"Freedom Riders" were African American and white civil rights activist

Question

"Freedom Riders" were African American and white civil rights activists, who traveled together on buses into the southern states of Mississippi and Alabama to test the  Supreme Court ruling that segregation on interstate buses was unconstitutional and forcing  federal police to protect the protesters' rights.

A. Supreme Court ruling that segregation on interstate buses was unconstitutional and forcing

B. constitutionality of the Supreme Court which ruled on segregation of interstate buses and forced

C. unconstitutional Supreme Court ruling on segregation of interstate buses, forcing

D. ruling of the Supreme Court that segregation on interstate buses were unconstitutional and to force

E. Supreme Court ruling that segregation on interstate buses was unconstitutional and forced

Bunuel · Accepted Answer

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION

"Freedom Riders" were African American and white civil rights activists, who traveled together on buses into the southern states of Mississippi and Alabama to test the  Supreme Court ruling that segregation on interstate buses was unconstitutional and forcing  federal police to protect the protesters' rights.

A. Supreme Court ruling that segregation on interstate buses was unconstitutional and forcing

Incorrect.

This answer choice is grammatically incorrect. The construction  A and B  ( traveled  and  forcing ) requires that A and B belong to the same part of speech. In this case, A ( traveled ) is a conjugated verb, whereas B ( forcing ) is a non-conjugated verb.

What helps us identify this question as a Parallelism question as well as identify the mistake is the following Stop Sign:

A and/or/but B

When you identify this structure, make sure it follows these rules:

1. A and B must be of the same part of speech.
2. A and B must be logically parallel.

B. constitutionality of the Supreme Court which ruled on segregation of interstate buses and forced

Incorrect.

While this answer choice corrects the Parallelism mistake in the original question by changing  forcing  to  forced  (to parallel  traveled ), it changes the meaning of the original question.

In the original sentence, the activists test the  ruling  of the Supreme Court, whereas in the corrected sentence they test the  constitutionality  of the Supreme court.

C. unconstitutional Supreme Court ruling on segregation of interstate buses, forcing

Incorrect.

While this answer choice corrects the Parallelism mistake in the original sentence, by changing the words  and forcing  to  forcing , it is illogical and changes the meaning of the original sentence.

By changing  and forcing  to  forcing , the corrected sentence changes the parallel construction with and to a modifying clause, which is not required to be grammatically parallel  to traveled .

However, in the original sentence  segregation  is  unconstitutional , but in the corrected sentence the  Supreme court ruling  is  unconstitutional .

D. ruling of the Supreme Court that segregation on interstate buses were unconstitutional and to force

Incorrect.

While this answer choice corrects the grammatical Parallelism of the original question by changing  forcing  to  to force  (making it parallel with  to tes t), it introduces a new grammatical mistake.

The plural verb  were  does not agree with the singular subject  segregation .

E. Supreme Court ruling that segregation on interstate buses was unconstitutional and forced

This answer choice corrects the Parallelism mistake in the original question by changing the non-conjugated verb  forcing  to the conjugated verb  forced  (to parallel  traveled ).

Sumi1010 · Answer

The actual sentence is -

"Freedom Riders" were African American and white civil rights activists, who traveled together on buses into the southern states of Mississippi and Alabama to test the Supreme Court ruling that segregation on interstate buses was unconstitutional and forcing federal police to protect the protesters' rights.

The meaning is the key to such problems.

The sentence implies the below :
Freedom riders travelled to test the ruling <what was it? - That segregation was unconstitutional>
and
forced federal police for <something>

- Can we use participle verb+ing "forcing" here?
The freedom riders travelled to test the ruling, forcing the federal police to protect the protester's right.
No.
The act of travelling to test did not force the police. The act of forcing is
- neither the way the riders travelled to test the ruling.
- nor the result of the test.

A. Supreme Court ruling that segregation on interstate buses was unconstitutional and forcing
Parallelism issue : travelled || forcing
B. constitutionality of the Supreme Court which ruled on segregation of interstate buses and forced
What was to be tested? - The ruling and not the constitutionality of the court.
C. unconstitutional Supreme Court ruling on segregation of interstate buses, forcing
Incorrect participle forcing.
D. ruling of the Supreme Court that segregation on interstate buses were unconstitutional and to force
S-V disagreement: segregation .. were
E. Supreme Court ruling that segregation on interstate buses was unconstitutional and forced
Correct. The two actions travelled to test and forced police are isolated. Hence, "and" is the correct conjunction.

IMO E

sumitkrocks · Answer

A. Supreme Court ruling that segregation on interstate buses was unconstitutional and forcing
 "and forcing" is not logically parallel wrt to any entity in sentence 
need a working verb -Eliminate

B. constitutionality of the Supreme Court which ruled on segregation of interstate buses and forced
 To test the constitutionality of the Supreme Court?? 
Supreme court is always constitutionals -Eliminate

C. unconstitutional Supreme Court ruling on segregation of interstate buses, forcing
 Unconstitutional supreme court ruling - Eliminate (Reason mentioned in B is valid here as well )
Also Ving modifier just does not fit here logically

D. ruling of the Supreme Court that segregation on interstate buses  were  unconstitutional and to force
To test.. and to force --Parallel but issue is with use of verb 
S-V disagreement

E. Supreme Court ruling that segregation on interstate buses was unconstitutional and forced

Who travelled ...and forced || 
Verb issue in D is resolved

(E) is the correct answer IMO

kantapong · Answer

flaw: to test Supreme Court ruling that ... and forcing ... 
In A, it means Supreme Court forces police, which does not make sense here.
In B, ... which ruled and forced ... has the same mistake.
In D, segregation of ... were has S-V disagreement.
In C, meaning issue, FR are activists, who ..., forcing police ...
This means because FR by forcing police are activists. Does not make much sense.
In E, Supreme Court ruling ... and forced. Actually forced is matched with travelled, not was unconstitutional as I initially thought.

The answer must be E.

IanStewart · Answer

There's already a comma that shouldn't be there in the non-underlined portion, and I don't think there's any easy way, without bringing to the question outside information about US civil rights history, to decide between C and E. E is the correct answer here, but I don't much like it. It would be fine to write a sentence like "'Freedom Riders' traveled together on buses and forced police to protect protesters' rights". But when there's 30 words of intervening information between 'traveled' and 'forced', most readers are going to lose track of who is doing the "forced" part of the sentence. I think any writer who cares about clarity (which is the main concern of GMAT SC question writers) would restate the subject of the verb 'forced'. In short sentences, you can omit it. In long sentences, you really can't.

So I don't like E that much, but only E and C are free of grammar errors. And I can rule out C, because I know that the Supreme Court ruled that bus segregation was unconstitutional (that ruling wasn't enforced in some states, and the Freedom Riders' goal was to ensure that it was enforced). It was not true that there was an "unconstitutional Supreme Court ruling". So I know C is wrong because it contradicts historical fact. But I'm not supposed to use historical fact to choose between SC answers, and C is actually the best-written of the five answer choices, and it's certainly theoretically possible that the Supreme Court might make an unconstitutional ruling that protesters would challenge -- the meaning of C is not illogical. So I'm not really sure how a test taker is meant to answer this question without using historical information that test takers aren't expected to use.

ReedArnoldMPREP · Answer

I have no qualms with E. Long space between parallel items (including verbs) is very common on the test, and there is no other intervening conjugated verb that could be parallel with 'forced.' ('to test' is in the infinitive). The fact that some readers might lose track of something doesn't mean the structure is, objectively, unambiguous and clear.

(I took the real test two years ago. There was an SC question that was really long, and the underline was in the first part of the sentence. Every answer choice seemed fine, so I was confused, until I reminded myself I stopped reading halfway through the sentence... I checked the full sentence, and *miles* after the end of the underline, a conjunction built a parallel structure that made the answer obvious and unambiguous).

C, I agree that it requires too much civic/historical knowledge to understand that an 'unconstitutional supreme court ruling' doesn't make sense. I wonder if you could use the 'comma,--ing' modifier though?

"...who traveled together on buses into the southern states of Mississippi and Alabama to test the unconstitutional Supreme Court ruling on segregation of interstate buses, forcing federal police to protect..."

Hmm... Seems like 'forcing' would modify 'who traveled together on buses into southern states.'

Which... kind of makes sense to me? It does seem tough to get rid of C on any grounds except "I know the Supreme court ruling wasn't unconstitutional."

IanStewart · Answer

I agree with everything you're saying, and E certainly isn't wrong, though I think it could be slightly improved. And I know exactly what you mean, when you describe that SC question from your last test (I've seen questions like that too on the real test). That might be the most important takeaway from this conversation for higher-level test takers -- I'd bet there's a modestly strong correlation between question difficulty, and how far you need to look outside of the underlined portion to work out the right answer.

And I agree that there isn't an inherent problem with the -ing modifier in C (I don't really follow why other posters found it problematic). It seems to me we use -ing modifiers that way all the time, to describe a consequence of the preceding clause. I'm not sure the source of the original question in this thread, but it seems a higher quality question than most prep co questions I encounter, and I'd probably like the question were it not for one or two minor issues and this C/E ambiguity.

Shaajiib · Answer

Freedom Riders" were African American and white civil rights activists, who traveled together on buses into the southern states of Mississippi and Alabama to test the  Supreme Court ruling that segregation on interstate buses was unconstitutional and forcing  federal police to protect the protesters' rights.

A. Supreme Court ruling that segregation on interstate buses was unconstitutional and  forcing

B.  constitutionality  of the Supreme Court which ruled on segregation of interstate buses and forced

C. unconstitutional Supreme Court ruling on segregation of interstate buses,  forcing

D. ruling  of  the Supreme Court that segregation on interstate buses  were  unconstitutional and  to force

E. Supreme Court ruling that segregation on interstate buses was unconstitutional and forced
Option E correct.

Posted from my mobile device

TarunKumar1234 · Answer

"Freedom Riders" were African American and white civil rights activists, who traveled together on buses into the southern states of Mississippi and Alabama to test the Supreme Court ruling that segregation on interstate buses was unconstitutional and forcing federal police to protect the protesters' rights.

A. Supreme Court ruling that segregation on interstate buses was unconstitutional and forcing -> forcing is not parallel to travelled. Incorrect.

B. constitutionality of the Supreme Court which ruled on segregation of interstate buses and forced -> "constitutionality of the Supreme Court" is incorrect. The intended meaning is about "ruling of Supreme court"

C. unconstitutional Supreme Court ruling on segregation of interstate buses, forcing -> Same as B. Incorrect.

D. ruling of the Supreme Court that segregation on interstate buses were unconstitutional and to force -> segregation ...were is incorrect. It is SV agreement error.

E. Supreme Court ruling that segregation on interstate buses was unconstitutional and forced -> It is better, we have parallelism in place too.

So, I think E.

agarwal1993 · Answer

IanStewart I had no prior knowledge of this subject, but I rejected option C based on the fact that there is a 'huge' meaning change in comparison with the original sentence. As in- 'Supreme court ruling' to 'unconstitutional Supreme court ruling'.

In your opinion, is my reason to reject a particular choice justified in GMAT?

In your opinion, is my reason to reject a particular choice justified in GMAT?

IanStewart · Answer

In general, any time the correct answer to an SC question is not A (the original sentence), then the right answer changes the original sentence. So that means the original sentence is wrong in some way or other, and often when an SC sentence is wrong, it doesn't really mean anything, or it means something nonsensical. Just opening the OG to a random SC question, I see this original sentence: "Despite its covering the entire planet, Earth has a crust that is not seamless..." which is saying Earth itself is "covering the entire planet", which is nonsensical; the sentence presumably means instead to say Earth's  crust  covers the planet. Since answer A is nonsensical, we're genuinely looking for an answer that  changes  the meaning, because the original sentence doesn't mean anything sensible.

So there's no good reason to treat the meaning of answer A as if it were sacrosanct. On almost every official SC question, one answer is clearly better than the rest, whether because it means something logical, because it is clearly written, or because it's free of grammatical errors, and that's the right answer even if it seems to change the original's meaning. On very rare occasions (I'm actually thinking now of a question I saw on a real GMAT, so unfortunately it's a question I can't look back at) I've seen official SC questions where two answer choices both seem fine to me, but the two answers convey different sensible meanings. In those cases, I think you probably should be choosing the answer that preserves the meaning of the original sentence, but those occasions are so rare it's not worth worrying about them (and I might just have missed a subtle distinction between the two choices that would have been the more important reason to choose one answer over the other). But applying that principle to the question in this thread, I suppose it does offer a slight justification for preferring answer E to answer C.

agarwal1993 · Answer

Thanks IanStewart for the detailed response.

"Freedom Riders" were African American and white civil rights activist

Prep Toolkit

Top 5 GMAT Debrief Videos

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards

GMAT Sentence Correction (SC - EA only) Questions

"Freedom Riders" were African American and white civil rights activist

Prep Toolkit

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards