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705-805 Level|   Meaning/Logical Predication|   Modifiers|                           
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This one was tough nut to crack i had figure out the right sense there was a lot of commets so let me make a tad shorter cut to the chase i chose C for the simple Stella was the person who taught the actors not as actress this noun modifier has to be kept in muscle and the option that clear the above hurdles and presents a clear picture is imo C
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samsung1234
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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.


(B) Stella Adler, one of the most influential artists in the American theater, trained several generations of actors who include




GMATNinja

Hi Charles, I personally decided to cross out answer choice B because I felt like the subject is awkwardly sandwiched between two modifiers "as an actress..." and "one of the most influential..". I also felt like the main verb "trained" was too far from the subject. Is this a valid reason to eliminate this or are the concerns I've mentioned nonissues?
I agree that the modifier placement in (B) is less than ideal, but awkward modifier placement is not itself an error.

As Tommy Wallach noted in an earlier post, it's better to see that "as an actress" serves as an adverbial modifier -- it's going to describe an action. But the action, in this case, is "trained several generations of actors," creating the impression that part of her job as an actress was to train other actors. That doesn't make much sense.

It seems more like likely that she trained several generations as a teacher. Note than in (C), the main verb phrase is "was one of the most influential artists." It makes a lot of sense for "as an actress" to describe how she was an influential artist; it makes less sense for "as an actress" to describe how she trained other actors.

Put another way, not only does (B) have a less than ideal modifier placement, it has a less logical meaning, and the latter is a better reason for eliminating an answer choice. That said, if I didn't see the meaning issue, would I feel comfortable using the modifier placement as a tie-breaker? Probably. Just know that you'd prefer to find a concrete error if you can.

I hope that helps!
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Quote:
(A) Stella Adler was one of the most influential artists in the American theater, who trained several generations of actors including
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).

Quote:
(B) Stella Adler, one of the most influential artists in the American theater, trained several generations of actors who include
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.

Quote:
(C) Stella Adler was one of the most influential artists in the American theater, training several generations of actors whose ranks included
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).

Quote:
(D) one of the most influential artists in the American theater was Stella Adler, who trained several generations of actors including
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.

Quote:
(E) one of the most influential artists in the American theater, Stella Adler, trained several generations of actors whose ranks included
(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.


Good Morning !

IMO, subtle deviation from your explanation for A- although the theme is same :), who is not trying to modify theatre(going by meaning - this does not make sense), rather - the two nouns/subjects/ precedents/ challengers are Stella & the most influential artists.
who and which kinda pronouns can jump over the nearest/ touching noun and go for most eligible nouns.

So, for this reason of ambiguous referent, we can let A go off.

//rgds
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GMATNinja, @ExpertGlobal5,

Hi,

I was struggling between (B) and (C). I see where (B) goes wrong, but I found 'included' in (C) to be misleading, too. The actors she trained still include Roberto De Niro and Marlon, so why do we use included?

Thanks
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GMATNinja, @ExpertGlobal5,

Hi,

I was struggling between (B) and (C). I see where (B) goes wrong, but I found 'included' in (C) to be misleading, too. The actors she trained still include Roberto De Niro and Marlon, so why do we use included?

Thanks

Hello hadimadi,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, since the act of training the "generations of actors" concluded in the past, the use of the past participle is permissible.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
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ExpertsGlobal5
Dear Friends,

Here is a detailed explanation to this question-
kimmyg
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


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 Stella Adler was one of the most influential artists in the American theater because she trained several generations of actors whose ranks included Marlon Brando and Robert De Niro.

Concepts tested here: Meaning + Grammatical Construction + Awkwardness/Redundancy

A: This answer choice alters the meaning of the sentence through the phrase “several generations of actors including Marlon Brando and Robert De Niro“; the construction of this phrase illogically implies that Marlon Brando and Robert De Niro were individually a generation of actors that Stella Adler trained; the intended meaning is that Stella Adler trained many generations of actors, and these generations included Marlon Brando and Robert De Niro.

B: This answer choice incorrectly places information that is important to the core meaning of the sentence – the fact that Stella Adler was “one of the most influential artists in the American theater“ – between two commas; please remember, information needed to maintain the core meaning of the sentence must not be placed between two commas.

C: Correct. This answer choice uses the phrases “whose ranks included”, conveying the intended meaning – that Stella Adler was one of the most influential artists in the American theater because she trained several generations of actors whose ranks included Marlon Brando and Robert De Niro. Further, Option C avoids the grammatical construction error seen in Options B and E, as it places no information between commas. Additionally, Option C is free of any awkwardness or redundancy.

D: This answer choice alters the meaning of the sentence through the phrase “several generations of actors including Marlon Brando and Robert De Niro“; the construction of this phrase illogically implies that Marlon Brando and Robert De Niro were individually a generation of actors that Stella Adler trained; the intended meaning is that Stella Adler trained many generations of actors, and these generations included Marlon Brando and Robert De Niro. Further, Option D uses the passive voice construction “one of the most influential artists in the American theater was Stella Adler,”, leading to awkwardness and redundancy.

E: This answer choice incorrectly places information that is important to the core meaning of the sentence – the fact that Stella Adler was “one of the most influential artists in the American theater“ – between two commas; please remember, information needed to maintain the core meaning of the sentence must not be placed between two commas.

Hence, C is the best answer choice.

To understand the concept of "Extra Information Between Commas" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~1 minute):



All the best!
Experts' Global Team

ExpertsGlobal5 hello expert, i went with E cuz I was confused with the core meaning. I thought the core meaning should be ”Stella Adler trained several generations of actors”, so would you like to explain how to recognize the core meaning? Thanks in advance.
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ExpertsGlobal5
Dear Friends,

Here is a detailed explanation to this question-
kimmyg
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


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 Stella Adler was one of the most influential artists in the American theater because she trained several generations of actors whose ranks included Marlon Brando and Robert De Niro.

Concepts tested here: Meaning + Grammatical Construction + Awkwardness/Redundancy

A: This answer choice alters the meaning of the sentence through the phrase “several generations of actors including Marlon Brando and Robert De Niro“; the construction of this phrase illogically implies that Marlon Brando and Robert De Niro were individually a generation of actors that Stella Adler trained; the intended meaning is that Stella Adler trained many generations of actors, and these generations included Marlon Brando and Robert De Niro.

B: This answer choice incorrectly places information that is important to the core meaning of the sentence – the fact that Stella Adler was “one of the most influential artists in the American theater“ – between two commas; please remember, information needed to maintain the core meaning of the sentence must not be placed between two commas.

C: Correct. This answer choice uses the phrases “whose ranks included”, conveying the intended meaning – that Stella Adler was one of the most influential artists in the American theater because she trained several generations of actors whose ranks included Marlon Brando and Robert De Niro. Further, Option C avoids the grammatical construction error seen in Options B and E, as it places no information between commas. Additionally, Option C is free of any awkwardness or redundancy.

D: This answer choice alters the meaning of the sentence through the phrase “several generations of actors including Marlon Brando and Robert De Niro“; the construction of this phrase illogically implies that Marlon Brando and Robert De Niro were individually a generation of actors that Stella Adler trained; the intended meaning is that Stella Adler trained many generations of actors, and these generations included Marlon Brando and Robert De Niro. Further, Option D uses the passive voice construction “one of the most influential artists in the American theater was Stella Adler,”, leading to awkwardness and redundancy.

E: This answer choice incorrectly places information that is important to the core meaning of the sentence – the fact that Stella Adler was “one of the most influential artists in the American theater“ – between two commas; please remember, information needed to maintain the core meaning of the sentence must not be placed between two commas.

Hence, C is the best answer choice.

To understand the concept of "Extra Information Between Commas" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~1 minute):



All the best!
Experts' Global Team

ExpertsGlobal5 hello expert, i went with E cuz I was confused with the core meaning. I thought the core meaning should be ”Stella Adler trained several generations of actors”, so would you like to explain how to recognize the core meaning? Thanks in advance.

Hello Mavisdu1017,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, in our explanation "core meaning" refers to the basic meaning that is relevant to the solution of the question; here, we can tell that Option C is the answer choice that conveys the intended meaning, as it is the only one that conveys a logical meaning and is grammatically error-free.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
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ExpertsGlobal5 hello expert, sorry I didn’t find your explanation about how to recognize ”the intended meaning”? And could you help to shed some light on E? Thanks
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Mavisdu1017

I can't agree that the "intended meaning" can't show up in a modifier. That is definitely not true. However, we do need the sentence to convey a clear and sensible meaning, and E doesn't quite do that. The modifier move here is definitely one way to see that. The initial modifier should clearly modify the action that follows. Stella did something "As an actress and as a teacher." What did she do? She was an influential artist. She was influential in both these parts of her life. If we choose E, we're saying that "As an actress AND as a teacher," she trained actors. But both those roles don't apply to "she trained actors." She did that as a TEACHER, but not as an actress. In that sense, E doesn't convey the meaning we see in the others, or any useful meaning at all. The opening modifier must always play nicely with what follows!
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Mavisdu1017

I can't agree that the "intended meaning" can't show up in a modifier. That is definitely not true. However, we do need the sentence to convey a clear and sensible meaning, and E doesn't quite do that. The modifier move here is definitely one way to see that. The initial modifier should clearly modify the action that follows. Stella did something "As an actress and as a teacher." What did she do? She was an influential artist. She was influential in both these parts of her life. If we choose E, we're saying that "As an actress AND as a teacher," she trained actors. But both those roles don't apply to "she trained actors." She did that as a TEACHER, but not as an actress. In that sense, E doesn't convey the meaning we see in the others, or any useful meaning at all. The opening modifier must always play nicely with what follows!

DmitryFarber Much thanks for your sharing and elaboration. It’s logical and I understand now.
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TommyWallach
Hey All,

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.


can anyone please explain why in this example placement of WHO away from the object it relates to, is NOT a mistake. it seems very similar:
"the proportion of judges and partners at major law firms who are women has not risen comparably" is correct, according to GMAT.
What's the difference?
https://gmatclub.com/forum/despite-the- ... l#p2999123
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LILICHKA
TommyWallach
Hey All,

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.


can anyone please explain why in this example placement of WHO away from the object it relates to, is NOT a mistake. it seems very similar:
"the proportion of judges and partners at major law firms who are women has not risen comparably" is correct, according to GMAT.
What's the difference?
https://gmatclub.com/forum/despite-the- ... l#p2999123

Hello LILICHKA,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, the difference between Option A and the example you have given is that in the latter, there is no comma before "who", so "who" does not necessarily refer to the noun just before it; in Option A, there is a comma before the "who", so it must refer to the noun just before the comma; remember, "who/whose/whom/which/where", when preceded by a comma, refer to the noun just before the comma.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
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LILICHKA
TommyWallach
Hey All,

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.


can anyone please explain why in this example placement of WHO away from the object it relates to, is NOT a mistake. it seems very similar:
"the proportion of judges and partners at major law firms who are women has not risen comparably" is correct, according to GMAT.
What's the difference?
https://gmatclub.com/forum/despite-the- ... l#p2999123
Context and logic!

First, take another look at the correct example you cited:

Quote:
the proportion of judges and partners at major law firms who are women has not risen comparably
Here, "who are women" is giving us information about a subset of "judges and partners." That subset hasn't increased proportionally with the rest of this population. Perfectly logical. There are no other people the "who" modifier could be referring to. So far so good.

Compare this with the other example:
Quote:
Stella Adler was one of the most influential artists in the American theater, who trained several generations of actors including
Now, it's not totally clear what the "who" modifier is doing. Is it referring to the "most influential artists," in which case, all of those influential artists trained several generation of actors and Stella Adler just happens to be one of them? Or is the "who" referring to Adler herself, in which case she's the only one of the influential artists doing the training? Hard to say.

Put another way, the "who" isn't wrong because of its distance from what it's describing. (Remember: there is no "touch rule"!) Instead, it's a problem because it's not clear what it's modifying, creating a meaning that is, at best, confusing. Lucky for us, we have a clearer, more logical alternative. That's why (A) is wrong.

I hope that clears things up!
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GMATNinja - in this question, "including" is modifying "generations" and not "actors" - does that mean we can form a rule (just like we have in case of SV) that the modification will not modify the NOUN in the PREPOSITIONAL phrase (here "actors" is part of the prepositional phrase ?)

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

Quote:
(B) Stella Adler, one of the most influential artists in the American theater, trained several generations of actors who include
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.

Quote:
(C) Stella Adler was one of the most influential artists in the American theater, training several generations of actors whose ranks included
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).

Quote:
(D) one of the most influential artists in the American theater was Stella Adler, who trained several generations of actors including
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.

Quote:
(E) one of the most influential artists in the American theater, Stella Adler, trained several generations of actors whose ranks included
(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.
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kittle
GMATNinja - in this question, "including" is modifying "generations" and not "actors" - does that mean we can form a rule (just like we have in case of SV) that the modification will not modify the NOUN in the PREPOSITIONAL phrase (here "actors" is part of the prepositional phrase ?)

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

Quote:
(B) Stella Adler, one of the most influential artists in the American theater, trained several generations of actors who include
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.

Quote:
(C) Stella Adler was one of the most influential artists in the American theater, training several generations of actors whose ranks included
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).

Quote:
(D) one of the most influential artists in the American theater was Stella Adler, who trained several generations of actors including
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.

Quote:
(E) one of the most influential artists in the American theater, Stella Adler, trained several generations of actors whose ranks included
(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.

Hello kittle,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, your understanding is indeed correct here.

Kudos.

However, do keep in mind that meaning is quite important on the GMAT; be sure that you have fully understood the intended meaning of the sentence to ensure that you do not overapply this rule.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
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Quote:
In this question, "including" is modifying "generations" and not "actors" - does that mean we can form a rule (just like we have in case of SV) that the modification will not modify the NOUN in the PREPOSITIONAL phrase (here "actors" is part of the prepositional phrase ?)
Nah. I think it's fair game for a modifier that follows a phrase like, "generations of actors" to modify either "generations" or "actors." Test-takers will often tie themselves in knots when they see this kind of construction, but there's no reason to agonize.

Here, have an example:

    "The pack of animals, including two bears, three lions, and 14 hyenas, gnawed on Tim's scrawny body for hours."

Is it logical to say "the pack" includes the bears, lions, and hyenas? Sure. Does it make sense to say the "animals" included bears, lions, and hyenas? That seems fine too.

Am I going to burn any brains cells trying to figure out which one the "including" is modifying? No. There's a logical way to interpret the construction, so it seems fine.

The takeaway: If the modifier in this situation can logically modify one of the preceding nouns, and it's not super confusing, don't treat it as an error. Simple as that.

I hope that helps!
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I have a question on @GMATNINJA's comment:
"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."

Why is the "including" not just modifying actors? Is it because "actors" is next to a preposition?

Thank you for your time.
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