Patience Lovell Wright, whose travelling waxworks exhibit preceded Mad

Dear Friends,

Here is a detailed explanation to this question-

Meaning is crucial to solving this problem:
Understanding the intended meaning is key to solving this question; the intended core meaning of this sentence is that Patience Lovell Wright became as well known for her eccentric personality as she did for her skillful wax renderings of popular public figures.

Concepts tested here: Meaning + Parallelism + Awkwardness/Redundancy

• “as much A as B” is the correct, idiomatic construction; A and B must be parallel.
• “as A as B” is a correct, idiomatic usage; A and B must be parallel.

A: This answer choice alters the meaning of the sentence through the phrases “having an eccentric personality” and "having skillfully rendered popular public figures in wax”; the construction of these phrases incorrectly implies that Patience Lovell Wright became as well known for taking the action of having an eccentric personality as she did for having taken the action of skillfully rendering popular public figures in wax; the intended meaning is that Patience Lovell Wright became as well known for her eccentric personality, itself, as she did for her skillful wax renderings of popular public figures, themselves. Further, Option A uses the passive voice construction “having skillfully rendered popular public figures in wax”, rendering it awkward and needlessly wordy.

B: This answer choice alters the meaning of the sentence through the phrase “having an eccentric personality”; the construction of this phrase incorrectly implies that Patience Lovell Wright became well known for taking the action of having an eccentric personality; the intended meaning is that Patience Lovell Wright became well known for her eccentric personality, itself. Further, Option B fails to maintain parallelism between A (“for having an eccentric personality”) and B (“for her skillful wax renderings of popular public figures”) in the idiomatic construction “as much A as B”; please remember, “as much A as B” is the correct, idiomatic construction; A and B must be parallel.

C: This answer choice fails to maintain parallelism between A (“because of her eccentric personality”) and B (“she was for her skillful wax renderings of popular public figure”) in the idiomatic construction “as much A as B”; please remember, “as much A as B” is the correct, idiomatic construction; A and B must be parallel.

D: This answer choice alters the meaning of the sentence through the phrases “having an eccentric personality” and "having skillfully rendered popular public figures in wax”; the construction of these phrases incorrectly implies that Patience Lovell Wright became as well known for taking the action of having an eccentric personality as she did for having taken the action of skillfully rendering popular public figures in wax; the intended meaning is that Patience Lovell Wright became as well known for her eccentric personality, itself, as she did for her skillful wax renderings of popular public figures, themselves. Further, Option D fails to maintain parallelism between A (“for having an eccentric personality”) and B (“having skillfully rendered popular public figures in wax”) in the idiomatic construction “as A as B”; please remember, “as A as B” is the correct, idiomatic construction; A and B must be parallel. Additionally, Option D uses the passive voice construction “having skillfully rendered popular public figures in wax”, rendering it awkward and needlessly wordy.

E: Correct. This answer choice uses the phrases “her eccentric personality” and “her skillful wax renderings of popular public figures”, conveying the intended meaning – that Patience Lovell Wright became as well known for her eccentric personality, itself, as she did for her skillful wax renderings of popular public figures, themselves. Further, Option E correctly maintains parallelism between A (“for her eccentric personality”) and B (“for her skillful wax renderings of popular public figures” in the idiomatic construction “as A as B”. Additionally, Option E is free of any awkwardness or redundancy.

Hence, E is the best answer choice.

All the best!
Experts' Global Team

Firstly marcodonzelli I very much agree with you to have high scores we all need to reason our answers.
I did most of the times.But missed a few
Patience Lovell Wright, whose traveling waxworks exhibit preceded Madame Tuscan’s work by 30 year, became well known as much because of having an eccentric personality as for having skillfully rendered popular public figures in wax.

(A) well known as much because of having an eccentric personality as for having skillfully rendered popular public figures in wax
Eliminated=>
1. because of having is wordy.
2. "of having" and "for having" not parallel

(B) well known as much for having an eccentric personality as for skillful wax renderings of popular public figures.
Hold it
(C) well known as much because of her eccentric personality as she was for her skillful wax renderings of popular public figures.
not parallel ... its very clear
(D) as well known for having an eccentric personality as having skillfully rendered popular public figures in wax.
not parallel ... its very clear ;
1. X became as well ( known ...) as ( having ...)
2. X became well as much ( for .... ) as ( for ...)
I find the construction [2] better than [1].

(E) as well known for her eccentric personality as for her skillful wax renderings of popular public figures.
Same as D

E.

B and E are contenders.
Now, in B something which is possessed by Wright is compared with something which he/she is doing.

In E, something which Wright possesses(personality) is compared with something which Wright possesses(skillful renderings)

Hi Experts,
In the following question:

Q:Patience Lovell Wright, whose traveling waxworks exhibit preceded Madame Tuscan’s work by 30 year, became well known as much because of having an eccentric personality as for having skillfully rendered popular public figures in wax.

(A)well known as much because of having an eccentric personality as for having skillfully rendered popular public figures in wax
(B)well known as much for having an eccentric personality as for skillful wax renderings of popular public figures.
(C)well known as much because of her eccentric personality as she was for her skillful wax renderings of popular public figures.
(D)as well known for having an eccentric personality as having skillfully rendered popular public figures in wax.
(E)as well known for her eccentric personality as for her skillful wax renderings of popular public figures.

Could any body explain 'became well known' or 'became as well known' is correct?

Also for me B is looking good because as much ......as is idiomatically correct...and the the phrases following as much and as are also parallel....

Thanks
-Amit

The given text is a test of symmetrical //ism in a two part sentence. This is not testing the correctness of either 'became well known' or 'became as well known'. Both are correct in their own right in appropriate contexts.


(A) well known ‘as much because of having’ an eccentric personality ‘as for having’ ------- un//.


(B) well known ‘as much for having an eccentric personality’ ‘as for skillful wax renderings’ of popular public figure. …..un//

(C) well known ‘as much because of her’ eccentric personality ‘as she was for’ her skillful wax renderings of popular public figures. …..un//

(D) as well known ‘for having an eccentric’ personality ‘as having skillfully’ rendered popular public figures in wax. ----- un//

(E)’as well known for her eccentric’ personality ‘as for her skillful wax renderings’ of popular public figures. …… // correct choice




Nope; B flouts the //ism by missing something similar to ‘having’ in the second arm

E

Q:Patience Lovell Wright, whose traveling waxworks exhibit preceded Madame Tuscan’s work by 30 year, became well known as much because of having an eccentric personality as for having skillfully rendered popular public figures in wax.

(A)well known as much because of having an eccentric personality as for having skillfully rendered popular public figures in wax
(B)well known as much for having an eccentric personality as for skillful wax renderings of popular public figures.
(C)well known as much because of her eccentric personality as she was for her skillful wax renderings of popular public figures.
(D)as well known for having an eccentric personality as having skillfully rendered popular public figures in wax.
(E)as well known for her eccentric personality as for her skillful wax renderings of popular public figures.

as much because is unidiomatic and awkward- hence a, and c are out.

having is just verbose - it is not required. So b and d are out.

But if E were not right and one had to pick between B and D, i would go with B. I think D is superficially parallel and also introduces "as well known" which leans towards a comparison.

Mike,
For the above question in the link, choice E is the correct answer. However, I have a question regarding choice A. I read all responses mentioning A is not parallel. But my question is in Choice A,
"because of" - preposition
"having eccentric personality" - gerund phrase
similarly
"for" - preposition
"having ....." - gerund phrase
Since both are followed by "preposition & gerund phrase", why is A not parallel? I really appreciate your explanation.
Thanks,

Dear maaadhu,
This is a subtle issue about parallelism. When prepositional phrases are in parallel, then as a general rule (not 100%, but a general rule), parallelism requires the same preposition. Especially if the parallelism is a comparison of two elements, so that we are striving to show the contrast of these two elements as clearly as possible, then parallelism almost always demands the same preposition. Think about the poor general reader of this sentence. This reader starts finding out about Ms. Wright, and when the reader gets to the words "became as well known for ...", the poor reader has to keep track of the fact that (1) thing #1, immediately after those words, will be something Ms. Wright was known for; (2) a some point latter in the sentence, there will be a thing #2, that is also something Ms. Wright was known for; (3) the sentence is saying that Ms. Wright was known for thing #1 and thing #2 equally well. That's a ton of logical connections all at once! If we are demanding that much of the reader, at the very least, we want to make it crystal clear where thing #1 ends and thing #2 begins, and we do that by using the exact same preposition as a marker of the transition.

In shorter sentences, in which the structure is not complicated, we might use two different prepositions, but in a longer sentence such as this, we need to repeat the same preposition for clarity.

Does all this make sense?
Mike

in the pattern "for having" , "having" is used as gerund, which refers to a general action rather than the action of a specific noun in the main clause. This use is not logic because "having" should refer to "wax" in the main clause.

is my thinking correct? pls comment.

Dear Vietmoi,
I'm happy to respond.

It's perfectly correct that "having", where is appears, is a gerund. A gerund isn't inherently wrong in this context --- it's just that the parallelism is very tricky. For example, if we tweaked (A) to say:

Patience Lovell Wright, whose traveling waxworks exhibit preceded Madame Tussaud's work by 30 years, became well known as much for having an eccentric personality as for having skillfully rendered popular public figures in wax.

That's correct --- two gerunds in perfect parallelism ---- ".... know as much for having P as for having Q." Admittedly, the way (E) expresses the idea is even more eloquent, but this phrasing is grammatically correct, including correct parallelism. The use of gerunds is fine. Here's an article on gerunds:
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2012/gmat-gramm ... d-phrases/

Does all this make sense?
Mike

Dear HarishLearner,
This is correct in a comparison.
It's fine to say ...
P became well known.
We could add either a role or an activity
P became well known for her poetry.
P became well known as a baseball pitcher.
Those are all the correct idioms when talking about one person.

Now, when we introduce a comparison, we need the extra "as" ----
P became as well known as Q.
We would tend not to use another "as" preposition in the middle of the "as well known as" construction, because that would be too awkward and confusing, but we could us a "for" preposition ---- and the comparison could be between two people or two activities ----
Clemens became as well known for his steroid controversy as did Bonds. (comparison of people)
Dr. Schweitzer become as well known for musicology as for his humanitarian efforts. (comparison of activities)

Here's a blog about the Idioms of Comparison:
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2013/gmat-idioms-of-comparison/

Here's a free idiom ebook:
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2013/gmat-idiom-ebook/

I hope all this helps.
Mike

Dear ayushman,
I agree something is ambiguous in the wording, but we don't have to read it in a way that changes the meaning. You were interpreting the gerund, the object of the preposition "for", as "having", and then "skillfully rendered popular public figures" is what she had. Indeed, that interpretation does change the meaning.
Instead, I would argue that the gerund is "having ... rendered" ---- this is the gerund form of the perfect participle. In other words, she was the creator of the "popular public figures." Other examples
...famous for having written a novel ...
...famous for having spoken to Edison...
...famous for having sailed around the world ...
Given multiple possibilities, we really have to choose the one that doesn't change the meaning.
Does this make sense?
Mike

Can I request some expert to explain this question? The OA is "E" which uses the structure "as X as Y", but is no way we have parallel component in the place of "X" and "Y". If we break it into two separate sentence without the parallel element "as...as...", then the two sentences doesn't stand correct separately. On the other hand the option "B" has "as much X as Y" structure and the two sides of parallel element are parallel in construction. The option B stands correct if we break the sentence in two separate sentence. Please suggest. Any response is appreciated.

Dear crazykaushik,
I'm happy to respond.

What you are asking touches on the very tricky idea of dropping common words in parallel. See this blog article:
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2013/dropping- ... -the-gmat/

Here's version (E):
Patience Lowell Wright, whose travelling waxworks exhibit preceded Madame Tussaud's work by 30 years, became as well known for her eccentric personality as for her skillful wax renderings of popular public figures.
Here' the parallelism with the omitted words:
Patience Lowell Wright, whose travelling waxworks exhibit preceded Madame Tussaud's work by 30 years, became
//as well known for her eccentric personality
//as [well known] for her skillful wax renderings of popular public figures.
You see, the second occurrence of "well known" is implied, but if we actually stated it, the sentence would sound awkward and redundant.

The GMAT loves this grammatical structure, because if you don't recognize what's missing, the sentence will look wrong. It's all about being mindful of what's not there!

Does all this make sense?
Mike

h Kaushik,

firstly lets see why B is wrong..
B) well known as much for having an eccentric personality as for her skillful wax renderings of popular public figures
if you look at the two phrases in red, they are not parallel... her skillful wax renderings is noun phrase whereas having an eccentric personality is present participle phrase...

now lets look at E..
E) as well known for her eccentric personality as for her skillful wax renderings of popular public figures.
here both the phrases are noun phrase and follow proper parallelism

Hi Kaushik, would you say:

(i) He was as good in cricket as in football (structure of option E).

Or would you say:

(ii) He was good as much in cricket as in football (structure of option B).

Hopefully in this simplified version, it is easy to see that (i) is correct. Hence, option E is correct.

Doesn't E change the meaning?
Are we trying to explain why A is as popular as B or are we trying to find out reasons for popularity of A?? Experts please help :!: