In elucidating and ultimately decrying the various strains of nihilism

i could eliminate A C E immediately, but what's exactly wrong with D?

Simple parallelism in play. He sought 1. to edify and 2. to lead them; only A sticks to this basic norm. Populace is considered a plural in this context.
( P.S) ‘from’ should be underlined

Hi,

Sought ... "to edify" and "to lead"..parallel

Populace is singular so "it" is rightly used in B.

Hence B.

Regards,
Dom.

Dom wrote;


When there are only two items x and y, then there should be a conjunction ‘and’ between the x and y. B is missing that critical parallelism marker.
Populace can be sometimes taken as plural. See the evidence below from “The Free Dictionary”
https://www.thefreedictionary.com/populace
Populace

n (sometimes functioning as plural)
1. the inhabitants of an area
2. the common people; masses

So ‘them’ is passable. But more importantly, the other choice D containing the singular ‘it’ is also not grammatical. Am I right, Dom?

Regards

Hi Daagh,

I dont know if you are trying to pull my leg but I think(and you know it too ) you are better judge of GMAT than me any day.

Yes IMO also populace can be singular or plural.

In option D.. "sought in" looks like a wrong idiom.. "sought to" or in other sentences where it might be used "sought after" would be better IMO.

Regards,
Dom.

Confused again. What is the correct answer then?

Dear Dom,

I never intend to pull legs in a forum; I just wanted to point out that populace can be plural and that D isn't parallel, the points on which you relied on to choose B. Now, with the singular choices out of the way, it might be easier to hit the bull's eye. A now comes into limelight.

Pillarsofcreation

According to OA I am wrong; populace is singular as per Magoosh.Therefore B is the answer.

But 'to edify and to lead' are two distinct functions IMO; to co-ordinate both with a comma is unusual

Hi Daagh,

I think X sought to edify the populace.Why? So that he can lead them/it away from the evil...

I think it follows like a cause and effect principle..

In option A.. to edify and to lead.. makes it sound like both the actions are independent of each other..IMO.

Regards,
Dom.

I think I can explain this. Here to sought to edify and to lead are not 2 functions. Please read Option B carefully. [color=#0000ff]He sought to edify TO lead it away[/color]. So the intended purpose of edifying is to lead it (populace) from something.

Hello Experts

Please explain how B is correct answer?

According to me
A) sought to edify the populace and to lead them from
--> to edify and to lead are || , but not sure what "them" refers to?
according to sentence structure "the populace" is at object place, and "them" is also in object place
so "them" refers to "the populace" ? but ...the populace is singular right?

B) sought to edify the populace, to lead it away from
if to edify and to lead are || then there should not be any comma
, to lead it away from -- i don't understand its role in this sentence

C) sought edification of the populace and a leading them away from
again "them" for populace..
now sought is only main verb here hence it will be interpreted as
sought edification of the populace
and sought a leading them away from
hence wrong

D) sought in edifying the populace to lead it from
the novelist sought to edify people , not in edifying
to edify people was his aim, hence "to" is needed
hence wrong

E) sought to edify the populace and he was leading them from
Two ICs joined just by "and"
hence wrong

I am unable to find any correct answer lolz
am I missing something? please correct me

OE from Magoosh:

(A) “Populace” is a singular collective noun and should therefore takes the pronoun “it” not them. Also, the two actions “to edify” and “to lead” are closely related, one following from the other. The “and” makes them seem too distinct. Be wary of mechanically choosing parallelism.

(B) correctly uses the pronoun “it” and draws attention to the interconnectedness of the two actions by repeating the “to”. Such structure is rare in GMAT and will likely be found only at the higher levels of SC.

(C) “them” incorrectly refers in number to “populace”

(D) the omission of “away” changes the meaning

(E) “them” is incorrect.

Dom,
Hi

In cause and effect situations when the effect is the consequence of the cause, the norm is to express the effect in an adverbial modifier form; the correct form would then be

Sought to edify the populace, leading it away from;

But as I see it logically, both are independent functions . Both need not go together or one need not lead to the other. Because, you see, there may be many edifiers but all of them may not lead and similarly there may be several leaders who may not all edify, but only lead; the passage doesn’t suggest that the Russian Statesman went on to lead because he edified before. He just happened to edify as well lead; that is the notion that I got from the passage.
In the end, however, all my thinking is wrong; B is the answer. I am not even disputing it, although I have to make my stand clear. HTH

Hi Daagh,

Frankly speaking "Sought to edify the populace, leading it away from" should make proper sense ie. we will have a verb-ing modifier(leading) rightly modifying the previous clause.

But I think the fact that "away" is omitted in A and the fact that the two actions are happening independent of each other as per the " X and Y " should be enough for us to ignore A . IMO.

Regards,
Dom.

I have seen Magoosh's reasoning; we have to abide by that.

because we have to analyze meaning to go to the most logic choice, we have to understand the meaning of new words. if we do not know the meaning of new words, we fail on that sc problem

OE for B

“Populace” is a singular collective noun and should therefore take the pronoun “it” not them. Also, the two actions “to edify” and “to lead” are closely related, one following from the other. The “and” makes them seem too distinct and thus slightly changes the original. Be wary of mechanically choosing parallelism.

Finally the correct idiom is “sought to” not “sought in”.

B correctly uses the pronoun “it” and draws attention to the interconnectedness of the two actions by repeating the “to”. Such structure is rare in GMAT and will likely be found only at the higher levels of SC.