A recent biography suggests that until Tolstoy published War and Peace

Question

A recent biography suggests that until Tolstoy published War and Peace, he did not have,  or  seem likely to develop, a reputation as an important novelist.

(A) or
(B) nor
(C) or did
(D) nor did he
(E) nor did he not

Bunuel · Accepted Answer

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION

D

Since the sentence is saying he did not seem likely to develop the reputation, we need the word "nor", limiting the choices to (B), (D), or (E). (E) is wrong because of the double negative ("nor. . . not").

The two phrases "he did not have" and "seem likely to develop" both serve to start the sentence, so both need a subject and a verb. "He did not have" has a subject ("he") and a verb ("did have"), so we need "nor did he" after the comma so that there's a subject and verb in that phrase as well. Choice (D) is correct.

Akash720 · Answer

he  did not have  nor  did he seem likely to develop

+1 for D

ErikLewe · Answer

Between B and D, I feel like the sentence structure leans towards B, because it is a subclause.

Abhishek009 · Answer

With (D) for this one...

A recent biography suggests that until Tolstoy published War and Peace, 
 he did not have, 
nor did he seem likely to develop,  a reputation as an important novelist.

PTD1995 · Answer

How to choose between b) and d)?
I wrongly chose B), because I thought there would be some kind of ellipsi. Any thoughts?

AndrewN · Answer

Hello,  PTD1995 . I would be happy to offer my thoughts on why (D) is a superior choice to (B). Examine the two in a straightened-out version of the sentence:

(B) he did not have a reputation as an important novelist,  nor  seem likely to develop a reputation as an important novelist.
(D) he did not have a reputation as an important novelist,  nor did he  seem likely to develop a reputation as an important novelist.

I think you would agree that the latter option presents a clear meaning, not to mention that a comma before  nor  in this context denotes its use as a conjunction between two independent clauses, and in choice (B), there is no second independent clause--a subject is missing.

I hope that helps. If you have further questions, feel free to ask.

- Andrew

ExpertsGlobal5 · Answer

Dear Friends,

Here is a detailed explanation to this question-

Choice A:  In Option A, "he did not have" breaks parallelism with "seem likely to develop", as the latter phrase does not include a noun or pronoun. Thus, Option A is incorrect.

Choice B:  Option B repeats the same error found in Option A. Thus, Option B is incorrect.

Choice C:  Option C repeats the same error found in Options A and B. Thus, Option C is incorrect.

Choice D:  Option D maintains parallelism throughout the sentence, as the phrase “he seem likely” is parallel to “he did not have”. Option D also conveys the sentence's intended meaning. Thus, Option D is correct.

Choice E:  Option E features a double negative in the phrase "nor did he not", implying that Tolstoy did seem likely to develop a reputation as an important novelist; as this is not the intended meaning of the sentence, Option E is incorrect.

Hence, D is the best answer choice.

All the best!
Experts' Global Team

CrackverbalGMAT · Answer

How do we use ‘nor’ correctly without ‘neither’?

You can combine two negative ideas using  NOR  with the second idea starting off with ‘nor’. You can use  OR  if the second part that you want to combine is a noun, adjective, or an adverbial phrase. But, if it is a verb phrase (like in this case) without a subject, use NOR.

This way we can  eliminate Options A, B, and C .
 
 Option E  has a double negative (nor & not) which alters the original meaning.  Eliminate .

Thus  Option D  is the correct answer.

PTD1995 · Answer

Thank you  MentorTutoring 
Could you just go a little bit more in depth on how the comma leads to the conclusion that nor is a conjunction and requires two independent clauses? 
Thanks!

AndrewN · Answer

Sure thing. In the rearranged versions of the sentence I wrote above, the  A nor B  construct, minus the comma, does not hold. I could repeat the same grammar rules that  Akurian  listed above, or I could refer you to the probable  Grammar Girl source article  that explains how to properly use  nor  in different contexts. The examples on page 2 of that article, "He is not interested..." fit the same mold as the sentence here. Once you have read that article, you may understand that to use  nor  in the context of this sentence, the word would have to adopt the comma-conjunction usage to create two independent clauses. I guess we can call this a meta-answer? (I would rather not take credit for a thorough explanation if a reference article does the job.)

Happy reading.

- Andrew

AjiteshArun · Answer

Contrary opinion here. A, B, and D are all fine.

It'd be great to see the OE for this question.

AndrewN · Answer

I agree that it would be fun to see the official explanation. Furthermore, I encourage contrary opinions, especially among Experts, since I feel the community can benefit by reading through such a dialogue. The problematic part I see with your post is that there is nothing in the way of analysis, leaving the reader to look at your response and presumably go,  Well, he got a perfect score in Verbal, so he must be right.  I respect your opinion, but I have a question of my own, in the interest of furthering this conversation:

* Given the format of the test, which option would you pick if your back were against the wall, and why would you choose that response?

Thank you for your contributions to the community. I may not follow anyone through the site, but I do peruse the various responses to questions, and I enjoy reading yours whenever I come across them.

- Andrew

emcheeks · Answer

I think  CrackVerbalGMAT  has already done a great explanation of usage of "nor" and "or", but I will add few points from other sources and try to make all pieces together.

1. (by CrackVerbalGMAT) use  "or"  when you connect two  negative  ideas including  nouns, adj, adv phrases .
use  "nor"  when you connect two  negative  ideas including  verbs/clauses , but remember comma will make a difference (see below)

2. (by ManhattanPrep) when you connect two negative ideas using a nor,   comma counts  :

For example: 
 I will not clean the bathroom nor walk the dog. 
This means that  I will  not  :  1. clean the bathroom  2.   not  walk the dog . You just created a  double negative  on the second term!

This sentence could be changed to: 
 I will not clean the bathroom, nor will I walk the dog. 
This means that  I will  not  : 1.  clean the bathroom  2.  walk the dog . Now, this is the correct intended meaning.

By repeating the verb “I will,”  I allowed myself to clearly express the negative form “I will not” for both elements.  It’s wordy, but correct.

Now here is a test (it is a real gmat prep question, and you can search the answer on this forum after you finish it)

One report concludes that many schools do not have,  or  likely to have, enough computers to use them effectively.

(A) or
(B) nor
(C) or are
(D) nor are they
(E) nor are not

But remember, we are only talking about the cases without the "neither" or "either"! If there is "neither", "nor" should always be used, etc.

Oahu fwcv

AjiteshArun · Answer

Thank you for posting the OE. I expected it to analyse whether we should include a finite verb after an  or  or not, but it doesn't do that. It simply says that  nor  is correct (and by extension, that  or  is wrong). I stand by my position that this question is unfair. I would like to be more direct here and say that there is no reason to say that  or  is incorrect, but I am very aware of the fact that there are three expert opinions in this thread that go the other way. Here's a very quick example of what I mean:

1.  The author   does  not know ,  or    prefers  not to disclose , the identity of the informer.

Prefers  is a "complete" verb. This sentence  cannot  be read as "The author does not know the identity of the informer or the author does not  prefers  not to disclose the identity of the informer". This sentence is instead meant to be read as "The author does not know X OR the author prefers not to disclose X".

2.  The author  does not  know  ,  or    prefer  to disclose , the identity of the informer.

This sentence is completely different, because  prefer  is not a "complete" verb here. This sentence is meant to be read as "The author does not know something AND the author does not prefer to disclose something". That  and  may be a little surprising, but it's easier to see why ( or  =  and ) in a shorter sentence:

3.  He did not take the GMAT or apply to ISB.  ← Here,  (negation) +  or   is read as  (negation) +  and  , so this sentence  ~  "He did not take the GMAT  and  he did not apply to ISB". That is, he did not do either of those things. It would be absurd to interpret this sentence any other way.

This doesn't happen when there is a clause on the right of an  or :

4.  He did not take the GMAT or he did not apply to ISB.

(4) is a problem, but that doesn't change the fact that (3) is absolutely fine.

Please don't (mis)characterise my response as... whatever you thought it was. I have never used my score to justify any of my responses, and injecting such an idea into the minds of people reading my response is not a particularly nice thing to do; disagreement should not carry such costs. This is a non-official question, and I wanted to see how the author(s) analysed the situation. That is all.

This is simply not true. Or to be more precise, to say that we should not use an  or  when we see a verb  form  without a subject on the other side of the  or  is, to put it very mildly, strange. A sentence like (3), for example, is absolutely fine.

As with most issues involving commas, this is their  opinion . For what it's worth, I really don't see how or why "I will not clean the bathroom nor walk the dog" is incorrect. In fact, both "I will not clean the bathroom  nor  walk the dog" and "I will not clean the bathroom  or  walk the dog" are correct.

I understand that as the minority view, my response may not be helpful to most people reading this thread. Here are some additional examples for anyone who did look at some of these options and wonder whether the question was fair:

5.  France did not cross the Welsh line, or ever seem likely to.  ( source )

6.  ... did not know or seem to care about the performance of the individual patrolmen  ( source )

7.  Many do not know or seem to care what the law is.  ( source )

8.  ... the company was not to pressure, or even seem to pressure, the Food and Drug Administration.  ( source )

AndrewN · Answer

Thank you for providing a fuller treatment of the question as you see it,  AjiteshArun . That is what I was aiming to stress in my earlier post. You seem to have latched on to the "not particularly nice" bit at the expense of the parts before and after it:

You have a keen eye for finer grammatical points, and I like that you do not take the majority opinion or OA for granted. I was voicing my opinion against declarative statements about what was or was not (possibly) correct. I have looked at your sources and agree that sentences can be written a certain way outside of the GMAT™ and be perfectly acceptable. If this split were tested in a Sentence Correction question in the manner presented above, however, I would expect the answer to be (D), just the same, for the reasons I have outlined earlier.

Anyway, thank you again for offering your analysis.

- Andrew

A recent biography suggests that until Tolstoy published War and Peace

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