The failing of the book lies not in a lack of attention to scientific

Interesting question! You have a valid point -- "whose" isn't fundamentally wrong in (C). But (C) has a bigger issue. Because the final modifier is set off by a comma, it seems to be incidental, or nonessential, information. To see why this is a problem, consider an example:

Tim was furious that his daughter read a book, which was filled with scenes of gratuitous unicorn violence.

In this case, the "which" modifier describes the "book." That part is okay. But the fact that it follows a comma makes it seem unimportant, thrown in to give a little additional texture about what Tim's daughter was reading.

But that doesn't make much sense. The main clause would then be "Tim was furious that his daughter read a book." This makes it sound as though he's mad that his daughter is reading. Dad, for all of his many flaws, is probably not opposed to child literacy. A more logical interpretation is that Tim is mad about the kind of book his daughter is reading, making the modifier too important to treat as incidental.

A better way to capture this notion would be to write: "Tim was furious that his daughter read a book with scenes of gratuitous unicorn violence."

Now it's clear: the issue isn't that she's reading. The issue is what she's reading.

There's a similar split between (C) and (A). In (C), the "whose" modifier is tacked on after a comma, making the information seem incidental. So now the main clause without that modifier is:


This makes it sound as though the book's failing is the depiction of scenes of life and death in the marine world. But why would that be a failure on its own? Surely it's okay to acknowledge that things in the ocean live and die!

The problem is the emotional overtones of those scenes, so this information can't be treated as nonessential. The importance of the modifier is better captured in (A), which introduces the phrase without the comma.

The takeaway: you don't need to start thinking more about comma rules! It's that you always have to think about meaning and logic, and sometimes the way commas are used can alter the meaning of a sentence in important ways.

I hope that clears things up!
_________________

The failing of the book lies not in a lack of attention to scientific detail but in the depiction of scenes of life and death in the marine world with emotional overtones that reduce the credibility of the work.

Structure:

Not X but Y

Not in a lack of attention to...
But in the depiction of scenes of...

(A) depiction of scenes of life and death in the marine world with emotional overtones that

Hold onto it!

(B) fact that it depicts marine world scenes of life and death as having emotional overtones that

It's not clear what "it" refers to. Also "the fact" should instigate the AAW (Almost Always Wrong!) trigger inside your brain.

(C) depiction of scenes of life and death in the marine world, whose emotional overtones

"Whose" refer to "Marine". "Marine emotional overtones" is imprecise.

"emotional overtones" is referring to "depiction of scenes... "

(D) depiction of marine world scenes of life and death, which have emotional overtones and thus

This choice seems to imply that "Life and death" have overtones ... :D

(E) fact that it depicts scenes of life and death in the marine world, whose emotional overtones

same as B
Hope it helps!

Dolly Sharma
Verbal Trainer
CrackVerbal
_________________

The sentence looks good as it is. B & E can be elimiated. C & D seem to convey that the scenes have emotional overtones and hence should be eliminated. So IMHO

Answer is A.

IMO: A ?

(A) depiction of scenes of life and death in the marine world with emotional overtones that .with emotional overtones is correct usage.
(B) fact that it depicts marine world scenes of life and death as having emotional overtones that Wordy
(C) depiction of scenes of life and death in the marine world, whose emotional overtones It means emotional overtones reduces the credibility. Actually depiction of such scenes does it.
(D) depiction of marine world scenes of life and death, which have emotional overtones and thus. 'marine world scenes' is not correct usage. It should be scenes of life and deaths in the marine world. Wrong.
(E) fact that it depicts scenes of life and death in the marine world, whose emotional overtonesWordy

Hi All,
I interprested the sentence as "the depiction of the scenes was correct in the book but the exaggeration(whose emotional overtones) of the scenes may have made the book loose credibility." hence I chose C.
Whats wrong with this logic & choosing C.

Hi Dolly,
For (C) depiction of scenes of life and death in the marine world, whose emotional overtones
What you imply is relative pronoun when preceded with a comma will refer to the noun just before(touching) the comma. Is it standard rule.

Yes!

"whose" is used in the beginning of a non restrictive clause (clause separated by a comma, providing non essential information). It should be placed next to the noun it modifies.

Margaret Courtney-Clarke has traveled to remote dwellings in the Transvaal to photograph the art of Ndebele women, whose murals are brilliantly colored, their geometrical symmetries embellished with old and new iconography and in a style that varies from woman to woman and house to house.

Whose murals - women's murals


However in the example stated below- "whose" is not placed directly next to the subject but it's clearly modifying the Subject of the sentence (Joachim Raff and Giacomo)


Joachim Raff and Giacomo Meyerbeer are examples of the kind of composer who receives popular acclaim while living, but whose reputation declines after death and never regains its former status - Correct

Note the parallel structure between (who received ... living) and (whose reputation... status)

Hope this helps!

Dolly Sharma
Verbal Trainer
CrackVerbal
_________________

so whose can modify the subject of the sentence also.Again back to initial discussion

(C) depiction of scenes of life and death in the marine world, whose emotional overtones

Now the subject in this sentence is "depiction of scenes..."
cant whose modify the above instead of "marine world"

Check the construction of both the sentences.

"but"in the second example is a parallelism indicator however "whose" is preceded by a comma in the first example.

Another example-

He is my friend who helps me with my studies and whose brother is in my class. "AND" is a parallelism indicator here.

Takeaway-

"whose" after comma will modify the noun before comma.

Hope it's clear now!

Dolly Sharma
Verbal Trainer
CrackVerbal
_________________

The failing of the book lies not in a lack of attention to scientific detail but in the depiction of scenes of life and death in the marine world with emotional overtones that reduce the credibility of the work.

When we have a correlative conjunction such as Not X but Y it's important to take note of the logical relationship.

The failing of the book = subject
Lies not HERE but HERE (basic logical structure)
So, logically, the actual failure is in the way the book depicts scenes with emotional overtones

A correctly states this logical relation.

(A) but in the depiction of scenes of life and death in the marine world with emotional overtones that

(B) fact that it depicts marine world scenes of life and death as having emotional overtones that
B really does reshuffle things. It's apparent that all scenes relate to the marine world, but the manner in which B presents the scenes implies that there are specific marine world scenes of life and specific marine world scenes of death.

Also we depict something WITH something else. I depicted him with vibrant colours for example.

(C)but in the depiction of scenes of life and death in the marine world, whose emotional overtones

Depiction of scenes...whose emotional overtones. Really this embodies the emotional overtones in the act of depicting itself when logically the way things were depicted i.e. "with emotional overtones" is the failure, not the embodiment.

(D)but in the depiction of marine world scenes of life and death, which have emotional overtones and thus
Similar to C. Secondly, the relative pronoun modifier "which" actually refers to "death", unless im mistaken, so I believe this should be singular "has"

(E)but in the fact that it depicts scenes of life and death in the marine world, whose emotional overtones
The failure isn't in the fact. Again, implied embodiment as in C makes this really hard to interpret logically as the failure is in depiction WITH emotional overtones.

EducationAisle GMATNinja please could you help me with (A) and (C)

The failing of the book lies not in a lack of attention to scientific detail but in the depiction of scenes of life and death in the marine world with emotional overtones that reduce the credibility of the work.

Meaning Analysis:
The book hasn't done well (in terms of sales, audience appeal etc.) Why? #1 reason is rejected and #2 is given/accepted
#1 lack of attention to scientific attention - Not the cause
#2 depiction of scenes of life and death in the marine world. These scenes have emotional tones that reduce the credibility



I notice that the plural verb "reduce" is used and hence we need a plural subject. The only plural subject that makes sense is "scenes". Now I looked at "with". Since it is placed immediately besides "world" I assumed the prepositional phrase with emotional overtones that modifies "world" and didn't make sense to me. Because its the "scenes" that have the emotional tones and NOT the world. I noticed the "that" at the end. But I believe that "that" modifies "emotional tones" which makes sense

So I rejected (A) because of with leading to meaning error


Now a relative pronoun preferably must modify the closes noun entity. But I thought "whose" could jump and modify "scenes" Hence I chose (C)

Just a few cents to the learning.

If you could apply the same concept ( jump over the words) in A and C , you would have rejected C and selected A.


whose can refer to : world, life and death
Meaning wise refer to scenes: jump over 2 phrases
A MODIFIER jump over 2 phrases - not nice. It leads to AMBIGUITY

2. depiction of scenes ( specific type of scenes= whose xyz))
Meaning wise: we want to say something was lack in ALL scenes NOT LACK OF SPECIFIC SCENES

3. whose relative modifier: its task is to add some extra information - non essential modifier - not a reason to reject


with : is adding extra information NOT MODIFYING
with prepositions you can keep on adding multiple phrases one after another , but modifiers should not have many phrases in between

Depiction of scenes
- of life and death
- in marine world
- with emotional overtones

2. scenes with xyz
meaning wise make sense

3. that makes the information essential - that can be preferred

Hope it is helpful

The failing of the book lies not in a lack of attention to scientific detail but in the depiction of scenes of life and death in the marine world with emotional overtones that reduce the credibility of the work.

(A) depiction of scenes of life and death in the marine world with emotional overtones that -> depiction is described by emotional overtones, which makes sense. No errors as such. Let's keep it.

(B) fact that it depicts marine world scenes of life and death as having emotional overtones that -> "fact that it" do we need it. Incorrect.

(C) depiction of scenes of life and death in the marine world, whose emotional overtones -> "whose" is modifying "marine world", but it should modify "depiction of scenes". Incorrect.

(D) depiction of marine world scenes of life and death, which have emotional overtones and thus -> Again, we have "which" modifying "life and death"..Incorrect.

(E) fact that it depicts scenes of life and death in the marine world, whose emotional overtones -> Errors such as in C and B.

So, I think A.

GMATNinja
Can't we treat this as a parallelism que. where both highlighted parts should be parallel (noun phrases)

The failing of the book lies not in a lack of attention to scientific detail but in the depiction of scenes of life and death in the marine world with emotional overtones that reduce the credibility of the work.

Yep, this is a classic "not/but" parallelism trigger!

It's really a parallel list of prepositional phrases: "in + [big noun phrase serving as the object of the preposition]." The jargon doesn't matter, but your instincts are 100% correct here.
_________________

Hello stoned,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, yes; parallelism plays a major role in this question.

The sentence uses the idiomatic construction "not A but B", wherein A and B must be parallel and comparable.

Since A is the phrase "in a lack of attention to scientific detail", the correct answer choice must form a phrase parallel to it.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
Experts' Global team
Experts' Global Team
_________________

GMATNinja This is a very nice explanation. However, it is difficult for me to solve this question within 2 mins following this process.
Can you please suggest some ways that I can use to quickly eliminate the wrong answer choices?

Regards,
Ratan

There are no magic tricks for improving your speed on SC, but this video or our SC guide for beginners are good places to start:

• Get really good at recognizing and eliminating definite errors first.
  
• Compare remaining choices based on meaning (and do NOT waste time trying to invent grammar "errors" that aren't really there).
  
• If you're still stumped, make your best guess and move on! It's an adaptive test, so you want to make sure you aren't wasting a ton of time on the questions that are hardest for you. Instead, make sure you're giving yourself enough time to tackle the ones you CAN get right, knowing that you WILL get several hard ones wrong. (For more on learning to let go, check out this video.)

Finally, if you spend a bit over 2 minutes on a verbal question occasionally, it's not going to ruin your day, as discussed in this video on time management myths.

I hope that helps a bit!
_________________

I get that why C is wrong but in A, is the placement of " with emotional overtones" correct??
In A it appears as if the marine world is with emotional overtones whereas it should be life and death scenes that should be with emotional overtone??

Thanks