Contemporary ballet is a form of dance influenced by both classical ba

Contemporary ballet is a form of dance influenced by both classical ballet and modern dance, employing the fundamental technique and body control of classical ballet but permits a greater range of movement and may not adhere to the strict body lines or turnout that permeate classical ballet

A. Contemporary ballet is a form of dance influenced both by classical ballet and modern dance, employing the fundamental technique and body control of classical ballet, but permits a greater range of movement and may not adhere to the strict body lines or turnout that permeate classical ballet
Classical Ballet is singular and so "permeate" must reflect that. It should be "permeates"

B. Contemporary ballet is a form of dance influenced both by classical ballet and by modern dance, employing the fundamental technique and body control of classical ballet but permitting a greater range of movement than classical ballet, and may not adhere to the strict body lines and turnout that permeates classical ballet
There is a problem with parallelism. Contemporary ballet is a form of dance, employing... but permitting... and not adhere. "Adhere" should be "adhering"

C.Contemporary ballet is a form of dance influenced both by classical ballet and by modern dance, employing the fundamental technique and body control of classical ballet, but permitting a greater range of movement and may not be adhering to the strict body lines or turnout that permeate classical ballet
C. keeps the parallel structure of employing... permitting... and adhering... but fails to have "permeate" reflect the singular "classical ballet". It should be "permeates".

D. Influenced both by classical ballet and by modern dance, contemporary ballet is a form of a dance employing the fundamental technique and body control of classical ballet, but permitting a greater range of movement and not adhering to the strict body lines or turnout that permeates classical ballet ---

E. Employing the fundamental technique and body control of classical ballet, but permitting a greater range of movement , contemporary ballet is a form of dance that may not adhere to the strict body lines and turnout that permeate classical ballet
The same error with "permeate" occurs.

Problem with B is that 'adhere' is a verb rather than adjective 'adhering'. C would have been correct if the option had proper S-V.

I have few questions regarding the options in this question. Can someone help? GMATNinja GMATNinjaTwo KarishmaB IanStewart

1. Contemporary ballet is a form of dance influenced both by classical ballet and by modern dance, employing the fundamental technique and body control of classical ballet, but permitting a greater range of movement and may not be adhering to the strict body lines or turnout that permeate classical ballet

Does the "that" refer to the "strict body lines or turnout". Further since the "turnout" is singular, can we say that we require the singular verb "permeates. Thereby eliminating this option. If not this how else can we say that this option is incorrect.

2. Influenced both by classical ballet and by modern dance, contemporary ballet is a form of a dance employing the fundamental technique and body control of classical ballet, but permitting a greater range of movement and not adhering to the strict body lines or turnout that permeates classical ballet

The part of the sentence "but permitting a greater rang of movement" does not require "than classical ballet", to complete the comparison?

3. Employing the fundamental technique and body control of classical ballet, but permitting a greater range of movement , contemporary ballet is a form of dance that may not adhere to the strict body lines and turnout that permeate classical ballet
Not sure how to eliminate this option. "Employing....classical ballet" and "permitting....movement", both appear to be modifiers (modifying contemporary ballet) seperated by "but". So i think that is correct. Also "that" refers to "strict body lines and turnout". Hence usage of plural permeate seems to be correct. Although this sentence is not as concise as option D, I think it is gramatically correct.

I wouldn't worry too much about unofficial questions of unknown source. I would doubt everything and would have no takeaway so at the end of it all, it will be a wasted effort.

Even (D) looks wrong to me - "...to the strict body lines or turnout that permeates classical ballet"
What does this mean? It does not adhere to strict body lines OR turnout? I would think that the author wants to say that it does not adhere to both and both are a part of classical ballet and hence it should read "to the strict body lines and turnout that permeate classical ballet"
The verb becomes plural.

So all in all, I wouldn't waste my time. For official questions, at least I would have takeaways even if the answer is not to my liking.

This is not an official question, and it's wrong about at least one point of grammar, though not one you'll need to worry about on the GMAT. Here, "permeate" is correct -- it should not be "permeates". Whoever wrote this question seemed to be applying by rote a rule about singular and plural verbs without understanding that the rule doesn't apply here. It is true that when you have a subject that contains "or", with plural and singular nouns on either side, the verb should agree (should be singular or plural) with the second of those nouns. When this happens, it's not clear, logically speaking, whether the verb should be singular or plural -- either would make sense -- so this 'rule' is just a convention. So it's correct to say "The cats or the dog is going to be adopted next week" ("the dog is..."), and it's correct to say "The dog or the cats are going to be adopted next week" ("the cats are...").

But as soon as you negate things, the situation is completely different, because when we negate things, the word "or" essentially means "and". We say "You can eat and drink in the courtroom", but when we negate that sentence, "and" becomes "or": "You cannot eat or drink in the courtroom" ("and" would only be correct here if you couldn't eat and drink at the same time in the courtroom).

And we have a negation in the sentence you're asking about. Simplifying, it means to say "Contemporary ballet may not adhere to the strict lines or turnout that permeate classical ballet". If you removed the word "not" from this sentence, you'd need to change "or" to "and", so "strict lines or turnout" is really a group of things here, and it's logically plural. We don't have any ambiguity about the number of the subject, so we don't resort to the convention I described above to decide whether to make the verb plural or singular. The subject is plural, so the verb must be plural, and "permeate" is the only correct choice here. But you will never need to worry about any of this on the GMAT -- I'm simply illustrating why so many prep company questions, especially ones that try to trick people by testing obscure rules, aren't worth studying.

The problem with this answer choice is the "and may not be adhering" phrase, which needs to be parallel with "permitting" for the sentence to work. If it simply said "and not adhering", then the sentence would be extremely awkward but would be grammatically fine, but as soon as the verb "may... be" appears in "may not be adhering", it is no longer parallel with "permitting" and the sentence doesn't make any sense since we now have a verb with no subject.

As for your other questions, quick answers:


The completion of a comparison can be implied, as in the correct sentence: "The GMAT and GRE are similar, but the GMAT takes longer".


It is grammatically correct, but it doesn't successfully convey the contrast the sentence is trying to convey (it's trying to say "contemporary ballet is like classical ballet in these respects, but is unlike classical ballet in these other respects"). But the sentence isn't using language precisely, so is not conveying meaning precisely, even in the right answer ("adhere", for example, is not the right verb to use in this sentence) so it seems unfair to me that we're supposed to use meaning to eliminate an answer choice.