kimmyg wrote:
As an actress and, more importantly, as a teacher of acting, Stella Adler was one of the most influential artists in the American theater, who trained several generations of actors including Marlon Brando and Robert De Niro.
(A) Stella Adler was one of the most influential artists in the American theater, who trained several generations of actors including
(B) Stella Adler, one of the most influential artists in the American theater, trained several generations of actors who include
(C) Stella Adler was one of the most influential artists in the American theater, training several generations of actors whose ranks included
(D) one of the most influential artists in the American theater was Stella Adler, who trained several generations of actors including
(E) one of the most influential artists in the American theater, Stella Adler, trained several generations of actors whose ranks included
I'm happy to respond.
The first thing I'll say is --- after the long introductory phrase before the underlined part, it's very natural to expect the name right away. Choice
(D) &
(E) are awkward in that they delay the name even further. Stella Adler is the focus of the sentence, the star of this particular sentence, so we want to get to her. Just as it wouldn't make sense to have a 3 hour movie in which we meet the star of the movie only in the last 30 minutes, so it doesn't make sense for the subject & focus of a sentence to be unnecessarily buried further & further in the sentence. That's one problem with
(D) &
(E). We will reject both of those.
(A) Stella Adler was one of the most influential artists in the American theater, who trained several generations of actors includingTrainwreck modifier mistake!! The phrase beginning with "
who" is an ordinary noun modifier, modifying the subject, Stella Adler. Noun modifiers much touch the noun they modifier. This is incorrect.
(B) Stella Adler, one of the most influential artists in the American theater, trained several generations of actors who includeMost of this is good, until the end. We get a weird shift in verb tense in the final verb --- everything in the sentence is past tense until we get to present test "
include." Why is this last verb in the present tense? That simply doesn't make sense with the rest of the sentence. This is incorrect.
(C) Stella Adler was one of the most influential artists in the American theater, training several generations of actors whose ranks includedBrilliant! I have to say, as someone who regularly writes GMAT SC practice questions, I am always impressed by the brilliance of the folks at GMAC. This one is 100% correct. Unlike the "
who" modifier in
(A), the "
training" modifier is a little more flexible ---- it can be thought of as modifying the entire independent clause, so it doesn't need to "touch" anything. The truly brilliant part is --- the sentence creates the expectation that the underlined section would end:
...
several generations of actors, including ...
That would have been perfectly correct. Of course, if we just replaced the active participle "including" with the passive participle "included", that would be entirely incorrect:
...
several generations of actors, included ...
Instead, the folks at GMAC came up with this very clever alternative:
...
several generations of actors whose ranks included...
This is different from what one might have expected, but it's 100% correct. Here, the word "
included" is not a participle, but a full bonafide verb, the verb of the clause beginning with "
whose ranks." Because this structure was unexpected and less familiar, I see that many folks on this page rejected choice
(C). That's the sign of a very well written question, if the correct answer is something that many people thing sounds wrong.
OA =
(C)laxieqv wrote:
btw, I double-check
...Robert was born in 1943 ....Brando 1924 ....clearly they were from two different generations
I don't know whether
laxieqv, who posted that comment 9 years ago, is still following this post, but just FYI, in the first
Godfather movie, Marlon Brando plays the elderly father Vito Corleone, and in the following,
Godfather II, Robert Di Nero (a generation younger than Brando), played the young Vito Corleone in the flashback portions. I highly recommend both of those movies as classics.
Does all this make sense?
Mike
_________________
Mike McGarry
Magoosh Test PrepEducation is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire. — William Butler Yeats (1865 – 1939)