common, and I wouldn't consider it a major problem.

As for the of: Keeping the of outside the Y in of X and Y helps to convey the meaning that this was a collaboration between X and Y. If we instead went with of X and of Y, we might think that X and Y worked independently (compare the research of X and Y with the research of X and of Y). It's good that the question doesn't ask us to take that kind of call though.
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