As an actress and, more importantly, as a teacher of acting, Stella

Though my answer is correct, I couldn't figure out what exactly is wrong with A and B.
B is quite convincing.

Hello rekhabishop,

I am not sure if your doubt still persists. Nonetheless, here is the explanation.


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.


Let's begin with understanding the meaning of the sentence.

The sentence presents some information about Stella Adler. She was an actress and an acting teacher. As a teacher, she was one of the most significant artists in the American theater. She trained many generations of actors. Marlon Brando and Robert De Niro are some of the actors from those generations.


Now let's talk about the errors in Choice A.

i. Logical error: The way the sentence is worded, it seems to suggest that the generations of actors include Brando and De Niro. This meaning is not correct. Actors cannot be generations.
If we consider that including associates with actors, then also the meaning conveyed by the sentence will not be appropriate because then the sentence will suggest that Adler trained Brando and De Niro.

ii. Grammatical error: The noun modifier who seems to refer to the preceding noun entity the American theater. The far-away noun modification of one of the most influential artists is not possible because the phrase in the American theater actually modifies the verb was. Hence, who cannot jump over this phrase.


Following are the errors in Choice B:

i. Same logic error as in Choice A.


Hope this helps.
Thanks.
Shraddha

Hi shraddha..

Just one more clarification needed.

In this sentence "in the theater" modifying was. Is it because it mentions a where part of adverbial modifier. Can we safely assume that whenever "in X" comes we can never jump the phrase for getting next possible noun.

Thanks

Posted from my mobile device

Hi Skywalker18!

Happy to help

The usage of "including" without a preceding comma is typically ambiguous, and therefore usually grammatically incorrect (as in the case here). Since "including" (when it is acting as a modifier) is a non-restrictive modifier, it should always be preceded by a comma. You can read more about that here: That vs. Which on the GMAT

In option A, without context it would be ambiguous as to what exactly "including" is modifying. Since "of actors" is really modifying "generations", we could interpret this as "generations" with two modifiers ("of actors", "including..."), or we could interpret the "including..." as modifying "actors" only. Grammatical rules don't strictly tell us which one it is. However, you're definitely right that from the context here, "Marlon Brando" and "Robert De Niro" tell us that "including..." is modifying "actors", not "generations". If everything else about the sentence were correct, choice (A) could be considered correct (although maybe not as clear as we'd like). However, as I mentioned before, it is incorrect to see "including" here without a comma before it. So that, plus the issue with "who" following "American theater", leads us to eliminate (A).

I hope that helps!
-Carolyn

Hi MagooshExpert Carolyn ,
Thanks for your help

Who illogically refers to American theater, but can't who refer to the phrase "one of the most influential artists in the American theater" since who can only modify people and American theater isn't a person ?

(A) Stella Adler was one of the most influential artists in the American theater, who trained several generations of actors including ---


In the official example stated in below link, we use context(Susan Huntington Dickinson can't be written) and grammar (SV disagreement and which can't refer to people) to allow which to refer to Noun + Prep phrase

Emily Dickinson’s letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson, which were written over a period beginning a few years before Susan’s marriage to Emily’s brother and ending shortly before Emily’s death in 1886, outnumber her letters to anyone else.

https://gmatclub.com/forum/emily-dickin ... 10142.html

Hey All,

While you all got to the write answer here, there are a lot of mistakes made in the explanations that I'd like to correct.

49. 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 Deniro.

The category of this question is MODIFIERS, which are responsible for almost every error. We can recognize this simply by reading the original sentence. First, it starts with a prepositional modifier (as an actress...), and then we'd notice the "who trained", which is a modifier opened with a relative pronoun. The most important rule to remember for modifiers is that noun modifiers need to touch the thing they're modifying.

a.Stella Adler was one of the most influential artists in the American theater, who trained several generations of actors including
PROBLEM: The first modifier is correct ("As an actress..." is touching "Stella Adler"). Unfortunately, the second modifier is incorrect. "Who trained several..." should be touching Stella Adler as well. Instead it's modifying "American theater", which doesn't make any sense.

b. Stella Adler, one of the most influential artists in the American theater, trained several generations of actors who include
PROBLEM: The problem here is two-fold. First of all, our modifier gets odd here. If you take out the middle man "one of the most...", we end up with a sentence saying that "As an actress and a teacher of acting, Stella Adler trained several generations of actors." That doesn't make any sense. She only taught people as a teacher, not as an actress. Also, the "who include" is modifying incorrectly here.

Think about this sample sentence, "I have a lot of friends who include Dave and Jim." It sounds like my friends are including Dave and Jim (when they hang out together), rather than that Dave and Jim are two of my many friends.

c. Stella Adler was one of the most influential artists in the American theater, training several generations of actors, whose ranks included
ANSWER: This fixes both problems I discussed in B.


d. One of the most influential artist in the American theater was Stella Adler, who trained several generations of actors including
PROBLEM: First, the opening modifier "As an actress" needs to be modifying Stella Adler, but now it's modifying "one of the most influential artists...". The "including" is also problematic, like "include" in b.


e. One of the most influential artist in the American theater, Stella Adler, trained several generations of actors whose ranks included
PROBLEM: Same as above in terms of modifier. Also makes the "trained" mistake that B made. The loss of the comma creates a lack of clarity, but NOT a run-on sentence (that's when you have independent clauses without a period or semicolon to separate them).

Hope that helps!

-tommy

The first issue is that the phrase beginning with "who" is right next to "the American theater", and that doesn't really make sense. "The American theater" isn't a person, and it didn't train generations of actors. Sure, you could maybe argue that "who trained several generations of actors..." reaches back to modify the entire phrase "one of the most influential artists in the American theater", but that's far messier than just modifying "Stella Adler", who is actually the one who trained the actors. We can argue about whether this is definitively WRONG, but at the very least, we can do better than this.

The second issue is that "including" seems to modify "several generations of actors", and that doesn't really make sense: Marlon Brando and Robert De Niro are examples of actors, not "generations of actors." It's subtle -- and probably not the worst error we've ever seen on a GMAT SC question -- but it makes (A) worse than at least one of the alternatives below.

So we can get rid of (A).


There's still a minor problem with the very last part of the underlined portion: "several generations of actors who include Marlon Brando and Robert De Niro" sounds OK, because those two fellows are examples of actors, but then why are we saying "generations of actors"? Brando and De Niro are examples of actors, not "generations of actors." And there's another problem: "include" is present tense, and it's hard to justify the use of present tense here when the other action related to the actors occurred in the past tense ("trained").

And if you aren't completely sold by that last paragraph, there's something else at the beginning of the sentence: "as an actress... Stella Adler... trained several generations of actors." No, she only "trained generations of actors" as a "teacher of acting" -- not "as an actress." Subtle and nasty. But (B) is out.


That opening modifier makes sense now: "as an actress and... as a teacher of acting, Stella Adler was one of the most influential artists..." Cool, that's great. The modifier "training several generations of actors..." also makes sense: it modifies the previous clause, telling us more about Stella Adler and her life as "one of the most influential artists in the American theater.

Superficially, that last part of the underlined portion looks wordy: "several generations of actors whose ranks included..." But adding the phrase "whose ranks included" actually makes the phrase clearer than in (A) or (B): Brando and De Niro were among the ranks of those generations of actors. Fair enough.

So we can keep (C).


The underlined portion is preceded by "as an actress and... as a teacher of acting", a phrase that really needs to modify "Stella Adler." It's ridiculously indirect for that phrase to modify "one of the most influential artists in the American theater." So (D) is much less clear than (C) in that part of the sentence.

Plus, we have the same minor issue with the phrase "generations of actors including..." as we did in (A). See above for more on that issue.

So (D) is gone.


(E) has the same problem as (D): the beginning of the sentence needs to modify "Stella Adler." More broadly, "Stella Adler" really needs to be the subject of the sentence, since she's the one that trained the generations of actors -- and it's an indirect mess to use "one of the most influential artists..." as the subject of the sentence.

So (E) is out, and (C) is the best option.

As "who" is the subject of the second clause, can it refer back to the subject of the previous clause?? i.e. 'Stella Adler'

(A) 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.

I assume you're asking about choice (A):


If we wanted to modify Stella Adler with "who trained...", then we'd have to put the "who" clause much closer to "Stella Adler". For example: "... Stella Adler, who trained several generations of actors...".

The placement of the "who" clause in choice (A) leads us to believe that it modifies "American theater" or maybe "one of the most influential artists". The "who" clause would have to jump over both of those options in order to modify "Stella", and that would make the meaning pretty darned unclear.

Choice (C) avoids this problem entirely, so it's a much better option.

I hope that helps!

thanq for ur reply..
yes, i'm referring to Choice A..

But in one your video classes, you taught that the subject in the second clause refers back to the subject in the first clause.
that's the idea..
thanq

That opening modifier makes sense now: "as an actress and... as a teacher of acting, Stella Adler was one of the most influential artists..." Cool, that's great. The modifier "training several generations of actors..." also makes sense: it modifies the previous clause, telling us more about Stella Adler and her life as "one of the most influential artists in the American theater.

Superficially, that last part of the underlined portion looks wordy: "several generations of actors whose ranks included..." But adding the phrase "whose ranks included" actually makes the phrase clearer than in (A) or (B): Brando and De Niro were among the ranks of those generations of actors. Fair enough.

So we can keep (C).