Bengal-born writer, philosopher, and educator Rabindranath Tagore had

Question

Bengal-born writer, philosopher, and educator Rabindranath Tagore had the greatest admiration  for Mohandas K. Gandhi the person and also as a politician, but Tagore had been  skeptical of Gandhi's form of nationalism and his conservative opinions about India's cultural traditions

(A) for Mohandas K. Gandhi the person and also as a politician, but Tagore had been

(B) for Mohandas K.Gandhi as a person and as a politician, but Tagore was also

(C) for Mohandas K.Gandhi not only as a person and as a politician, but Tagore was also

(D) of Mohandas K.Gandhi as a person and as also a politician, but Tagore was

(E) of Mohandas K.Gandhi not only as a person and as a politician, but Tagore had also been

Source OG 13 # 38

mikemcgarry · Accepted Answer

Dear honchos , I'm happy to help. :-)

Here's the question again: OG SC #38 ) Bengal-born writer, philosopher, and educator Rabindranath Tagore had the greatest admiration for Mohandas K. Gandhi the person and also as a politician, but Tagore had been skeptical of Gandhi's form of nationalism and his conservative opinions about India's cultural traditions A. for Mohandas K. Gandhi the person and also as a politician, but Tagore had been B. for Mohandas K.Gandhi as a person and as a politician, but Tagore was also C. for Mohandas K.Gandhi not only as a person and as a politician, but Tagore was also D. of Mohandas K.Gandhi as a person and as also a politician, but Tagore was E. of Mohandas K.Gandhi not only as a person and as a politician, but Tagore had also been The not only ... but also idiom is a favorite on the GMAT, and it must link two parallel structures ---- not only P but also Q The P & Q must be in parallel. If P begins with a preposition, then Q must begin with the same preposition. In version (C) , it starts .... (C) Bengal-born writer, philosopher, and educator Rabindranath Tagore had the greatest admiration for Mohandas K.Gandhi not only as a person and as a politician, ..... After the "not only ", we get a prepositional phrase with the preposition "as", so we need exactly that in the second half: for example, something along the lines of ..... Bengal-born writer, philosopher, and educator Rabindranath Tagore had the greatest admiration for Mohandas K.Gandhi not only as a person and as a politician, but also as an expert in blah blah blah. The second half of the sentence does not match the expectations that the first half of (C) sets up. More to the point, the grammatical structures not P but Q or a simple but establishes a strong contrast, and it is precisely this sense of contrast for which this sentence is striving. Simplistically, Tagore saw Gandhi as good in some ways and not-so-good in some ways. That's contrast. The structure not only P but also Q is a structure that emphasizes the deeper unity among two elements that might seem different. It's not really the appropriate idiom for the contrast this sentence wants to establish. See: https://magoosh.com/gmat/2013/gmat-idiom ... junctions/ Does all this make sense? Mike :-)

EMPOWERgmatVerbal · Answer

Hello Everyone!

Let's take a closer look at this question to figure out how we should tackle it. First, here is the original question, with any major differences between the options highlighted in  orange :

Bengal-born writer, philosopher, and educator Rabindranath Tagore had the greatest admiration  for Mohandas K. Gandhi the person and also as a politician, but Tagore had been  skeptical of Gandhi's form of nationalism and his conservative opinions about India's cultural traditions

(A)  for  Mohandas K. Gandhi  the person and also as a politician , but Tagore  had been 
(B)  for  Mohandas K.Gandhi  as a person and as a politician , but Tagore  was also 
(C)  for  Mohandas K.Gandhi  not only as a person and as a politician , but Tagore  was also 
(D)  of  Mohandas K.Gandhi  as a person and as also a politician , but Tagore  was  
(E)  of  Mohandas K.Gandhi  not only as a person and as a politician , but Tagore  had also been

After a quick glance over the options, a few key differences jump out at us:

1. How they begin: admiration for vs. admiration of  (idiomatic rules) 
2. How to handle describing Gahdhi as a person and politician  (possibly parallelism?) 
3. How they end: had been vs. was  (verb tense)

The quickest way to rule out wrong options is to find something on the list that will eliminate 2-3 options.  For us, this means dealing with #1 on our list: admiration for vs. admiration of.

The rule in English is that people have  admiration for  other people - they do NOT have  admiration of  other people. So let's see which options do this correctly:

(A)  for  Mohandas K. Gandhi the person and also as a politician, but Tagore had been
(B)  for  Mohandas K.Gandhi as a person and as a politician, but Tagore was also
(C)  for  Mohandas K.Gandhi not only as a person and as a politician, but Tagore was also
(D)  of  Mohandas K.Gandhi as a person and as also a politician, but Tagore was 
(E)  of  Mohandas K.Gandhi not only as a person and as a politician, but Tagore had also been

There you go - we can eliminate options D & E because they don't follow the proper idiomatic rule for "admiration for."

Now that we have 3 options left, let's move on to #2 on our list: how to describe Gandhi. When listing 2 or more items, such as the qualities of a person, we MUST use parallel format whenever possible. Let's take a closer look at options A, B, and C to determine if they use parallel wording or structure:

(A) for Mohandas K. Gandhi  the person  and also  as a politician , but Tagore had been -->  NOT PARALLEL 
(B) for Mohandas K.Gandhi  as a person  and  as a politician , but Tagore was also -->  PARALLEL 
(C) for Mohandas K.Gandhi not only  as a person  and  as a politician , but Tagore was also -->  PARALLEL

So, we can eliminate option A because it does not use parallel structure when describing both traits of Gandhi.

Now we're only left with 2 options. Let's take a closer look at both, and see if we can spot any other problems:

(B) for Mohandas K.Gandhi as a person and as a politician, but Tagore was also
 
This option is  CORRECT ! It uses the proper idiom for "admiration for" a person, it uses parallel structure, and it doesn't have any other issues we can spot.

(C) for Mohandas K.Gandhi  not only  as a person and as a politician,  but  Tagore was  also 
 
This answer is  INCORRECT  because it doesn't use the proper format of the idiomatic structure "not only X, but also Y." Any time you see the phrase "not only" in a sentence, there MUST be a phrase that starts with "but also" with nothing in between the words! It's a tricky one to catch, yet it's a common idiom that pops up on the GMAT exam!

There you have it! Option B is our correct choice! By choosing to focus on simple differences between the options, we found the best option quickly!

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

ExpertsGlobal5 · Answer

Dear Friends,

Here is a detailed explanation to this question-

Concepts tested here: Tenses + Parallelism + Idioms

• The simple past tense is used to refer to events that concluded in the past. 
• The past perfect tense (marked by the use of helping verb "had") is used when a sentence contains two actions in the past; the helping verb "had" is used with the action in the "greater past".
• Any elements linked by a conjunction ("and also" in this sentence) must be parallel.
• “not only A but also B” is the correct, idiomatic usage; A must be parallel to B.
• "admiration for" is the correct, idiomatic construction.

A:  This answer choice incorrectly uses the past perfect tense verb "had been" to refer to one of two actions that concluded in the past and took place at the same time - Rabindranath Tagore having the greatest admiration for Mohandas K. Gandhi and Tagore being skeptical of Gandhi's form of nationalism and his conservative opinions about India's cultural traditions; remember, the simple past tense is used to refer to events that concluded in the past, and the past perfect tense (marked by the use of helping verb "had") is only used when a sentence contains two actions in the past, and one took place before the other; the helping verb "had" is used with the action in the "greater past". Further, Option A fails to maintain parallelism between "the person" and "as a politician"; please remember, any elements linked by a conjunction ("and also" in this sentence) must be parallel.

B:   Correct.  This answer choice correctly uses the simple past tense verb "was" to refer to one of two actions that concluded in the past and took place at the same time - Rabindranath Tagore having the greatest admiration for Mohandas K. Gandhi and Tagore being skeptical of Gandhi's form of nationalism and his conservative opinions about India's cultural traditions. Further, Option B correctly maintains parallelism between "as a person" and "as a politician". Additionally, Option B correctly uses the idiomatic construction "admiration for". Moreover, Option B avoids the idiom error seen in Options C and E, as it does not use the "not only A but also B" construction.

C:  This answer choice incorrectly uses the unidiomatic construction "not only A ("as a person") and B ("as a politician")"; please remember, “not only A but also B” is the correct, idiomatic usage; A must be parallel to B.

D:  This answer choice uses the unidiomatic construction "admiration of"; please remember, "admiration for" is the correct, idiomatic construction. Further, Option D fails to maintain parallelism between "as a person" and "as also a politician"; please remember, any elements linked by a conjunction ("and" in this sentence) must be parallel.

E:  This answer choice incorrectly uses the past perfect tense verb "had...been" to refer to one of two actions that concluded in the past and took place at the same time - Rabindranath Tagore having the greatest admiration for Mohandas K. Gandhi and Tagore being skeptical of Gandhi's form of nationalism and his conservative opinions about India's cultural traditions; remember, the simple past tense is used to refer to events that concluded in the past, and the past perfect tense (marked by the use of helping verb "had") is only used when a sentence contains two actions in the past, and one took place before the other; the helping verb "had" is used with the action in the "greater past". Further, Option E uses the unidiomatic construction "admiration of"; please remember, "admiration for" is the correct, idiomatic construction. Additionally, Option E incorrectly uses the unidiomatic construction "not only A ("as a person") and B ("as a politician")"; please remember, “not only A but also B” is the correct, idiomatic usage; A must be parallel to B.

Hence, B is the best answer choice.

To understand the concept of "Simple Tenses" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~1 minute):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZj-SubJwsM

To understand the concept of "Past Perfect Tense" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~2 minutes):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFGxC37OOGU

All the best!
Experts' Global Team

souvik101990 · Answer

A. MK.Gandhi the person and also AS a politicial is NOT parallel. 
 B. Correct parallelism. 
 C. not only needs but also ESSENTIALLY
D. as a person and as also a politician is NOT parallel. Also admiration of is weird/awkward.
E. Not only needs but also. Also a problem with the use of "admiration of"

honchos · Answer

In this question, I was able to eliminate A,D and E.
But strucked between B and C, I chose B, dont know why, but the explanation here why C i wrong, I am unable to get the catch.

ygdrasil24 · Answer

Mike,

Is it necessary that the in the idiom Not only X but also Y, X and Y should have same structure.
Ex: In the correct version mentioned by you  Bengal-born writer, philosopher, and educator Rabindranath Tagore had the greatest admiration for Mohandas K.Gandhi not only as a person and as a politician, but also as an expert in blah blah blah.

X -> As a person and as a politician
Y-> as an expert

So X is a list of two elements but Y is a single element.

Please advise...

mikemcgarry · Answer

Dear ygdrasil24 , I'm happy to respond. :-)

In the idiom " not only X but also Y ", it is very important that X and Y are in parallel . It's very important to remember --- parallelism is fundamentally not a grammatical structure but a logical structure . The two elements in parallel must be playing logically the same role, and part of that is having the same grammatical form. Here, both X and Y describe roles that Gandhi had, or ways that his contemporaries might look at him. One way to look at him was " as a person and as a politician ." Another way to look at him was " as an expert in blah blah blah ." It's fine that the first one has two elements and the second only has one. Never let yourself become fundamentalist about parallelism. It's not about creating perfect symmetry purely at the level of individual grammatical units --- rather, it's about the overall flow of the logic. If you pay attention to the grammar and ignore the logic, you will miss the forest for the trees. Here's a recent post on parallelism: https://magoosh.com/gmat/2013/dropping-c ... -the-gmat/ I hope all this helps. Mike :-)

vingmat001 · Answer

I get that option B is correct and understand all the reasons why.

But this sentence has an issue that is throwing me off.
....R Tagore  had  the greatest admiration for...., but Tagore  was  also ....

Can some one please explain how this verb-tense is correct?

Does the HAD show that that there was first admiration and Then there WAS skepticism? 
Is this the timeline being conveyed by the meaning of this sentence?

mikemcgarry · Answer

Dear vingmat001 , I'm happy to respond. :-)

Both verbs " had " and " was " are in the simple past tense. The structure " he was " is the simple past tense of " he is ." The structure " he had " is the simple past tense of " he has ." Yes, the word " had " can appear as an auxiliary verb in a number of fancier tenses, such as the present perfect tense, but on its own, it's just a simple past tense of an ordinary verb. Yesterday, I had one cat. Today, I had three. Before yesterday, I had had no cats at all. The three sentences, respective, show the simple present, simple past, and past perfect, of the verb " to have ." Obviously, the " had had " is a little awkward, even though 100% correct, so you will not see this on the GMAT. Does all this make sense? Mike :-)

navaljoshi · Answer

A. for Mohandas K. Gandhi the person and also as a politician, but Tagore had been- awkward B. for Mohandas K.Gandhi as a person and as a politician , but Tagore was also - correct idomatic style, parallel and concise C. for Mohandas K.Gandhi not only as a person and as a politician, but Tagore was also - idiom not used correctly - not parallel D. of Mohandas K.Gandhi as a person and as also a politician, but Tagore was - use of "of" E. of Mohandas K.Gandhi not only as a person and as a politician, but Tagore had also been-use of "of" Still waiting for my first kudos

soodia · Answer

Hello

I'm sorry, I know all of the other choices are wrong but I cannot understand the usage of " also" in choice B
but TAGORE was "also"... is strange for me... we don't have any thing before to intend the meaning of " also" 
there is contrast not similarity

sahilvijay · Answer

Bengal - born writer, philosopher, and educator Rabindranath Tagore had the greatest admiration  for Mohandas K. Gandhi the person and also as a politician, but Tagore had been  skeptical of Gandhi's form of nationalism and his conservative opinions about India's cultural traditions

A. for Mohandas K. Gandhi the person and also as a politician, but Tagore had been
B. for Mohandas K.Gandhi  as a person and as a politician , but Tagore was also
C. for Mohandas K.Gandhi not only as a person and as a politician, but Tagore was also
D. of Mohandas K.Gandhi as a person and as also a politician, but Tagore was 
E. of Mohandas K.Gandhi not only as a person and as a politician, but Tagore had also been

see soodia => here u can see "AND" { Mohandas K. Gandhi the person  and  also as a politician}

Now in parallelism using "and" => what is written after end => as a as a politician (NOUN)
so same should come before => as a person

as a person AND as a politician   is a parallel structure.

Therefore ans is B

Let me know if still it is not clear.

EducationAisle · Answer

Hi  soodia , it's possible that you are confusing   also   with   not only but also  . The latter is used to emphasize  similarity .

also  has no such mandate to be used only for similarity. For example, following would be correct:

Peter admired Jane for her skills, but also envied her.

However, following would be  incorrect :

Not only did Peter admire Jane for her skills, but also envied her .

Another officially correct example of this nature that comes to mind:

The systematic clearing of forests in the United States created farmland (especially in the Northeast) and gave consumers relatively inexpensive houses and furniture,   but it also    caused erosion and very quickly deforested whole regions .

p.s. Our book    EducationAisle Sentence Correction Nirvana    has a handy example of difference between   but  and  not only but also  . Have attached the corresponding section of the book, for your reference.

soodia · Answer

Thank you for your consideration
but in both of your examples, the subjects are the same.
Peter admired Jane for her skills, but (he) also envied her.
and in second example " The systematic clearing of forests in the United States" in the subject.

but in our example S1 is Benegal and S2 is Tagore
I'm confused about using "also" when we compare their view. one of the admire Gandi and another has a skeptical view of him....

EducationAisle · Answer

Hi  soodia , in your example as well, S1 and S2 are same.

S1 is actually  Tagore  (and  not   Bengal ).

Skywalker18 · Answer

Bengal - born writer, philosopher, and educator Rabindranath Tagore had the greatest admiration  for Mohandas K. Gandhi the person and also as a politician, but Tagore had been  skeptical of Gandhi's form of nationalism and his conservative opinions about India's cultural traditions

A. for Mohandas K. Gandhi the person and also as a politician, but Tagore had been - usage of past perfect had been is incorrect
B. for Mohandas K.Gandhi as a person and as a politician, but Tagore was also - Correct
C. for Mohandas K.Gandhi not only as a person and as a politician, but Tagore was also - not only…and is unidiomatic
D. of Mohandas K.Gandhi as a person and as also a politician, but Tagore was - use of “admiration of” is incorrect ; the use of “also” after ‘and’ creates redundancy
E. of Mohandas K.Gandhi not only as a person and as a politician, but Tagore had also been - use of “admiration of” is incorrect ; not only…and is unidiomatic ; usage of past perfect had been is incorrect

Answer B

egmat · Answer

Hello Skywalker18 , You have presented a good analysis of this official sentence. Keep up the good job.

I would just like to add some thoughts with regards to the usage of the idiom not only X but also Y in Choice C and E. According to you, these choices use the incorrect idiom not only X and Y . But if you pay attention, these choice use but also. IMHO, use of not only X but also Y is not feasible in the context of this sentence because this sentence intends to present a contrast - one positive emotion and one negative emotion. The idiom not only X but only Y is used to present two information about the same entity that are in the same direction. So, even if this sentence would have used the idiom not only X but also Y correctly, this idiom would not have conveyed the intended contrast. Hope this helps.

Thanks. Shraddha

Cheryn · Answer

mikemcgarry  or any experts

can i generalise if has, have, had followed by past participle then it is stating the perfect tense, if not it is acting as normal verb with respective tense.

thanks

DmitryFarber · Answer

Cheryn  This is generally true, yes. That's how you build the present perfect tense. Just watch out for cases in which have/has if followed by what looks like a past participle, but is really serving as an adjective:

*She has extended time on the test.
*Our client has unparalleled command of the latest music production software.
*Some people have elongated ears.

In all three cases above, the -ed word modifies the following noun and does not serve as a verb at all. Note that "extended" and "elongated" can serve as verbs in other contexts, but "unparalleled" would only ever be an adjective. One can't "unparallel" something.

Bengal-born writer, philosopher, and educator Rabindranath Tagore had

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Bengal-born writer, philosopher, and educator Rabindranath Tagore had

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