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605-655 (Medium)|   Grammatical/Rhetorical Construction|   Modifiers|   Parallelism|   Parallelism|                     
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Emily Dickinson's letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson were written 02 Oct 2022, 09:11
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Rickooreo
Take instance 2 mentioned above - Is it logical to say that Letters to SHD over a certain period and, therefore, outnumbered or exceeded her letters to anyone else? No, this meaning is illogical too.

MartyTargetTestPrep, any view of yours
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Your analysis is correct; you have identified why the (A) version is incorrect.
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Emily Dickinson's letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson were written 02 Oct 2022, 11:19
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Rickooreo
In Option A there is correct usage of ing modifier
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That modifier is not correctly used.

As you wrote yourself, that modifier (comma + outnumberING...) is adverbial, and thus needs to modify the whole action of the preceding clause.
The preceding clause, however, tells us only about the time period over which Emily Dickinson wrote the letters. That clause tells us nothing at all about the quantity or frequency of the letters—or about the quantity or frequency of E.D.'s letters to anybody else (also necessary to substantiate the comparison in the modifier). There is no meaningful relationship at all between the content of the modifier and the content of the clause.
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Emily Dickinson's letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson were written 07 Oct 2022, 15:43
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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


Dickinson's surviving letters to Susan, which began ardently a few years before Susan's marriage and continued almost until the poet's death in 1886, outnumber her letters to anyone else. After an examination of these cryptic messages, Ellen Louise Hart and Martha Nell Smith have emerged up in arms for Susan. In compiling ''Open Me Carefully'' (which includes more than 20 poems and one letter not previously connected to Susan), they aim to show that the women enjoyed a long, close relationship, one whose workaday exchange of ''letter-poems'' (Susan's term) contributed to ''the texture of their daily life.'' Even more urgent, however, is their intent to champion Susan as Dickinson's ''primary reader'' -- the person they believe exerted the most significant, sustaining influence on Dickinson's poetic and erotic sensibility.[/spoiler]

@gmatninja- Isn't "Outnumbering" in choice A, modifying Emily's letters?
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Remember, when an -ING modifier follows a full clause and a comma, the modifier is describing the entire previous clause or giving us insight into the main verb of that clause. It's not just describing the subject of the clause.

In (A), that interpretation doesn't really work. Take another look at the initial clause:

Quote:
Emily Dickinson’s letters to Susan Huntington were written over a period...
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So we're getting information about when the letters were written. But the modifier beginning with "outnumbering" is about where most of the letters went. That doesn't make sense.

Put another way, the fact that the letters were written during a certain period in the 19th century doesn't explain why they mostly went to Susan Huntington Dickinson, does it? Rather, those feel like two distinct pieces of information: 1) she wrote during a certain period and 2) she wrote mostly to Susan Dickinson. One doesn't explain or describe the other.

The construction in (E) makes more sense. One modifier describes the letters letters themselves. And the other is a verb phrase giving us additional, but unrelated info. Totally logical!

So while (A) isn't definitively wrong, it's a less logical construction than (E). Tricky.

I hope that helps!
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Emily Dickinson's letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson were written 25 Nov 2022, 11:14
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Hi!

In option E, does ", which" modify the closest noun and in the case modify Susan Huntington Dickinson not the letters?

If it were to modify Susan Huntington Dickinson the meaning of the sentence would be off.

When we see ", which" does it always modify the noun right before or is this a special case.

Thank you for the help experts!
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Emily Dickinson's letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson were written 30 Nov 2022, 08:33
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capsguy2018
Hi!

In option E, does ", which" modify the closest noun and in the case modify Susan Huntington Dickinson not the letters?

If it were to modify Susan Huntington Dickinson the meaning of the sentence would be off.

When we see ", which" does it always modify the noun right before or is this a special case.

Thank you for the help experts!
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Nope, noun modifiers (which, that, etc.) don't ALWAYS modify the closest noun. For more on that, check out usage #4 in this article, or here's a longer video on GMAT noun modifiers in general.

To be fair, in many cases, things can get confusing if the modifier isn't right next to the noun it modifies. But in this case, it's pretty obvious that we're talking about the letters, not Susan. Also, the "which" clause uses a plural verb (were written), and that tells us that it can't possibly modify the singular noun, Susan.

I hope that helps!
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Emily Dickinson's letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson were written 24 Apr 2025, 15:59
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The key reason why A is wrong because the action of outnumbering is not happening while the letters were written. We can't say that "the letters were written, breaking all records." Outnumbering refers to the fact about the letters themselves, so it needs to be a part of the main clause and not tagged upon.
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