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Bluegrass musician Bill Monroe, whose repertory, views on musical coll

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23 Nov 2022, 13:39

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Sir,
I've read whole explanation. It's just awesome, but facing a little problem with the explanation of choice A.

Quote:

The phrase “was also an inspiration” is a crappy, indirect way to say “also inspire.

^^ In choice B, as we used verb 'inspired', the 'influenced' perfectly fine to me, but in choice A as we used 'inspiration', then the 'influential' also makes sense to me as in parallelism purpose! Am I missing anything, please?

Glad our explanation helped!

Yeah, the verb tenses (which have nothing to do with "parallelism") are certainly consistent within choice (A) and within choice (B) -- and if they weren't, that wouldn't necessarily be a dealbreaker.

Looking at (A) in a bubble, there's nothing flat-out "wrong" about it... but (B) is a better sentence.

GMATNinja
Thank you very much, sir. Though the explanation is very short, but it helped a lot to me. Appreciated..

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24 Nov 2022, 03:03

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Is it fine to use 'whose music' for plurals like - Elvis Presly and Elvis Presley and Jerry Garcia?

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AbbaJaan

Is it fine to use 'whose music' for plurals like - Elvis Presly and Elvis Presley and Jerry Garcia?

Hello AbbaJaan,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, yes; "whose" can absolutely be used to refer to plural nouns and plural noun phrases.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
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24 Nov 2022, 05:45

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In choice B, as we used verb 'inspired', the 'influenced' perfectly fine to me, but in choice A as we used 'inspiration', then the 'influential' also makes sense to me as in parallelism purpose! Am I missing anything, please?

Hey TheUltimateWinner

Happy to chip in.

In addition to the wordier phrases 'were influential on' and 'was also an inspiration to' in choice A, there is also the issue of the use of the that-clause placed between commas.

Since this clause provides additional (non-essential) information, it cannot begin with a "that". As a rule of thumb, avoid placing a that-clause between commas. This is a deterministic error.

I hope this helps.

Happy Learning!

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24 Nov 2022, 15:29

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AbbaJaan

Is it fine to use 'whose music' for plurals like - Elvis Presly and Elvis Presley and Jerry Garcia?

It seems that you wrote ''Elvis Presly'' twice. Is it mistake or intentionally?

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29 Nov 2022, 12:34

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egmat

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egmat
thanks for the explanation. actually my issue was a bit different. i am not concern about ''that'' clause right now. can you check my issue again, pls?

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TheUltimateWinner

Answer choice A doesn't have a parallelism problem. If you looked at influential/inspiration, that would actually not be parallel, since "influential" is an adjective and "inspiration" is a noun. But wait--those are just part of two verb phrases: WERE influential and WAS an inspiration. Are those parallel? No, they can't be. The first is plural and the second is singular, so they are attached to two different subjects.

So why doesn't A have a parallelism problem? Because the parts you're describing aren't marked out as parallel in the first place. The main clause is "Bill Monroe . . . was an inspiration." Then Bill gets a modifier: "whose XYZ were influential." That part has no connection to the main verb, so there's no reason to think about parallelism here.

The trouble with A (aside from the unidiomatic "were influential on") is "that included." The quickest way to eliminate that is that we don't use "that" to modify people. (We want "who.") If you want a subtler, less broadly-applicable reason, keep reading.

When we say "musicians, including," this sets us up for a list of some of the musicians we're talking about. However, "musicians, who included" doesn't serve the same purpose. It implies that the musicians themselves did something to include Elvis and Jerry. (As in, "The kids included me in their game.") For this reason, we can cross out D, as well. There's a notorious question in which the correct answer provides a fix for this issue: https://gmatclub.com/forum/as-an-actres ... ml#p136836

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30 Nov 2022, 00:31

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Hey TheUltimateWinner

If you're referring to the "parallelism" issue, please refer to DmitryFarber 's response.

Couldn't have explained it better myself.

Happy Learning!

Abhishek

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30 Nov 2022, 09:58

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(A) were influential on generations of bluegrass artists, was also an inspiration to many musicians, that included Elvis Presley and Jerry Garcia, whose music differed significantly from
that cannot be used to modify people according to Manhattan prep. also, that is used for essential modifier, here it is not essential

(B) influenced generations of bluegrass artists, also inspired many musicians, including Elvis Presley and Jerry Garcia, whose music differed significantly from
everything looks okay

(C) was influential to generations of bluegrass artists, was also inspirational to many musicians, that included Elvis Presley and Jerry Garcia, whose music was different significantly in comparison to
was is wrong here as plural verb should be used
that cannot be used to modify people according to Manhattan prep. also, that is used for essential modifier, here it is not essential

(D) was influential to generations of bluegrass artists, also inspired many musicians, who included Elvis Presley and Jerry Garcia, the music of whom differed significantly when compared to
was is wrong here as plural verb should be used

(E) were an influence on generations of bluegrass artists, was also an inspiration to many musicians, including Elvis Presley and Jerry Garcia, whose music was significantly different from that of
that of his own is awkward. if we replace that with music, it becomes "music of his own", which is awkward

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30 Nov 2022, 12:17

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egmat

Hey TheUltimateWinner

If you're referring to the "parallelism" issue, please refer to DmitryFarber 's response.

Couldn't have explained it better myself.

Happy Learning!

Abhishek

egmat
Thanks Mr Abhishek for you sincerity. Kudos.

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30 Nov 2022, 12:36

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DmitryFarber

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Thank you for the nice explanation. It helps a lot.
By the by, from your explanation I've one more little query.

Quote:

The quickest way to eliminate *that* is that we don't use "that" to modify people.

Is it the rules? So, we can apply it to all SC issues, right?

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I don't tend to talk in terms of rules, but yes, it's generally wrong to apply "that" to people. Of course, we do it all the time in casual speech. We say things like "I'm the kind of person that won't back down" or "There goes the girl that broke my heart." But the GMAT sticks to more formal and precise usage.

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30 Nov 2022, 21:23

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DmitryFarber

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Thank you sir. One more query that arises to me. Is there any chance for that to jump and modify long distance things (non-living things) if meaning permits? Specially, I'm talking about jumping over the comma modifier like underlined part below.

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if artists is replaced with a non-living things then any chance to modify this replaced things by that if meaning permits?

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ssandeepan

Bluegrass musician Bill Monroe, whose repertory, views on musical collaboration, and vocal style were influential on generations of bluegrass artists, was also an inspiration to many musicians, that included Elvis Presley and Jerry Garcia, whose music differed significantly from his own.

(A) were influential on generations of bluegrass artists, was also an inspiration to many musicians, that included Elvis Presley and Jerry Garcia, whose music differed significantly from

(B) influenced generations of bluegrass artists, also inspired many musicians, including Elvis Presley and Jerry Garcia, whose music differed significantly from

(C) was influential to generations of bluegrass artists, was also inspirational to many musicians, that included Elvis Presley and Jerry Garcia, whose music was different significantly in comparison to

(D) was influential to generations of bluegrass artists, also inspired many musicians, who included Elvis Presley and Jerry Garcia, the music of whom differed significantly when compared to

(E) were an influence on generations of bluegrass artists, was also an inspiration to many musicians, including Elvis Presley and Jerry Garcia, whose music was significantly different from that of

Structure of the sentence:

Bluegrass musician Bill Monroe, whose repertory, views and style influenced many bluegrass artists, also inspired many musicians, including Elvis and Jerry, whose music differed significantly from is own.

The skeleton structure without modifiers is this:
Bill Monroe inspired many musicians whose music differed significantly from his own.

'whose repertory, views ... artists' is a relative clause modifying 'Bill Monroe.'
'including Elvis and Jerry' is a prepositional modifier for 'musicians'

(A) were influential on generations of bluegrass artists, was also an inspiration to many musicians, that included Elvis Presley and Jerry Garcia, whose music differed significantly from

'influential' is an adjective.
We can say 'His views were influential (adjective)' or we can say 'his views influenced many people (verb),' but it is not correct to say 'his views were influential on/to many people'. The adjective 'influential' applies to the one exerting the influence. The verb form 'influenced' can take the object 'many people' and hence it can serve our purpose here.
To give examples, we use the preposition 'including'. A relative clause does not serve the same purpose. It doesn't give examples of the noun it is modifying. The clause 'that/who included Elvis...' modifies 'many musicians' and hence implies that this is what the musicians did. They included Elvis and Jerry (in their club/cartel whatever).

(B) influenced generations of bluegrass artists, also inspired many musicians, including Elvis Presley and Jerry Garcia, whose music differed significantly from

Perfectly correct. The verb forms are the strongest and cleanest. Use of 'including' is correct. No errors.

(C) was influential to generations of bluegrass artists, was also inspirational to many musicians, that included Elvis Presley and Jerry Garcia, whose music was different significantly in comparison to

Use of 'was' is incorrect since the subject is plural. The subject is 'Bill Monroe's repertory, views on musical collaboration, and vocal style' so the subject is a compound subject 'repertory, views and style' (without modifiers).
As discussed above, use of 'influential on/to ...' is incorrect.
As discussed above, 'that included' is incorrect.
It uses the adjective form 'was different' instead of the verb form 'differed' used in option (B). Verb form is preferable.
Also, we say 'different from' not 'different in comparison to.'

(D) was influential to generations of bluegrass artists, also inspired many musicians, who included Elvis Presley and Jerry Garcia, the music of whom differed significantly when compared to

As discussed above 'was influential to' and 'who included' are incorrect.
'the music of whom' is an indirect way of saying 'whose music.' Again, 'differed from' is better than 'differed when compared to'

(E) were an influence on generations of bluegrass artists, was also an inspiration to many musicians, including Elvis Presley and Jerry Garcia, whose music was significantly different from that of

Verb forms are stronger so 'influenced' and 'inspired' of option (B) are better.
'that' stands for 'music' which makes the sentence awkward '... many musicians whose music was different from the music of his own. 'his own' is now an awkward phrase which should be replaced by 'Bill.'

Answer (B)

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TheUltimateWinner

Hmm, to make that work we'd need an entirely different sentence. In this one, the intervening text between ARTISTS and THAT is actually part of the core of the sentence. It wouldn't make no sense to introduce a noun in a modifier, get back to the main action of the sentence, and then go back to modifying the noun from that earlier modifier. That would produce a monstrosity like this:" The couch, which is on sale at the mall, was really comfortable, that my brother used to work." Absolutely not!

However, we might get away with a sensible jump if the intervening text is an additional modifier for the same noun: "I drove a long way to pick up the load of compost, composed mainly of coffee grounds, that has made my car so fragrant." Here, THAT can reasonably modify COMPOST. But be careful with these leaps; I went out of my way to make this work, but the GMAT will more often find a way to rewrite to avoid a "modifier traffic jam."

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01 Dec 2022, 11:40

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DmitryFarber

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Yes, very powerful example you made. Thank you very much with kudos. I thought the highlighted part will be wrong as one prominent expert said that consecutive modifier is not allowed in GMAT-2 different modifier (1. composed mainly of coffee grounds and 2. that has made my car so fragrant) modify the same thing (compost).

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30 Sep 2023, 20:32

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i got B as my answer. but i was wondering if its correct to eliminate option E on grounds of the WAS used in the end

were an influence on generations of bluegrass artists, was also an inspiration to many musicians, including Elvis Presley and Jerry Garcia, whose music was significantly different from that of

since its music of the musicians.. wouldn't the right usage there be WERE?

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30 Sep 2023, 20:55

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vedha0

No, music is always singular. It's doesn't matter whether it's the music of one musician or of many musicians.

Both of the following are singular:
- music of the musician
- music of the musicians

The following sentences are grammatically correct:
The noise of the traffic is irritating.
The noise of the cars is irritating.
Eating fast food is bad for you.
Eating chips is bad for you.

Posted from my mobile device

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30 Sep 2023, 21:01

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thanks vv65 for the clarification.

vv65

vedha0

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