Before Colette, the female writers of France had been aristocrats

Hi GMATGuruNY ReedArnoldMPREP GMATNinjaTwo AjiteshArun AnthonyRitz GraceSCKao RonTargetTestPrep GMATNinja

Reading from many experts above - apparently, Subject verb cannot be used to eliminate (Which suprised me)

So with Subject - verb off the table - I could eliminate (B), (C), (D) using other ways.

Between (A) and (E) however - i preffered (E)

Reason -

(A) has a 'multiple interpretation' problem IMO

Specifically - In (A) -- the structure is No X or Y

I believe there could 3 interepretations for this structure (using the rules of parallelism)

(interpretation 1) -- (No X) or (Y)
(Interpretation 2) -- No (X or Y)
(Interpretation 3) -- No X or (No) Y -- here, the "No" is part of the parallel root phase marker and thus the "No" applies to both the X marker and the Y marker.

Given the 3 plausible interpretations laid out above re: the structure in (A) - No X or Y -

I preferred the structure in (e), which is (No X) or (No Y)

The structure in (e) [(No X) or (No Y)] does not lead to double or triple interpretations, unlike the structure in (A)

Thoughts on why the structure of No X or Y [as seen in A] -- could NOT lead to double or triple interpretations ?

As Ron explained above: "There was no A or no B" implies that EITHER was missing, but not BOTH were missing. "There was no taco or no burger served at the restaurant" allows for either a taco or a burger (but not both) to be served. If neither was served, I should say "There were no tacos or burgers served."

As to your last question, it just seems somewhat idiomatic. "There was no (X) or (Y)" never means "There was (no X) or (Y)." You could argue there is a parallelism issue with that formulation. Parallelism must be logically parallel. "No x" is the absence of something, 'Y' is the presence of something. Those cannot be in logical parallel form.

Hi ReedArnoldMPREP - thank you for the response in the yellow. Just sticking with the structure - No X or Y.

You mention per the yellow, interpretation # 1 is not a legitimate interpretation because interpretation #1 is not logically parallel [I agree !]

What about interpretation # 3 though ? Is interpreation # 3 also not parallel in your view ?

I know in parallelism nouns and verbs can be a part of the root [hence the verbs or the nouns are applicable to the X marker and the Y marker]

Is "No", not something that can be part of the root phrase because "No" is an adjective and adjectives cannot be part of the root ?

Original - I drink Sweet tea or coffee

I believe this sentence would be wrong because there are 3 interpretations

(Interpretation 1) I drink (Sweet tea) or (coffee)
(Interpretation 2) I drink Sweet (tea or coffee)
(Interpretation 3) I drink Sweet tea or (Sweet) coffee

Thank you so much ReedArnoldMPREP RonTargetTestPrep

The challenge is to understand when do the rules of parallelism apply and/or when does boolean logic apply

Let me explain

In a simple sentence like this



But if i understand, this sentence for some strange reason is okay.



Why - because for some reason, boolean logic takes over and we are supposed to assume, there is only one interepretation of this sentence.

I think its because of the presence of the "No" that somehow we are supposed to assume - boolean logic is in play whereas in the first sentence above -- boolean logic is NOT in play

OR

Perhaps, both my sentences are okay

Not sure

Hello Everyone!

Let's tackle this question, one thing at a time, to quickly narrow down our choices to the right one! To begin, scan through the question and highlight the major differences we can find in orange:

Before Colette, the female writers of France had been aristocrats, from Mme de Lafayette to Anne de Noailles; there were no Jane Austens or Brontë sisters, perhaps because there were almost no clergymen’s daughters.

(A) were no Jane Austens or
(B) were not Jane Austens or
(C) was not Jane Austen nor the
(D) was not a Jane Austen or the
(E) was no Jane Austen or no

After a quick glance over the options, there are a few places we can focus on:

1. were vs. was
2. no vs. not
3. or / nor the / or the / or no

Let's start with #1 on our list: were vs. was. No matter which one we choose, it will eliminate 2-3 options rather quickly. We need to make sure that whichever verb we choose can apply to BOTH sets of people listed - not just the first one that's listed. To make this easier to spot, let's add "Brontë sisters" to each option:

(A) were no Jane Austens or Brontë sisters ("were" works with both items because they're both plural)
(B) were not Jane Austens or Brontë sisters ("were" works with both items because they're both plural)
(C) was not Jane Austen nor the Brontë sisters (singular "was" doesn't work with plural "sisters")
(D) was not a Jane Austen or the Brontë sisters (singular "was" doesn't work with plural "sisters")
(E) was no Jane Austen or no Brontë sisters (singular "was" doesn't work with plural "sisters")

We can eliminate options C, D, & E because they use a singular verb with the plural Brontë sisters.

Now that we have it narrowed down to only 2 options, let's look at the only difference we have left: no vs. not. This is an idiom issue! When we say that we're lacking two sets of things, there is a certain way we express that in English:

There were no Xs or Ys = CORRECT
There were not Xs or Ys = INCORRECT

Let's see how our options break down:

(A) were no Jane Austens or
(B) were not Jane Austens or

There you have it - option A was the correct choice all along! By focusing on the key differences, we were able to eliminate a lot of options right off the bat, leaving us with only a simple decision to make in the end!


Don't study for the GMAT. Train for it.

Question:

Does this mean, because we are exemplifying with two sets of items/people, this structure - "There was no X or Y" is always wrong?
Does it always have to be There WERE no X or Y?