In an America steeped in Romanticism, cemeteries were laid out beyond

Hello Limara1,


Kindly look at my response to burnrohan 's query right above this post. I have answered his query that is similar to your query.


Hope this helps.
Thanks.
Shraddha

Hi Shaddha,

Maybe my vocabulary is weak, but can't an inanimate object (such as a cemetery) be "steeped in romanticism"? Compare to e.g. "this is a town steeped in history".

In an America steeped in romanticism, cemeteries were laid out beyond the city as places for a transcendental contemplation of nature, death and duty.

A. In an America steeped in romanticism, cemeteries were laid out - nothing wrong - 'In an America' --> indicates an era or type of America (ex: 'In an India steeped in independence turmoils')
B. In America steeped in romanticism, cemeteries were laid out - Wrong construction : America as a nation cannot be steeped --> certain nouns don't allow it,country names is one of them
C. In an America steeped in romanticism, cemeteries laid changes meaning --> its trying to link cemeteries to a certain era
D. Cemeteries, in America steeped in romanticism, were laid Oh no, cemeteries steeped in romanticism would be uncomfortable
E Cemeteries in an America steeped in romanticism laid All the wrong punctuation and meaning - cemeteries steeped in romanticism laying out something would be even more uncomfortable

the questions tests the specific usage of indefintie article..
america, in general is not referrred,,,but a specific type of america is referred..

understanding the meaning of the sentence is very crucial to get this right

In an America steeped in romanticism, cemeteries were laid out beyond the city as places for a transcendental contemplation of nature, death and duty.

A. In an America steeped in romanticism, cemeteries were laid out
B. In America steeped in romanticism, cemeteries were laid out
C. In an America steeped in romanticism, cemeteries laid
D. Cemeteries, in America steeped in romanticism, were laid
E Cemeteries in an America steeped in romanticism laid

While excessively delving upon the semantic difference between the words - lay, lie, laid and so on--- the real import of the idiom 'laid out' has been largely ignored. It may be noted that the bare infinitive 'lay' or its past tense 'laid' are transitive verbs and therefore do take an object after them
Just 'lay or laid' will involve the physical process of birds laying eggs or some action like laying the baby on the cradle or on the bed etc. Therefore, it will be absurd to say the cemeteries laid something or the municipalities or cities laid cemeteries.
On the contrary ' lay out or its past tense 'laid out' refers to a blue print of a proposed plan of action. It is logical to think therefore that the cities laid out a plan in their town planning for cemeteries to be placed in the uptowns or out of towns beyond the downtowns or the midtowns.
That is the reason choices C, D, and E are out of the reckoning, and one has to choose between A and B.

'In an America' is a well-accepted idiomatic saying to denote a status.



A is the best answer choice.

Your explanation is very useful, thank you so much!!

In this case, using the indefinite article "an America" is really an idiomatic way of saying "the way that the country was at this particular time." It's like there are multiple versions of America, and this is specifying which one. Think of A as saying:
In [this country that at the time was] steeped in romanticism, cemeteries were laid out...

The other thing that you could look at is MODIFIER usage. When we use a past participle such as "steeped," we can think about substituting the modifying dependent clause "that was steeped."

It makes sense to use this kind of modifying clause with an indefinite article:
"In an America that was steeped..."
Here, we're qualifying what kind of America.

It doesn't make much sense to use it without an article. No article = proper noun, i.e. there's only one, so we don't need to qualify which one.
"In America that was steeped..." doesn't work. We don't use essential modifiers for proper nouns in this way. (We could use the non-essential "which," but that would be a different construction).

Dear mikemcgarry,
Hello...
Hope you are well.
Can you please explain this question?
Thank you.

'laid out' means 'designed.' Laid may mean past tense of the physical act of laying such as laid the bricks or laid the eggs, making no sense in the context. For this reason, 'out' and 'beyond' are not related here and therefore not redundant.

In an America steeped in romanticism, cemeteries were laid out beyond the city as places for a transcendental contemplation of nature, death and duty.

(A) In an America steeped in romanticism, cemeteries were laid out
(B) In America steeped in romanticism, cemeteries were laid out
(C) In an America steeped in romanticism, cemeteries laid
(D) Cemeteries, in America steeped in romanticism, were laid
(E) Cemeteries in an America steeped in romanticism laid

please help!

Hello, GMATNinja can you please explain why D is wrong?

GMATNinja VeritasKarishma mikemcgarry VeritasPrepHailey egmat
I ended up select choice B because I thought that America is not supposed to follow 'an' (only stating 'America' is enough to comprehend, so there's no need to add extra 'an' as choice A does).

Hello krittapat and Pallavi2020,

We hope this finds you well.

Having gone through the question and your queries, we believe we can resolve your doubts.

Options B and D are incorrect due to the omission of "an". The construction "In an America steeped in romanticism" means "In a version of America steeped in romanticism"; this is a somewhat literary way of conveying the simple meaning, "When America was steeped in romanticism". Thus, without the "an", the sentence cannot convey the correct meaning.

Further, Option D also places information vital to the core meaning of the sentence between two commas; please remember, only extra information can be placed between commas.

To understand the concept of "Extra Information Between Two Commas" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~2 minutes):



All the best!
Experts' Global Team

In an America steeped in romanticism, cemeteries were laid out beyond the city as places for a transcendental contemplation of nature, death and duty.

(A) In an America steeped in romanticism, cemeteries were laid out- Correct
(B) In America steeped in romanticism, cemeteries were laid out- Here, the option does not distinguish a facet of America from the others. Hence wrong
(C) In an America steeped in romanticism, cemeteries laid - Cemeteries laid beyond the city sounds as cemeteries themselves were laid and were not laid by someone
(D) Cemeteries, in America steeped in romanticism, were laid- Here, the option does not distinguish a facet of America from the others. Hence wrong
(E) Cemeteries in an America steeped in romanticism laid - Cemeteries laid beyond the city sounds as cemeteries themselves were laid and were not laid by someone

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