A it is.

(A) whose interiors were inhumanely overcrowded, their floors often serving as beds, and their walls often windowless and dilapidated with age and neglect - correct
(B) whose interiors were inhumanely overcrowded,their floors were often serving as beds, and their walls were often lacking windows and dilapidated due to age and neglect - the highlighted statement is an independent sentence and two independent sentence cannot be connected using just commas->creates a run on sentence.
(C) whose interiors were inhumanely overcrowded, their floors were often serving as beds, and they had walls often windowless and dilapidated with age and neglect
- same error as B
(D) having interiors inhumanely overcrowded, their floors often serving for beds, and their walls were often windowless and dilapidated due to age and neglect
- changes the meaning. From the sentence it seems as if Jacob Riis had interiors when he started to visit
(E) having interiors that were inhumanely overcrowded, their floors often serving as beds, and their walls often lacked windows and were dilapidated on account of age and neglect - same as D

In the late 1880s, the journalist Jacob Riis visited tenement dwellings in several impoverished New York City neighbourhoods to investigate housing conditions and photograph immigrant tenant's apartments, whose interiors were inhumanely overcrowded, their floors often serving as beds, and their walls often windowless and dilapidated with age and neglect.

(A) whose interiors were inhumanely overcrowded, their floors often serving as beds, and their walls often windowless and dilapidated with age and neglect
Correct. Modifier is used correctly.

(B) whose interiors were inhumanely overcrowded, their floors were often serving as beds, and their walls were often lacking windows and dilapidated due to age and neglect
Wrong. information about the floors and walls just provides additional info for inhumanely overcrowded apartments' interiors ==> modifier should be used.

(C) whose interiors were inhumanely overcrowded, their floors were often serving as beds, and they had walls often windowless and dilapidated with age and neglect
Wrong. Same as B.

(D) having interiors inhumanely overcrowded, their floors often serving for beds, and their walls were often windowless and dilapidated due to age and neglect
Wrong. Verb-ing modifier + comma ==> modify preceding clause. However, the underlined part just modifies "apartments".

(E) having interiors that were inhumanely overcrowded, their floors often serving as beds, and their walls often lacked windows and were dilapidated on account of age and neglect
Wrong. Same as D. Verb-ing modifier + comma ==> modify preceding clause. That's wrong here.

Hope it helps.

Thanks for the comment. Until now, I was thinking that if there is a sub-ordinate conjunction or a FANBOYS with a comma, then it has to join two Independent Clauses. Obviously, the reverse is also true. Thanks for the comment.

Do you have any official examples that have similarly designed options?

Hi gmatter0913,

below is one of the examples from verbal review


However much United States voters may agree that there is waste in government and that the government as a whole spends beyond its means，it is difficult to find broad support for a movement toward a minimal state．

(A) However much United States voters may agree that
(B) Despite the agreement among United States voters to the fact
(C) Although United States voters agree
(D) Even though United States voters may agree
(E)There is agreement among United States voters that


Some days back i have mentioned about run-on sentences in a post. You can find it here -

http://gmatclub.com/forum/the-missouri-compromise-of-1820-a-legislative-effort-to-154841.html

One more example - the-iroquois-were-primarily-planters-but-supplementing-32790.html#p1259011


Please let me know if you have any doubts.

just look for parallelism x,y and z

x=whose interior.....,their walls........ and their floors...

Just one question.
In option A, isnt there a parallelism error-

whose interiors were inhumanely overcrowded, their floors often serving as beds, and their walls often windowless and dilapidated with age and neglect

1 is in Verb-ed form other is in verb-ing form

In the late 1880s, the journalist Jacob Riis visited tenement dwellings in several impoverished New York City neighbourhoods to investigate housing conditions and photograph immigrant tenant's apartments, whose interiors were inhumanely overcrowded, their floors often serving as beds, and their walls often windowless and dilapidated with age and neglect.

(A) whose interiors were inhumanely overcrowded, their floors often serving as beds, and their walls often windowless and dilapidated with age and neglect - Correct.

(B) whose interiors were inhumanely overcrowded, their floors were often serving as beds, and their walls were often lacking windows and dilapidated due to age and neglect
(C) whose interiors were inhumanely overcrowded, their floors were often serving as beds, and they had walls often windowless and dilapidated with age and neglect
(D) having interiors inhumanely overcrowded, their floors often serving for beds, and their walls were often windowless and dilapidated due to age and neglect
(E) having interiors that were inhumanely overcrowded, their floors often serving as beds, and their walls often lacked windows and were dilapidated on account of age and neglect

The first modifier (relative clause modifier) is not supposed to be parallel to the second and the third (absolute phrases).

Relative phrase modifier: whose interiors were inhumanely overcrowded
Absolute phrase 1: their floors often serving as beds
Absolute phrase 2: their walls often windowless and dilapidated with age and neglect.

There is no bearing of "overcrowded" with "serving" since they are in two different elements which has no parallelity requirement.

The only parallelity requirement is within the absolute phrase 1 and the absolute phrase 2, and they are parallel (noun + noun modifier)

Absolute phrase 1: Noun = their floors, noun modifier (present participle) = (often) serving as beds
Absolute phrase 2: Noun = their walls, noun modifier (adjectival) = windowless and dilapidated with age and neglect.

The only requirement here is that "their walls" and "their walls" be parallel. (Even the noun modifiers in two differnet absolute phrases need not be parallel.)

Can something get dilapidated with age? I thought something can get dilapidated only due to something. I chose 'B', even though I understand that there is a parallelism error, because of the above logic, B seemed the most appropriate

Dear Concerned,

Can you please elaborate a little more on how modifiers related to 'floors' and 'windows' are providing additional info about apartment's interiors? Does 'their' in these modifiers refer to interiors? As in, "apartment's interior's floors often serving as beds" and "apartment's interior's walls often lacking windows and dilapidated due to age and neglect"? Is this correct? To me it seems these modifiers will make more sense if they modify 'apartment'.

I opted for B. Can someone please help me understand why is B incorrrect

Hi Khuranasup,

1. Parallelism at issue:

Whose interiors were...., their floors were..., and their walls were -- this is not parallel. It should be written like this:
Whose interiors were...., Whose floors were..., and Whose walls were

2. Wrong use of due to. Replacement of "due to" by "CAUSED BY" does not make sense.

their walls were dilapidated due to age.
their walls were dilapidated CAUSED BY age
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Can Whose be used to modify a non-living thing like appartments?

Yes, Whose can be used for persons, things


Below is the general list

to refer People -- who , whom , whose
to refer Things -- whose, which , that

Let me know in case any further info needed


If it helps... Kudos please

Hi Bharath99,

Be careful when you make general statements like this. Whose can refer to a house, but only if it shows possession. In this case, it does. But 'whose' is not always appropriate when talking about inanimate objects.
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Hi sayantanc2k,

Could you please share how do you usually recognize Absolute phrase in a sentence?

I thought that Absolute phrase has only 3 distinctive features:
1) the phrase structure can be: noun + participle (phrase)
2) or can be: noun + "that" clause
3) Absolute phrases modify the entire sentence

But here the Absolute phrases modify "tenant's apartments" but not the main noun of the sentence, and the structures are not very clear.

Please help. Thank you very much in advance!

Though this sentence is long and not necessarily in your favorite style, there is nothing grammatically wrong with it.

Stripped way down, the last part of this sentence would read: "The interiors were overcrowded, their floors serving as beds and their walls windowless." The last two phrases modify the interiors, giving more information about the insides of these apartments. Joined by "and," they must be parallel to each other.

It may seem odd, but here the word "serving" in the phrase "their floors often serving as beds" actually functions as an adjective. This is fairly common, however. For example, in the sentence "She ran for the bus, shouting, and finally caught it," the verbs "ran" and "caught" are parallel, while the word "shouting" functions as an adjective, describing what she was like while "she ran for the bus." Thus, each of these modifying phrases is noun + adjective, and they are parallel in construction.

Since there is nothing wrong with this sentence, just check each of the other choices to see if any of them is better stylistically.

Scan and Group the Answer Choices:

There is a clear and useful 3-2 split here. (A), (B) and (C) all begin "whose interiors were" and (D) and (E) both begin with "having interiors."

Eliminate Wrong Answer Choices:

(D) and (E) both begin with the word "having," which is incorrect, because it isn't clear who or what has these interiors. Is it the apartments, the immigrants, or Jacob Riis? Such ambiguity is unacceptable, which is enough reason to rule out these two choices. Further, (D) changes "dilapidated with age" to "dilapidated due to age," and (E) changes it to "dilapidated on account of age." Both are wordier than the original. In fact, the phrase "on account of" is usually wrong on the GMAT. So, both (D) and (E) are incorrect.

(B) makes several small changes from the original. First, it changes "floors often serving" to "floors were often serving." This small change has big implications. Without the word "were," the phrase "their floors often serving as beds" is a descriptive aside. With "were," this is an independent clause (it could stand on its own), so it would at the very least have to be parallel with the preceding clause, making a list with it. However, it isn't parallel; to be parallel, it would have to read, "whose floors served as beds." (B) also inserts the word "were" in the last clause, which creates exactly the same problem there. Finally, it unnecessarily changes the phrase "dilapidated with" to "dilapidated due to." "With" is fine, so there's no reason to make the phrase any longer. Because of these problems, (B) is incorrect.

(C) also creates an unparallel list. To be parallel, the second and third clause would have to begin "whose walls" and "whose floors."

Since each of the other choices introduces new errors, the sentence is correct as written and Answer Choice (A) is correct.
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Are the possesive pronouns "their" correct in this sentence? aren't they ambiguos?
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Here's the correct version.

In the late 1880s, the journalist Jacob Riis visited tenement dwellings in several impoverished New York City neighbourhoods to investigate housing conditions and photograph immigrant tenant's apartments, whose interiors were inhumanely overcrowded, their floors often serving as beds, and their walls often windowless and dilapidated with age and neglect.

"Their" would not refer to "neighborhoods" or "conditions," because neither neighborhoods nor conditions would have floors or walls described as these floor and walls are.

"Their" probably does not refer to "tenants'," as tenants probably would not be the ones that have floors and walls.

Regarding the other two nearby plural nouns, "apartments" and "interiors," there is no clear way to determine with a reasonable degree of certainty which of these nouns "their" refers to, as both apartments and interiors could have floors and walls. So, yes, which noun "their" refers to is ambiguous.
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