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Based on records from ancient Athens, each year young Athenian women 05 Oct 2017, 06:19
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Based on records from ancient Athens, each year young Athenian women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe that they used to dress a statue of the goddess Athena and that this robe depicted scenes of a battle between Zeus, Athena's father, and giants.

reading the whole sentence we find that there is an "And that" parallelism in the second half of the sentence so we need a that in first half as well
so options without that can straight away eliminated

(A) Based on records from ancient Athens, each year young Athenian women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe that they used to dress : reading the sentence on whole "That" in the second part doesn't refer to the robe but in the first part "That" refers to the robe so they are not parallel

(B) Based on records from ancient Athens, young Athenian women had collaborated to weave a new woolen robe with which to dress

(C) According to records from ancient Athens, each year young Athenian women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe that they used to dress : reading the sentence on whole "That" in the second part doesn't refer to the robe but in the first part "That" refers to the robe so they are not parallel

(D) Records from ancient Athens indicate that each year young Athenian women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe with which they dressed :correct

(E) Records from ancient Athens indicate each year young Athenian women had collaborated to weave a new woolen robe for dressing
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Based on records from ancient Athens, each year young Athenian women 23 Nov 2018, 03:43
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I have a doubt. What does the pronoun 'They' refers in the option D
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Based on records from ancient Athens, each year young Athenian women 23 Nov 2018, 04:30
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There is only one logical referent for the pronoun 'they' namely the 'Athenian women'; The other plural word 'records' doesn't fit in.
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Based on records from ancient Athens, each year young Athenian women 27 Jul 2019, 11:35
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Hi ,

In option D , how did you find out the stem in the parallel structure.

Records from ancient Athens indicate that each year young Athenian women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe with which they dressed a statue of the goddess Athena and that this robe depicted scenes of a battle between Zeus, Athena's father, and giants.

I thought these 2 are parallel structures.
they dressed a statue of the goddess Athena and that this robe depicted scenes


But it is given that stem is "Records from ancient Athens indicate" which means "
that each year young Athenian women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe with which they dressed a statue of the goddess Athena and that this robe depicted are the parallel entities.






GMATNinja
This (bleeping) question is one of my all-time favorites, just because it features a whole bunch of grammar and usage issues that are simultaneously difficult and "learnable." Sometimes, it's really tough to get better at SC questions that test meaning, so it's satisfying when we can take a hard question like this one, and break it down methodically -- without any real need to worry about the subtleties of meaning.


Quote:
(A) Based on records from ancient Athens, each year young Athenian women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe that they used to dress
Wait, this is literally saying that "each year young Athenian women" are based on records from ancient Athens. That makes no sense at all. A conclusion or a finding or a report could be "based on records", but the women themselves certainly can't be. (A) is out.

Quote:
(B) Based on records from ancient Athens, young Athenian women had collaborated to weave a new woolen robe with which to dress
(B) has exactly the same error as (A): the young women can't be "based on records." You can eliminate (B) based on that alone.

Hopefully, the past perfect tense phrase "had collaborated" catches your eye, too. As you probably know, the action in past perfect tense has to logically precede some other "time marker" in the past -- generally, another action in simple past tense. So this particular sentence is saying that the women first "had collaborated to weave a new woolen robe"; the subsequent actions in simple past are "they used to dress a statue" and "this robe depicted scenes." I suppose that they collaborated before they used the robe to dress a statue, but I think it's awfully weird to say that they "had collaborated" first, and then the robe later "depicted scenes."

You don't really need to waste your energy on the past perfect tense in (B), but for whatever it's worth, it certainly doesn't seem right.

Quote:
(C) According to records from ancient Athens, each year young Athenian women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe that they used to dress
I think I can live with the use of "according to records from ancient Athens" in this case, even though I don't love it. I think that particular "-ing" phrase is modifying the entire clause that follows ("...young women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe..."), and I guess it's OK to say that this action is something we know "according to records from ancient Athens." I've never been totally convinced by it, but wouldn't immediately eliminate (A).
The real issue with (C) is the parallelism. And it's tricky, so bear with me here.

Whenever you're looking at parallelism, start with the parallelism "trigger" -- usually an "and" or an "or", though there are others. (The other triggers are a long story that we'll save for another day.) Then you'll always want to find the thing that follows the word "and", and then figure out what's parallel to that thing.

So in this case, we have: "and that this robe depicted scenes of a battle between Zeus, Athena's father, and giants." Something HAS to be parallel to "that this robe depicted scenes." In (C), our only option is "that they used to dress a statue." Cool, we have structural parallelism.

Trouble is, it makes no sense when you actually think about the "stem" that precedes the two parallel elements. If you want, you can think of parallelism as a list of two (or more) items, and the "stem" is the thing that precedes the first item in the list. But the stem HAS to make sense with EVERY item in the list.

If we break down (C) really carefully, we have the following:

  • Stem: "...young Athenian women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe..."
  • List item #1: "...that they used to dress a statue..."
  • List item #2 (after "and"): "...that this robe depicted scenes of a battle..."

The first item works just fine with the stem: "...women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe that they used to dress a statue..." No problem. But that "stem" also has to make sense with the second item. And in this case, it really doesn't work: "...women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe... that this robe depicted scenes of a battle..." Huh? That's absolute nonsense.

This is what tough parallelism looks like on the GMAT. You can't "hear" the parallelism error at all -- or at least I can't. But if you break the parallelism down methodically, (C) is clearly wrong.

Quote:
(D) Records from ancient Athens indicate that each year young Athenian women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe with which they dressed
(D) cleans up the parallelism nicely! Using the same technique as in (C), we have the following:

  • Stem: "Records from ancient Athens indicate..."
  • List item #1: "...that each year young women collaborated to weave a new robe..."
  • List item #2 (after "and"): "...that this robe depicted scenes of a battle..."

That works! "Records indicate... that this robe depicted scenes of battle..." Great. Keep (D).


Quote:
(E) Records from ancient Athens indicate each year young Athenian women had collaborated to weave a new woolen robe for dressing
In (E), we still have the same past perfect tense issue that appear in (B). Plus, the parallelism is completely wrong: the trigger "and" is still followed by "that this robe depicted scenes of battle...", but there are no phrases that could possibly be parallel, since there are no subordinate clauses beginning with "that" elsewhere in the sentence.

So (E) is gone, and (D) is our winner.

And if you read this far, you deserve a cookie for surviving to the end of the longest freaking QOTD explanation I've ever written. :oops:
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Based on records from ancient Athens, each year young Athenian women 29 Jul 2019, 06:12
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Trouble is, it makes no sense when you actually think about the "stem" that precedes the two parallel elements. If you want, you can think of parallelism as a list of two (or more) items, and the "stem" is the thing that precedes the first item in the list. But the stem HAS to make sense with EVERY item in the list.

If we break down (C) really carefully, we have the following:

  • Stem: "...young Athenian women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe..."
  • List item #1: "...that they used to dress a statue..."
  • List item #2 (after "and"): "...that this robe depicted scenes of a battle..."

The first item works just fine with the stem: "...women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe that they used to dress a statue..." No problem. But that "stem" also has to make sense with the second item. And in this case, it really doesn't work: "...women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe... that this robe depicted scenes of a battle..." Huh? That's absolute nonsense.

GMATNinja

Hello gmatninja could you please shed some light on the issue I have concerning the bolded part of your explanation?
Specifically, I do not understand the "test" that you conduct in order to check the parallelism, the stem is ...women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe...
1) that they used to dress a statue <-- this is ok
2) that this robe depicted scenes of a battle <-- here you mention that it does not make sense, however isn't it the same case with option D, again the stem is women collaborated to weave a new wooden robe... and the second item is "that this robe depicted scenes of a battle"

So I'm a little bit confused it might be something that I have understood completely wrong could you provide your assistance?
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Based on records from ancient Athens, each year young Athenian women 10 Aug 2019, 12:12
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Hello gmatninja could you please shed some light on the issue I have concerning the bolded part of your explanation?
Specifically, I do not understand the "test" that you conduct in order to check the parallelism, the stem is ...women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe...
1) that they used to dress a statue <-- this is ok
2) that this robe depicted scenes of a battle <-- here you mention that it does not make sense, however isn't it the same case with option D, again the stem is women collaborated to weave a new wooden robe... and the second item is "that this robe depicted scenes of a battle"

So I'm a little bit confused it might be something that I have understood completely wrong could you provide your assistance?
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The easiest way to evaluate this kind of parallel construction is to insert the second element in place of the first element, and see if the construction still makes sense. For example:

    "Tim believes that aliens are infiltrating his bedroom at night and that these aliens are inserting little pieces of cardboard into his ear canal.

If we substitute the highlighted piece in place of the first element, we'd have "Tim believes that these aliens are inserting little pieces of cardboard..." This is logical (grammatically). Tim believes two things: that aliens are infiltrating his room and that they are inserting cardboard in his head. So far so good. (If you've ever met Tim, you would know that the alien cardboard inside his head could plausibly explain many of his questionable decisions.)

Watch how seamlessly this works with (D):

    "Records from ancient Athens indicate that each year young Athenian women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe with which they dressed a statue of the goddess Athena and that this robe depicted scenes of a battle between Zeus.."

If we place the second "that" clause in place of the first, we have: "Records from ancient Athens indicate that this robe depicted scenes of a battle between Zeus..." Looks good. The records indicated two things: that the Athenian women collaborated and that the robe depicted scenes of a battle. Glorious.

Now try the same exercise with (C):

    "...each year young Athenian women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe that they used to dress a statue of the goddess Athena and that this robe depicted scenes of a battle between Zeus..."

If we substitute the second "that" clause in place of the first, we'd have: "each year young Athenian women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe that this robe depicted scenes of a battle between Zeus..." This is bad. This is very very bad, so bad that you probably don't have to spend a lot of time parsing why it's nonsense. So (C) is out.

I hope that helps!
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Based on records from ancient Athens, each year young Athenian women 11 Aug 2019, 04:35
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Quote:
Hello gmatninja could you please shed some light on the issue I have concerning the bolded part of your explanation?
Specifically, I do not understand the "test" that you conduct in order to check the parallelism, the stem is ...women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe...
1) that they used to dress a statue <-- this is ok
2) that this robe depicted scenes of a battle <-- here you mention that it does not make sense, however isn't it the same case with option D, again the stem is women collaborated to weave a new wooden robe... and the second item is "that this robe depicted scenes of a battle"

So I'm a little bit confused it might be something that I have understood completely wrong could you provide your assistance?
The easiest way to evaluate this kind of parallel construction is to insert the second element in place of the first element, and see if the construction still makes sense. For example:

    "Tim believes that aliens are infiltrating his bedroom at night and that these aliens are inserting little pieces of cardboard into his ear canal.

If we substitute the highlighted piece in place of the first element, we'd have "Tim believes that these aliens are inserting little pieces of cardboard..." This is logical (grammatically). Tim believes two things: that aliens are infiltrating his room and that they are inserting cardboard in his head. So far so good. (If you've ever met Tim, you would know that the alien cardboard inside his head could plausibly explain many of his questionable decisions.)

Watch how seamlessly this works with (D):

    "Records from ancient Athens indicate that each year young Athenian women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe with which they dressed a statue of the goddess Athena and that this robe depicted scenes of a battle between Zeus.."

If we place the second "that" clause in place of the first, we have: "Records from ancient Athens indicate that this robe depicted scenes of a battle between Zeus..." Looks good. The records indicated two things: that the Athenian women collaborated and that the robe depicted scenes of a battle. Glorious.

Now try the same exercise with (C):

    "...each year young Athenian women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe that they used to dress a statue of the goddess Athena and that this robe depicted scenes of a battle between Zeus..."

If we substitute the second "that" clause in place of the first, we'd have: "each year young Athenian women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe that this robe depicted scenes of a battle between Zeus..." This is bad. This is very very bad, so bad that you probably don't have to spend a lot of time parsing why it's nonsense. So (C) is out.

I hope that helps!
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Thanks a lot for the detailed explanation GMATNinja really appreciated, so if I understood well , we proceed like this...

D
Records from ancient Athens indicate 1)that each year young Athenian women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe with which they dressed a statue of the goddess Athena (sounds good) 2) that this robe depicted scenes of a battle between Zeus (sounds good again)

On the other hand, in C
each year young Athenian women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe 1) that they used to dress a statue of the goddess Athena (sounds good) 2) that this robe depicted scenes of a battle between Zeus (HORRIBLE) .
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Based on records from ancient Athens, each year young Athenian women 11 Aug 2019, 14:00
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UNSTOPPABLE12
Thanks a lot for the detailed explanation GMATNinja really appreciated, so if I understood well , we proceed like this...

D
Records from ancient Athens indicate 1)that each year young Athenian women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe with which they dressed a statue of the goddess Athena (sounds good) 2) that this robe depicted scenes of a battle between Zeus (sounds good again)

On the other hand, in C
each year young Athenian women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe 1) that they used to dress a statue of the goddess Athena (sounds good) 2) that this robe depicted scenes of a battle between Zeus (HORRIBLE) .
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No problem, UNSTOPPABLE12! Your explanation hits the nail on the head. Nicely done.
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Based on records from ancient Athens, each year young Athenian women 24 Sep 2019, 06:09
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And if you read this far, you deserve a cookie for surviving to the end of the longest freaking QOTD explanation I've ever written. :oops:
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Thanks, GMATNinja for your perfect explanation. bb: I guess there must be a feature to filter the questions which have responses from such legendary experts as GMATNinja. That would be a great way to enhance the knowledge of SC and CR topics.

These explanations sometimes seem to have made me at least a point wiser on my verbal score. So maybe all i need is 51 great explanations from GMATNinja to get a perfect verbal score. :lol: (One can make a flaw in reasoning question from this maybe :think: :idontknow: )
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Based on records from ancient Athens, each year young Athenian women 24 Sep 2019, 07:00
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Found hard to differentiate the parallelism error between C and D? This is the structural difference between C and D (as mentioned by The @gmatninja)

Option C :

According to records from ancient Athens, each year young Athenian women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe (the 2 entities that follow must modify new woolen robe)
  • that they used to dress a statue of the goddess Athena and
  • that this robe depicted scenes of a battle between Zeus, Athena's father, and giants. (robe that this robe...all nonsense)

Option D

Records from ancient Athens indicate (the two parallel entities that follow must modify Records from ancient Athens)
  • that each year young Athenian women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe with which they dressed a statue of the goddess Athena and
  • that this robe depicted scenes of a battle between Zeus, Athena's father, and giants.
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Based on records from ancient Athens, each year young Athenian women 13 Jun 2020, 03:04
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Simple reporting verb+that and That is the parallelism need to be checked
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Based on records from ancient Athens, each year young Athenian women 15 Jun 2020, 23:39
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why is the first part in A wrong and the first part in C right, for the same reason as in A , "according to records" should also be wrong?
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Based on records from ancient Athens, each year young Athenian women 01 Jul 2020, 05:11
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Based on records from ancient Athens, each year young Athenian women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe that they used to dress a statue of the goddess Athena and that this robe depicted scenes of a battle between Zeus, Athena's father, and giants.


(A) Based on records from ancient Athens, each year young Athenian women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe that they used to dress
each year young Athenian women were Based on records from ancient Athens - wrong

(B) Based on records from ancient Athens, young Athenian women had collaborated to weave a new woolen robe with which to dress
young Athenian women were Based on records from ancient Athens - Wrong

(C) According to records from ancient Athens, each year young Athenian women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe that they used to dress
a new woolen robe that this robe - wrong

(D) Records from ancient Athens indicate that each year young Athenian women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe with which they dressed
Correct

(E) Records from ancient Athens indicate each year young Athenian women had collaborated to weave a new woolen robe for dressing
The use of had is incorrect. There is only one action and there is no other action to compare.
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Based on records from ancient Athens, each year young Athenian women 12 Jul 2020, 06:59
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GMATNinja
why is the first part in A wrong and the first part in C right, for the same reason as in A , "according to records" should also be wrong?
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Great question. It’s important not to treat all opening modifiers equally. We have to think about what they’re likely describing and how they operate in the context of the sentence.

For example:

    Running for his life, Tim weaved through the forest as he decided that a crossbow is an unfortunate present for a five-year-old with a vendetta against her father.

In this case, “running for his life” clearly modifies Tim. Someone is running for his life, and whoever it is needs to come right after the modifier in order for the sentence to make sense. This is what we’re accustomed to seeing.

But other types of modifiers will work differently. Consider:

    According to Tim, a crossbow is an unfortunate present for a five-year-old.

You might look at this and think, “Wait. A crossbow is “according to Tim?” That doesn’t make sense.” But that’s not the right way to evaluate this modifier. Whereas “running” describes an action that someone must be doing, “according” isn’t an action at all. It’s hard to imagine any noun that would be “according to Tim.” Instead, we’d expect to see the modifier followed by a full clause, something Tim has stated or believes. In this case, Tim believes that a crossbow is a bad gift for a kid. Makes sense. So this sentence is fine.

The takeaway: If the opening modifier can only logically describe a subject, then yes, the subject must follow immediately after. If the opening modifier could potentially describe an action, or if there’s some doubt about how it should operate, you need to look for other decision points.

I hope that helps!
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Based on records from ancient Athens, each year young Athenian women 12 Jul 2020, 09:17
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Based on records from ancient Athens, each year young Athenian women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe that they used to dress a statue of the goddess Athena and that this robe depicted scenes of a battle between Zeus, Athena's father, and giants.

"that" clause in red must be parallel to something.

(A) Based on records from ancient Athens, each year young Athenian women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe that they used to dress
Means Athenian women are based on records.

(B) Based on records from ancient Athens, young Athenian women had collaborated to weave a new woolen robe with which to dress
Means Athenian women are based on records. Past perfect is also wrong

(C) According to records from ancient Athens, each year young Athenian women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe that they used to dress
The two that clauses are structurally parallel but the second one does not make sense with main sentence.
that they used to dress
that this robe depicted scenes of a battle between Zeus, Athena's father, and giants

(D) Records from ancient Athens indicate that each year young Athenian women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe with which they dressed
Records indicate that X and that Y
CORRECT

(E) Records from ancient Athens indicate each year young Athenian women had collaborated to weave a new woolen robe for dressing
Past perfect is wrong. Also fails the parallelism.
Also "Records indicate that xyz" -- that after indicate is better
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Based on records from ancient Athens, each year young Athenian women 04 Aug 2020, 16:59
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Hey can someone help me figure this part out:

In D I mistakenly thought it was parralel to “which” because both that and which are relative pronouns. It didn’t make sense and I rejected it. How do you know it was supposed to be parallel to that? I mean there are technically two choices here.

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Based on records from ancient Athens, each year young Athenian women 10 Jan 2021, 10:44
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Based on records from ancient Athens, each year young Athenian women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe that they used to dress a statue of the goddess Athena and that this robe depicted scenes of a battle between Zeus, Athena's father, and giants.


(A) Based on records from ancient Athens, each year young Athenian women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe that they used to dress

(B) Based on records from ancient Athens, young Athenian women had collaborated to weave a new woolen robe with which to dress

(C) According to records from ancient Athens, each year young Athenian women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe that they used to dress

(D) Records from ancient Athens indicate that each year young Athenian women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe with which they dressed

(E) Records from ancient Athens indicate each year young Athenian women had collaborated to weave a new woolen robe for dressing



This problem test modifier, redundancy, and parallelism, and it is solved as below:

(A) Based on records from ancient Athens, each year young Athenian women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe that they used to dress -- Based on, touch rule error because it should modify a noun, such as results or observations!

(B) Based on records from ancient Athens, young Athenian women had collaborated to weave a new woolen robe with which to dress
----- SAME AS A

(C) According to records from ancient Athens, each year young Athenian women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe that they used to dress ----
The modifier is ok, because it can modify the whole sentence (modifier (ing)). However, the wrong here is the parallelism. In fact, using the word (this rob) in the underlined sentence is redundancy

According to records from ancient Athens, each year young Athenian women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe that they used to dress a statue of the goddess Athena and that this robe depicted scenes of a battle between Zeus, Athena's father, and giants.

(D) Records from ancient Athens indicate that each year young Athenian women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe with which they dressed -- Correct

(E) Records from ancient Athens indicate each year young Athenian women had collaborated to weave a new woolen robe for dressing -- Parallel issue, there is not FIRST (THAT) TO be parallel with below THAT:

statue of the goddess Athena and that this robe depicted scenes of a battle between Zeus, Athena's father, and giants.



Verbal Question of The Day: Day 118: Sentence Correction


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Based on records from ancient Athens, each year young Athenian women 14 Mar 2021, 00:37
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GMATNinja

Firstly, massive appreciation and gratitude for your detailed explanations and for the videos on YouTube.

Coming to this question, I understand how A,B, C and E are wrong. However it was a tough choice because I thought D has a flaw too. How does the second element refer to something that is not part of the stem but is the part of the first parallel element (the second refers to "this robe")?

Is the reason D is correct because that's the best available option? Ideally, wouldn't that be wrong too?

GMATNinja
This (bleeping) question is one of my all-time favorites, just because it features a whole bunch of grammar and usage issues that are simultaneously difficult and "learnable." Sometimes, it's really tough to get better at SC questions that test meaning, so it's satisfying when we can take a hard question like this one, and break it down methodically -- without any real need to worry about the subtleties of meaning.

We'll eventually have to deal with some funky parallelism stuff here (as featured in our YouTube webinar on parallelism and meaning), but the first thing that should catch your eye is that "-ed" modifier right at the beginning of the sentence. (More on "-ed" words here.) In this case, "based on records from ancient Athens" must be followed by something that can actually be based on records from ancient Athens. So...

Quote:
(A) Based on records from ancient Athens, each year young Athenian women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe that they used to dress
Wait, this is literally saying that "each year young Athenian women" are based on records from ancient Athens. That makes no sense at all. A conclusion or a finding or a report could be "based on records", but the women themselves certainly can't be. (A) is out.

Quote:
(B) Based on records from ancient Athens, young Athenian women had collaborated to weave a new woolen robe with which to dress
(B) has exactly the same error as (A): the young women can't be "based on records." You can eliminate (B) based on that alone.

Hopefully, the past perfect tense phrase "had collaborated" catches your eye, too. As you probably know, the action in past perfect tense has to logically precede some other "time marker" in the past -- generally, another action in simple past tense. So this particular sentence is saying that the women first "had collaborated to weave a new woolen robe"; the subsequent actions in simple past are "they used to dress a statue" and "this robe depicted scenes." I suppose that they collaborated before they used the robe to dress a statue, but I think it's awfully weird to say that they "had collaborated" first, and then the robe later "depicted scenes."

You don't really need to waste your energy on the past perfect tense in (B), but for whatever it's worth, it certainly doesn't seem right.

Quote:
(C) According to records from ancient Athens, each year young Athenian women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe that they used to dress
I think I can live with the use of "according to records from ancient Athens" in this case, even though I don't love it. I think that particular "-ing" phrase is modifying the entire clause that follows ("...young women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe..."), and I guess it's OK to say that this action is something we know "according to records from ancient Athens." I've never been totally convinced by it, but wouldn't immediately eliminate (A). (More on the GMAT's use of "-ing" words here.)

The real issue with (C) is the parallelism. And it's tricky, so bear with me here.

Whenever you're looking at parallelism, start with the parallelism "trigger" -- usually an "and" or an "or", though there are others. (The other triggers are a long story that we'll save for another day.) Then you'll always want to find the thing that follows the word "and", and then figure out what's parallel to that thing.

So in this case, we have: "and that this robe depicted scenes of a battle between Zeus, Athena's father, and giants." Something HAS to be parallel to "that this robe depicted scenes." In (C), our only option is "that they used to dress a statue." Cool, we have structural parallelism.

Trouble is, it makes no sense when you actually think about the "stem" that precedes the two parallel elements. If you want, you can think of parallelism as a list of two (or more) items, and the "stem" is the thing that precedes the first item in the list. But the stem HAS to make sense with EVERY item in the list.

If we break down (C) really carefully, we have the following:

  • Stem: "...young Athenian women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe..."
  • List item #1: "...that they used to dress a statue..."
  • List item #2 (after "and"): "...that this robe depicted scenes of a battle..."

The first item works just fine with the stem: "...women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe that they used to dress a statue..." No problem. But that "stem" also has to make sense with the second item. And in this case, it really doesn't work: "...women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe... that this robe depicted scenes of a battle..." Huh? That's absolute nonsense.

This is what tough parallelism looks like on the GMAT. You can't "hear" the parallelism error at all -- or at least I can't. But if you break the parallelism down methodically, (C) is clearly wrong.

(Does your brain hurt yet? If you prefer video, our YouTube webinar on parallelism and meaning covered this question, too.)

Quote:
(D) Records from ancient Athens indicate that each year young Athenian women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe with which they dressed
(D) cleans up the parallelism nicely! Using the same technique as in (C), we have the following:

  • Stem: "Records from ancient Athens indicate..."
  • List item #1: "...that each year young women collaborated to weave a new robe..."
  • List item #2 (after "and"): "...that this robe depicted scenes of a battle..."

That works! "Records indicate... that this robe depicted scenes of battle..." Great. Keep (D).


Quote:
(E) Records from ancient Athens indicate each year young Athenian women had collaborated to weave a new woolen robe for dressing
In (E), we still have the same past perfect tense issue that appear in (B). Plus, the parallelism is completely wrong: the trigger "and" is still followed by "that this robe depicted scenes of battle...", but there are no phrases that could possibly be parallel, since there are no subordinate clauses beginning with "that" elsewhere in the sentence.

So (E) is gone, and (D) is our winner.

And if you read this far, you deserve a cookie for surviving to the end of the longest freaking QOTD explanation I've ever written. :oops:
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Based on records from ancient Athens, each year young Athenian women 15 Mar 2021, 05:40
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Based on records from ancient Athens, each year young Athenian women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe that they used to dress a statue of the goddess Athena and that this robe depicted scenes of a battle between Zeus, Athena's father, and giants.


(A) Based on records from ancient Athens, each year young Athenian women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe that they used to dress -
(B) Based on records from ancient Athens, young Athenian women had collaborated to weave a new woolen robe with which to dress
(C) According to records from ancient Athens, each year young Athenian women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe that they used to dress
(D) Records from ancient Athens indicate that each year young Athenian women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe with which they dressed
(E) Records from ancient Athens indicate each year young Athenian women had collaborated to weave a new woolen robe for dressing

Solution:

Parallelism: first part of sentence (underlined) should be parallel to ‘and that this robe..’
So we can rule out A, B, C and E

D – ‘…indicate THAT each year young Athenian women…’ is parallel to the next part, ‘….and THAT this robe depicted…’
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Based on records from ancient Athens, each year young Athenian women 03 Apr 2021, 00:01
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gothamchandra
GMATNinja

Firstly, massive appreciation and gratitude for your detailed explanations and for the videos on YouTube.

Coming to this question, I understand how A,B, C and E are wrong. However it was a tough choice because I thought D has a flaw too. How does the second element refer to something that is not part of the stem but is the part of the first parallel element (the second refers to "this robe")?

Is the reason D is correct because that's the best available option? Ideally, wouldn't that be wrong too?

GMATNinja
This (bleeping) question is one of my all-time favorites, just because it features a whole bunch of grammar and usage issues that are simultaneously difficult and "learnable." Sometimes, it's really tough to get better at SC questions that test meaning, so it's satisfying when we can take a hard question like this one, and break it down methodically -- without any real need to worry about the subtleties of meaning.

We'll eventually have to deal with some funky parallelism stuff here (as featured in our YouTube webinar on parallelism and meaning), but the first thing that should catch your eye is that "-ed" modifier right at the beginning of the sentence. (More on "-ed" words here.) In this case, "based on records from ancient Athens" must be followed by something that can actually be based on records from ancient Athens. So...

Quote:
(A) Based on records from ancient Athens, each year young Athenian women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe that they used to dress
Wait, this is literally saying that "each year young Athenian women" are based on records from ancient Athens. That makes no sense at all. A conclusion or a finding or a report could be "based on records", but the women themselves certainly can't be. (A) is out.

Quote:
(B) Based on records from ancient Athens, young Athenian women had collaborated to weave a new woolen robe with which to dress
(B) has exactly the same error as (A): the young women can't be "based on records." You can eliminate (B) based on that alone.

Hopefully, the past perfect tense phrase "had collaborated" catches your eye, too. As you probably know, the action in past perfect tense has to logically precede some other "time marker" in the past -- generally, another action in simple past tense. So this particular sentence is saying that the women first "had collaborated to weave a new woolen robe"; the subsequent actions in simple past are "they used to dress a statue" and "this robe depicted scenes." I suppose that they collaborated before they used the robe to dress a statue, but I think it's awfully weird to say that they "had collaborated" first, and then the robe later "depicted scenes."

You don't really need to waste your energy on the past perfect tense in (B), but for whatever it's worth, it certainly doesn't seem right.

Quote:
(C) According to records from ancient Athens, each year young Athenian women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe that they used to dress
I think I can live with the use of "according to records from ancient Athens" in this case, even though I don't love it. I think that particular "-ing" phrase is modifying the entire clause that follows ("...young women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe..."), and I guess it's OK to say that this action is something we know "according to records from ancient Athens." I've never been totally convinced by it, but wouldn't immediately eliminate (A). (More on the GMAT's use of "-ing" words here.)

The real issue with (C) is the parallelism. And it's tricky, so bear with me here.

Whenever you're looking at parallelism, start with the parallelism "trigger" -- usually an "and" or an "or", though there are others. (The other triggers are a long story that we'll save for another day.) Then you'll always want to find the thing that follows the word "and", and then figure out what's parallel to that thing.

So in this case, we have: "and that this robe depicted scenes of a battle between Zeus, Athena's father, and giants." Something HAS to be parallel to "that this robe depicted scenes." In (C), our only option is "that they used to dress a statue." Cool, we have structural parallelism.

Trouble is, it makes no sense when you actually think about the "stem" that precedes the two parallel elements. If you want, you can think of parallelism as a list of two (or more) items, and the "stem" is the thing that precedes the first item in the list. But the stem HAS to make sense with EVERY item in the list.

If we break down (C) really carefully, we have the following:

  • Stem: "...young Athenian women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe..."
  • List item #1: "...that they used to dress a statue..."
  • List item #2 (after "and"): "...that this robe depicted scenes of a battle..."

The first item works just fine with the stem: "...women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe that they used to dress a statue..." No problem. But that "stem" also has to make sense with the second item. And in this case, it really doesn't work: "...women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe... that this robe depicted scenes of a battle..." Huh? That's absolute nonsense.

This is what tough parallelism looks like on the GMAT. You can't "hear" the parallelism error at all -- or at least I can't. But if you break the parallelism down methodically, (C) is clearly wrong.

(Does your brain hurt yet? If you prefer video, our YouTube webinar on parallelism and meaning covered this question, too.)

Quote:
(D) Records from ancient Athens indicate that each year young Athenian women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe with which they dressed
(D) cleans up the parallelism nicely! Using the same technique as in (C), we have the following:

  • Stem: "Records from ancient Athens indicate..."
  • List item #1: "...that each year young women collaborated to weave a new robe..."
  • List item #2 (after "and"): "...that this robe depicted scenes of a battle..."

That works! "Records indicate... that this robe depicted scenes of battle..." Great. Keep (D).


Quote:
(E) Records from ancient Athens indicate each year young Athenian women had collaborated to weave a new woolen robe for dressing
In (E), we still have the same past perfect tense issue that appear in (B). Plus, the parallelism is completely wrong: the trigger "and" is still followed by "that this robe depicted scenes of battle...", but there are no phrases that could possibly be parallel, since there are no subordinate clauses beginning with "that" elsewhere in the sentence.

So (E) is gone, and (D) is our winner.

And if you read this far, you deserve a cookie for surviving to the end of the longest freaking QOTD explanation I've ever written. :oops:
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hey gothamchandra, D is completely fine. I doubt we'd ever come across a correct choice that is actually "wrong". Of course their could be better ways to state the sentence, but the correct choice would never be wrong IMO.

D shows the parallelism between 2 items. The list if of the things indicated by these records. The records indicate -
1. That Each young women.....
2. That this robe.....

The parallelism seems perfect to me and shows the 2 things that the records indicate. It's okay if the 2nd item on the list refers to something that is not part of the "stem". I mean there are several scenarios where the 2 items on the list would be very different and might as well be completely unrelated.

eg - I believe that the earth is flat and that Chelsea will win the premier league.
The above example is perfect in terms of parallelism and the 2 items are not even slightly related to each other.

Hope this helps! :)
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