Emily Dickinson's letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson were written

From the OG itself:

From the bark of the paper birch tree the Menomini crafted a canoe about twenty feet long and two feet wide, with small ribs and rails of cedar, which could carry four persons or eight hundred pounds of baggage yet was so light that a person could easily portage it around impeding rapids.

"which" here obviously doesn't refer to cedar, rather, it refers to "canoe". The noun that the nonrestrictive clause modifies doesn't necessarily need to be immediately proceed the comma. The OG concept is that it cannot refer to a vague idea that is expressed in the entire sentence, and that it must point to a noun (again, not necessarily immediately before the comma). For example, you can't say:
"The earth is not flat, which had puzzled many people in the old days."

Just my two cents.

Yes even i chose A because of the 'WHICH' in E though E looked better.

For those of you who are still confused with this question, heres something i gathered from manhattan:

First of all, 'WHICH' refers to previous noun no doubt but in sentences as clear as these, 'which' can in no way refer to Dickinson, who is a person. So it should refer to subject of the first part that is 'letters written'.

"
occasionally, when it is completely unambiguous, "which" can refer to a whole NOUN PHRASE that immediately precedes the comma.
in this case, this noun phrase is "X's letters to Y". (note that this noun phrase, as a unit, does immediately precede the comma.)

also, note the complete lack of grammatical ambiguity: "which" can't refer to dickinson, who is a person, and it's also followed by a plural verb. both of these pieces of evidence point to the noun phrase "X's letters to Y".

--

here's the basic summary:
if you have "X of Y, which..."
then:
* if Y works as the antecedent of "which", then "which" should stand for Y.
* if Y doesn't work as the antecedent, but "X of Y" DOES work, then "which" can stand for "X of Y"....."


Also, use of participle 'outnumbering' is not required here....it's not the period over which the letters were written that outnumber but it is the letters that outnumber letters to anyone else.

"...using a present participle phrase to express the (direct/indirect) result of the preceding clause is not allowed when the preceding clause is in a passive voice...." --> from manhattan

Verbal is full of exceptions...

Hello Everyone!

This looks like a complicated question that mainly deals with modifiers, so let's dive in! First, let's take a close look at the original question, and highlight any major differences between the options in orange:

Emily Dickinson’s letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson were written over a period beginning a few years before Susan’s marriage to Emily’s brother and ending shortly before Emily’s death in 1886, outnumbering her letters to anyone else.

(A) Dickinson were written over a period beginning a few years before Susan’s marriage to Emily’s brother and ending shortly before Emily’s death in 1886, outnumbering
(B) Dickinson were written over a period that begins a few years before Susan’s marriage to Emily’s brother and ended shortly before Emily’s death in 1886, outnumber
(C) Dickinson, written over a period beginning a few years before Susan’s marriage to Emily’s brother and that ends shortly before Emily’s death in 1886 and outnumbering
(D) Dickinson, which were written over a period beginning a few years before Susan’s marriage to Emily’s brother, ending shortly before Emily’s death in 1886, and outnumbering
(E) Dickinson, which were written over a period beginning a few years before Susan’s marriage to Emily’s brother and ending shortly before Emily’s death in 1886, outnumber

After a quick glance over the options, a few things jumped out that we can focus on:

1. were written / ,written / ,which were written
2. beginning / that begins
3. ,outnumbering / ,outnumber / and outnumbering / ,and outnumbering

One thing we can easily see in options C, D, and E is the use of a non-essential clause. Non-essential clauses are placed between commas, and they provide extra details that are "non-essential" to the overall meaning of the sentence. To make sure non-essential clauses are used properly, you can do this quick test:

1. Cross out/remove the non-essential clause
2. Read what's left over. If the leftover part can still work as a complete sentence, it's a good use of a non-essential phrase. If the leftover part isn't a complete sentence, the non-essential phrase doesn't work.

Example:
My brother, who loves to spend his weekends at farmer's markets, prefers organic vegetables.
My brother, who loves to spend his weekends at farmer's markets, prefers organic vegetables.
My brother prefers organic vegetables. --> GOOD

Halloween, which is my favorite holiday, more than Christmas or Easter.
Halloween, which is my favorite holiday, more than Christmas or Easter.
Halloween more than Christmas or Easter. --> BAD

So let's take a closer look at the options to make sure their non-essential clauses work. To make this easier, I've added the entire sentence to each option:

(A) Emily Dickinson’s letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson were written over a period beginning a few years before Susan’s marriage to Emily’s brother and ending shortly before Emily’s death in 1886, outnumbering her letters to anyone else. --> No non-essential clause (save for later)

(B) Emily Dickinson’s letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson were written over a period that begins a few years before Susan’s marriage to Emily’s brother and ended shortly before Emily’s death in 1886, outnumber her letters to anyone else. --> No non-essential clause (save for later)

(C) Emily Dickinson’s letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson, written over a period beginning a few years before Susan’s marriage to Emily’s brother and that ends shortly before Emily’s death in 1886 and outnumbering her letters to anyone else.

This is INCORRECT because if we cross out the non-essential phrase / modifier, what's left over cannot stand alone. Connecting the non-essential phrase to the modifier left us with no verb!

(D) Emily Dickinson’s letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson, which were written over a period beginning a few years before Susan’s marriage to Emily’s brother, ending shortly before Emily’s death in 1886, and outnumbering her letters to anyone else.

This is INCORRECT because if we cross out the non-essential phrase, what's left over doesn't make sense on its own. This tells us the non-essential phrase isn't being used properly here. In fact, this option is also missing a verb thanks to a bad non-essential clause!

(E) Emily Dickinson’s letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson, which were written over a period beginning a few years before Susan’s marriage to Emily’s brother and ending shortly before Emily’s death in 1886,outnumber her letters to anyone else.

This is OKAY for now! If we remove the non-essential phrase, what's left over still works as a complete sentence!

We can rule out options C & D because they are missing a verb, thanks to incorrect use of non-essential phrases!

Now that we only have 3 options left, let's take a closer look at them to find any other problems:

(A) Emily Dickinson’s letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson were written over a period beginning a few years before Susan’s marriage to Emily’s brother and ending shortly before Emily’s death in 1886, outnumbering her letters to anyone else.

This option is INCORRECT because the modifier "outnumbering her letters to anyone else" is so far away from what it's modifying (Emily Dickinson's letters). The GMAT prefers that modifiers are directly before or after what they're modifying, so they are less confusing for readers.

(B) Emily Dickinson’s letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson were written over a period that begins a few years before Susan’s marriage to Emily’s brother and ended shortly before Emily’s death in 1886, outnumber her letters to anyone else.

This is INCORRECT because we have two competing verbs here! The phrase "outnumber her letters to anyone else" doesn't work here because it's supposed to be a modifier, but it was rewritten to be a verb phrase?? This doesn't work, so let's rule it out too.

(E) Emily Dickinson’s letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson, which were written over a period beginning a few years before Susan’s marriage to Emily’s brother and ending shortly before Emily’s death in 1886, outnumber her letters to anyone else.

This is CORRECT! The modifier (highlighted here in green) is clearly directly after what it's modifying (Emily Dickinson's letters to Susan Huntington Dickens). It's also punctuated properly to indicate that the modifier is "non-essential," and could be removed without changing the original meaning.

There you have it - option E is the correct choice! This was a tricky question, but if you know how to check modifiers and non-essential clauses for correct wording and punctuation, it's a lot easier to spot problems!


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

Very interesting discussion going on here and that too on a topic that I confess is very dear to me!

Let's deal with this beast in two parts -

The problem with A is the participle OUTNUMBERING. As written in A, it clearly modifies period which is definitely not right. It must refer to letters.

In E on the other hand, it's quite clear what outnumber is referring to - letters.

However, of course, E seems to have a problem with the placement of which. We all know this fact cold that GMAT doesn't like the placement of which to be fiddled with in any way - and it must without fail appear immediately after the noun it's supposed to displace.

Thus - The Community hall in the townsquare which we all like is already booked for another marriage.

We know that which must refer to the community hall - but here it's appearing immediately after townsquare causing a GENUINE confusion in the reader's mind as to which of the two do WE ALL LIKE? Community Hall or Townsquare?

Compare this with another scenario -

All my requests to George which were to make him aware of his mistakes went unheeded by him.

Here IMO - the object of the preposition TO, George can't be modified by which; hence by logical extension, which modifies requests.

I don't want to contradict what we have all learnt about the usage of which and the restriction that it should be as close as possible to the noun it's intended to modify; all I am saying is, if a prepositional phrase intervenes between the which and the proable subject - so long as which can unambigously refer to the earlier subject and NOT the object of the preposition (as in the case of George above and UNLIKE the case of the townsquare earlier) we are OK.

In our example in this question - the scenario is simlar - it talks about Letters to Dickinson which --- again, the prepositional TO DICKINSON does not affect the relationship between which and Letters. Also, Dickinson can't be qualified by which anyway. You need WHO in the relative clause for an animate object like dickinson.

Hi WaterFlowsUp,

Let me try to explain the function of “verb-ing modifiers” when preceded by a comma.

When a “verb-ing modifier” appears after a clause and is preceded by a comma, then it modifies the action of the preceding clause. It modifies the action of the preceding clause in two ways:
1. By presenting the HOW aspect of the preceding action
2. By presenting the result of the preceding action

Now let’s analyze the usage of comma + outnumbering… in the official sentence.

Emily Dickinson’s letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson were written over a period beginning a few years before Susan’s marriage to Emily’s brother and ending shortly before Emily’s death in 1886, outnumbering her letters to anyone else.

So ED wrote letters to SHD. Comma + outnumbering… modifies the preceding action “were written”. Since this modifier has two functions, let’s see which one fits here.
ED’s letters were written to SHAD by outnumbering her letters to anyone else. This modification suggests that ED wrote letters to SHD by outnumbering her letters to anyone else. This seems to be an action done deliberately. But this is not logical.

Now let’s check the second usage. ED’s letters were written SHD and as a result of this action, the letters outnumbers ED’s letters to anyone else. Do we really have a cause-effect here? Certainly not. None of the functions done by the comma + verb-ing modifier makes sense in this sentence. This is the reason why Choice A is incorrect.

You may read the following articles to know more about the comma + verb-ing modifiers:

usage-of-verb-ing-modifiers-135220.html
verb-ing-modifiers-part-2-in-our-first-article-on-verb-ing-135567.html
verb-ed-modifiers-vs-verb-ing-modifiers-125611.html

Also, this concept is covered in our Free Concepts. You can register on e-gmat for free and access this concepts along with many others. All these concepts have pre-assessment and post assessment quizzes through which you can gauge your knowledge of these concepts. So click on the “free trial” button and start learning for free.

Thanks.
Shraddha

A fairly difficult question.
Emily’s letters to Susan were written over a period that began a few years before Susan’s marriage to Emily’s brother and ended shortly before Emily’s death. These letters outnumber her letters to anyone else.
Looking at the options, the first thing to note is that ‘beginning … and ending …’ must be parallel – joined with ‘and.’ Also, ‘outnumbering …’ is not a part of the same list and must not be parallel.

(A) Dickinson were written over a period beginning a few years before Susan’s marriage to Emily’s brother and ending shortly before Emily’s death in 1886, outnumbering

Structure:
… letters were written over a period beginning … and ending .., outnumbering …
The first confusion here seems to be that ‘outnumbering’ looks parallel to ‘beginning’ and ‘ending.’
Also, comma + present participle (‘outnumbering’) at the end of the sentence should be an effect of previous clause or explain more about the previous clause. It does neither.
Incorrect.

(B) Dickinson were written over a period that begins a few years before Susan’s marriage to Emily’s brother and ended shortly before Emily’s death in 1886, outnumber

… letters were written over a period that begins … and ended …, outnumber
‘begins’ and ‘ended’ are not parallel.
Also, ‘outnumber’ is used as a verb. In this case, we need to combine the verb phrases with ‘and.’
… letters were written …, and outnumber …
Incorrect.

(C) Dickinson, written over a period beginning a few years before Susan’s marriage to Emily’s brother and that ends shortly before Emily’s death in 1886 and outnumbering

… letters written over a period beginning … and that ends … and outnumbering…
This is a fragment. There is no verb in the sentence.
‘written …’ is a past participle modifier. We would have used the passive ‘were written’ if we were using it as a verb.
‘outnumbering’ is a present participle modifier. We would have used a helping verb along with it if we were using it as a verb.

Hence, eliminate this option right away. Additionally it has parallelism issues too.

(D) Dickinson, which were written over a period beginning a few years before Susan’s marriage to Emily’s brother, ending shortly before Emily’s death in 1886, and outnumbering

This is again a fragment. There is no verb in the sentence.
… letters, which were written over a period beginning … , ending, and outnumbering …
Here, everything after ‘which’ is a part of the ‘which’ relative clause. There is no main clause. Within the ‘which’ clause, ‘beginning,’ ‘ending,’ and ‘outnumbering’ have been put in parallel (list of present participle modifiers) which is incorrect.
Hence, eliminate.

(E) Dickinson, which were written over a period beginning a few years before Susan’s marriage to Emily’s brother and ending shortly before Emily’s death in 1886, outnumber

… letters, which were written over a period beginning … and ending .., outnumber …
This makes sense.
Main Clause - Emily Dickinson’s letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson outnumber her letters to anyone else.
Modifier ‘which’ clause (relative clause) is modifying letters though it is placed after ‘Dickinson’. This is acceptable because it is essential to put the prepositional phrase ‘to Susan Huntington Dickinson’ right after letters. The context makes it clear that ‘which’ refers to ‘letters.’
In the ‘which’ clause, ‘beginning’ and ‘ending’ are parallel to each other.
All looks good.

Answer (E)

Dear Friends,

Here is a detailed explanation to this question-
Meaning is crucial to solving this problem:
Understanding the intended meaning is key to solving this question; the intended meaning of this sentence is that Emily Dickinson’s letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson were written over a period of time that began a few years before Susan’s marriage to Emily’s brother and ended shortly before Emily’s death in 1886, and these letters outnumber Emily's letters to anyone else.

Concepts tested here: Meaning + Modifiers + Parallelism

• The introduction of present participle ("verb+ing"- “outnumbering” in this case) after comma generally leads to a cause-effect relationship.
• If a list contains only two elements, they must be joined by a conjunction.
• The simple past tense is used to refer to events that concluded in the past.
• The simple present tense is used to indicate actions taking place in the current time frame, indicate habitual actions, state universal truths, and convey information that is permanent in nature

A: Trap. This answer choice alters the meaning of the sentence through the phrase “outnumbering her letters to anyone else”; the use of the “comma + present participle (“verb+ing” – “outnumbering” in this sentence) incorrectly implies that Emily Dickinson’s letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson outnumber her letters to anyone else, because she wrote them over a period of time that began a few years before Susan’s marriage to Emily’s brother and ended shortly before Emily’s death in 1886; the intended meaning is that Emily Dickinson’s letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson were written over a period of time that began a few years before Susan’s marriage to Emily’s brother and ended shortly before Emily’s death in 1886, and as a separate action these letters outnumber Emily's letters to anyone else; please remember, the introduction of present participle ("verb+ing"- “outnumbering” in this case) after comma generally leads to a cause-effect relationship.

B: This answer choice incorrectly joins two elements in a list, the verb phrases “were written over...1886” and “outnumber her letters to anyone else” with a comma; please remember, if a list contains only two elements, they must be joined by a conjunction. Further, Option B incorrectly uses the simple present tense verb “begins” to refer to an action that concluded in the past; please remember, the simple past tense is used to refer to events that concluded in the past, and the simple present tense is used to indicate actions taking place in the current time frame, indicate habitual actions, state universal truths, and convey information that is permanent in nature.

C: This answer choice fails to form a complete sentence; as “written” and “outnumbering” are both noun modifiers, there is no active verb to act upon the subject “Emily Dickinson’s letters”. Further, Option C incorrectly uses the simple present tense verb “ends” to refer to an action that concluded in the past; please remember, the simple past tense is used to refer to events that concluded in the past, and the simple present tense is used to indicate actions taking place in the current time frame, indicate habitual actions, state universal truths, and convey information that is permanent in nature.

D: This answer choice fails to form a complete sentence; as “which were written” and “outnumbering” are both noun modifiers, there is no active verb to act upon the subject “Emily Dickinson’s letters". Further, Option D incorrectly joins two elements in a list, the verb phrases “were written over...1886” and “outnumbering her letters to anyone else” with a comma; please remember, if a list contains only two elements, they must be joined by a conjunction.

E: Correct. This answer choice acts upon the independent subject “Emily Dickinson’s letters” with the active verb “outnumber” to form a complete thought, leading to a complete sentence. Further, Option E uses the clause “Emily Dickinson’s letters…outnumber her letters to anyone else” and modifies “Emily Dickinson’s letters” with “which were written over…in 1886”, conveying the intended meaning – Emily Dickinson’s letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson were written over a period of time that began a few years before Susan’s marriage to Emily’s brother and ended shortly before Emily’s death in 1886, and as a separate action these letters outnumber Emily's letters to anyone else. Additionally, Option E avoids the tense errors seen in Options B and C, as it uses the noun modifiers “beginning” and “ending” rather than active verbs such as “begins” and “ends”. Besides, Option E correctly uses conjunction (“and” in this sentence) to join the modifying phrases “beginning a few years before Susan’s marriage to Emily’s brother” and “ending shortly before Emily’s death in 1886”.

Hence, E is the best answer choice.

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



To understand the concept of "Comma + Present Participle for Cause-Effect Relationship" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~3 minutes):



All the best!
Experts' Global Team

[quote="ywilfred"]Emily Dickinson’s letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson were written over a period beginning a few years before Susan’s marriage to Emily’s brother and ending shortly before Emily’s death in 1886, outnumbering her letters to anyone else.


(A) Dickinson were written over a period beginning a few years before Susan’s marriage to Emily’s brother and ending shortly before Emily’s death in 1886, outnumbering

(B) Dickinson were written over a period that begins a few years before Susan’s marriage to Emily’s brother and ended shortly before Emily’s death in 1886, outnumber

(C) Dickinson, written over a period beginning a few years before Susan’s marriage to Emily’s brother and that ends shortly before Emily’s death in 1886 and outnumbering

(D) Dickinson, which were written over a period beginning a few years before Susan’s marriage to Emily’s brother, ending shortly before Emily’s death in 1886, and outnumbering

(E) Dickinson, which were written over a period beginning a few years before Susan’s marriage to Emily’s brother and ending shortly before Emily’s death in 1886, outnumber[quote][quote]

This question is based on Modifiers, Parallelism, and Construction.

This sentence conveys two pieces of information about Emily Dickinson’s letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson:
1. The letters outnumbered her letters to anyone else.
2. The letters were written over a period beginning a few years before her marriage to Emily’s brother and ending shortly before Emily’s death in 1886.

The participles ‘beginning’ and ‘ending’ modify ‘the period’. However, in Option A, the verb ‘outnumber’ is also in participle form, making it parallel to the other two and thus implying that the period is the one that outnumbered her letters to anyone else. Because the meaning thus conveyed is illogical, Option A can be ruled out.

Option B has the verb ‘begins’ in the simple present tense. This causes a tense mismatch with the other verb ‘ended’ because they are both part of a clause that modifies the same subject 'period'. The phrase “outnumber her letters to anyone else” seems to dangle at the end of the sentence as it is not clear what the subject of the verb is. So, Option B can also be eliminated.

In Option C, ‘beginning’ and ‘outnumbering’ have been put in parallel forms. However, ‘beginning’ and ‘ending’ modify the period, so these two words should be parallel to each other. Since this parallelism is lacking in this option, Option C can be ruled out.

In Option E, ‘beginning’, ‘ending’ and ‘outnumbering’ are all parallel to each other. However, ‘outnumber’ must be in the verb form, not the participle form because it is the verb the completes the idea started by the subject ‘Emily Dickinson’s letters'. So, Option D can also be eliminated.

Option E has the modifier “which were written over a period beginning a few years before Susan’s marriage to Emily’s brother and ending shortly before Emily’s death in 1886” to modify “Emily Dickinson’s letters”. The parallelism has also been maintained within the modifier with the participles ‘beginning’ and ‘ending’ that modify ‘the period’. This option also has the correct verb form ‘outnumber’ to complete the idea of the sentence. Therefore, E is the most appropriate option.

Jayanthi Kumar.

E)Dickinson, which were written over a period beginning a few years before Susan’s marriage to Emily’s brother and ending shortly before Emily’s death in 1886, outnumber

choose E

--> "which" clealrly refers to the letters
--> parallel - beginning ..ending
--> the part without the nonrestrictive clause makes sense

Emily Dickinson’s letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson were written over a period beginning a few years before Susan’s marriage to Emily’s brother and ending shortly before Emily’s death in 1886, outnumbering her letters to anyone else.

A. Emily Dickinson’s letters to Susan HuntingtonDickinson were written over a period beginning a few years before Susan’s marriage to Emily’s brother and ending shortly before Emily’s death in 1886, outnumbering

E. Emily Dickinson’s letters to Susan HuntingtonDickinson, which were written over a period beginning a few years before Susan’s marriage to Emily’s brother and ending shortly before Emily’s death in 1886, outnumber[/quote]

BTW what is exactly wrong with A anyways? A and E are in the same voice whether it is passive or active the difference being A eliminates the erroneous placement of which.

IMO E.

Emily Dickinson’s letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson were written over a period beginning a few years
before Susan’s marriage to Emily’s brother and ending shortly before Emily’s death in 1886, outnumbering
her letters to anyone else.

A.Dickinson were written over a period beginning a few years before Susan’s marriage to Emily’s brother and
ending shortly before Emily’s death in 1886, outnumbering
The parallel structure is not correct and therefore " outnumbering " sounds correct , which is not.
B.Dickinson were written over a period that begins a few years before Susan’s marriage to Emily’s brother
and ended shortly before Emily’s death in 1886, outnumber
written over a period that begins ......and ended shortly - not parallel
C.Dickinson, written over a period beginning a few years before Susan’s marriage to Emily’s brother and that
ends shortly before Emily’s death in 1886and outnumbering
written over a period beginning ......and that ends- not parallel
D.Dickinson, which were written over a period beginning a few years before Susan’s marriage to Emily’s
brother, ending shortly before Emily’s death in 1886, and outnumbering
Since "and" is ommitted , "ending shortly before Emily’s death in 1886" modifies "Emily’s
brother" which is absurd
E.Dickinson, which were written over a period beginning a few years before Susan’s marriage to Emily’s
brother and ending shortly before Emily’s death in 1886, outnumber

Let us appreciate, that the gist of the passage is that Emily Dickinson’s letters to Susan outnumber Emily’s letters to any one else (even today-so we use the present tense verb - outnumber) and the writing of the letters over some period is just an incidental factor to the main action. If you remove the parenthetical and inessential content, then the main purpose will pop up. This will facilitate dropping all the choices containing – outnumbering i.e A ,C and D

Between B and E, B is awful with out a conjunction to connect the verb - outnumber -with the first part of the passage, turning the sentence into a run-on. E is the choice.

May I butt in once again on this vexed question of the touch rule of the relative pronoun ‘which?’

First thing is that the intent of this text is to highlight primarily Dickinson’s letters to Susan outnumber her letters to anyone else. That they were written during a certain period is just a modifier, not very essential to the core. That is the reason that, writing and ending, which are addendums, need not parallel the primary action outnumber. In the context of understanding this subtlety of meaning, this passage is even more relevant to current thinking of GMAT.

Now to the relative pronoun ‘which”. What can ‘which’ refer to in choices D and E.? As per bare theory, it should refer to Dickinson who is a human and hence the use of ‘which’ is outrightly wrong. Secondly, the plural verb points out to some plural subject, and letters is the only plural that can antecede ‘which’. The prepositional phrase namely to Susan Huntington Dickinson is an essential modifier of the letters and therefore we are required to carry it along with the subject.

Definitely not "1886" (and I am sure about it:)). In this case, it is modifying the entire clause, but the meaning is not making sense. The fact that letters "over a period of time", is not in anyway related to the fact that those letters outnumbered Emily Dickinson’s letters to anyone else.

Ashish, thanks for reply.
1. Participle does modify the attached noun, isn't it? So in this case if we try to assume that it is modifying 1886 thus providing a time frame how would that be wrong??
2. participle can also modify subject/verb/clause , it has the flexibility. correct? then can we say it is modifying letters?

Oh no. The rules for participles are not that simplistic. As you would perhaps know, participial phrases (and not participles themselves) that appear at the beginning of the sentence modify the word immediately next to it. For example:

Preparing for GMAT, WaterFlowsUp asked the question about participles.

Here, the participle is "preparing" modifies "WaterFlowsUp.

The usage of participles is not just about what they are modifying. There should be a "direct and simultaneous" effect that should be attributed to participles used towards end of the sentences. This is where A fails.


Well, as I mentioned in my post, participial phrases (specifically present participial phrases) preceded by a comma towards the end of the sentence should express "direct and simultaneous" effect that should be attributed to the subject of the immediate preceding clause.

The reason "direct and simultaneous" effect is important, is because, for example, the following option in one of the GMATPrep questions is incorrect, because drawing solid conclusions is not "direct and simultaneous" effect of the previous clause.

Neuroscientists have amassed a wealth of knowledge over the past twenty years about the brain and its development from birth to adulthood, now drawing solid conclusions about how the human brain grows and how babies acquire language.

Not sure there is a lot more to it than this, to merit a "doc" : )


Hi WaterFlowsUp,

Let me try to explain the function of “verb-ing modifiers” when preceded by a comma.

When a “verb-ing modifier” appears after a clause and is preceded by a comma, then it modifies the action of the preceding clause. It modifies the action of the preceding clause in two ways:
1. By presenting the HOW aspect of the preceding action
2. By presenting the result of the preceding action

Now let’s analyze the usage of comma + outnumbering… in the official sentence.

Emily Dickinson’s letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson were written over a period beginning a few years before Susan’s marriage to Emily’s brother and ending shortly before Emily’s death in 1886, outnumbering her letters to anyone else.

So ED wrote letters to SHD. Comma + outnumbering… modifies the preceding action “were written”. Since this modifier has two functions, let’s see which one fits here.
ED’s letters were written to SHAD by outnumbering her letters to anyone else. This modification suggests that ED wrote letters to SHD by outnumbering her letters to anyone else. This seems to be an action done deliberately. But this is not logical.

Now let’s check the second usage. ED’s letters were written SHD and as a result of this action, the letters outnumbers ED’s letters to anyone else. Do we really have a cause-effect here? Certainly not. None of the functions done by the comma + verb-ing modifier makes sense in this sentence. This is the reason why Choice A is incorrect.

You may read the following articles to know more about the comma + verb-ing modifiers:

https://gmatclub.com/forum/usage-of-verb ... 35220.html
https://gmatclub.com/forum/verb-ing-modi ... 35567.html
https://gmatclub.com/forum/verb-ed-modif ... 25611.html

Also, this concept is covered in our Free Concepts. You can register on e-gmat for free and access this concepts along with many others. All these concepts have pre-assessment and post assessment quizzes through which you can gauge your knowledge of these concepts. So click on the “free trial” button and start learning for free.

Thanks.
Shraddha

Hi Karan,

Thank you for posting your query here.

Choice A is incorrect because of modifier error. Let us see the reason behind it.

Note that "outnumbering her letters to anyone else" should modify the letters but its placement is such that it appears to modify the preceding clause.

Notice that comma + verb-ing modify the preceding clause. And this modification does not make sense here. This is because it was not because the letters were written in the specified period that these letters outnumbered the other set of letters.

In fact these two actions - were written and outnumber are really two different characteristics of the letters.

Lets consider an example sentence:

The film was shot in a small town of Guthernberg, exceeding expectations of the producers.

This sentence is incorrect since the verb-ing modifier appears to modify preceding clause and in this sentence this modification does not make sense.The fact that the film was shot in a small town did not really lead to exceeding the expectations of the producers.

The correct sentence is:

The film, shot in a small town of Guthernberg, exceeded the expectations of the producers.

The sentence simply states a fact that this film exceeded the expectations. It does not provide any reasoning for the same.

The film received significant critical acclaim, exceeding the expectations of the producers.

This sentence is correct. In this sentence, the verb-ing modifier makes complete sense with the preceding clause. The expectations of the producers were exceeded by virtue of the film receiving significant critical acclaim.


Hope this helps

Regards,
Krishna