Influenced by Western individualism and they studied European women

Question

Project SC Butler: Day 168: Sentence Correction (SC1) 
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Influenced by Western  individualism and they studied European women of the Renaissance, the anthropologist defined a peculiar form of personhood as an innately bounded unit .

(A) individualism and they studied European women of the Renaissance, the anthropologist defined a peculiar form of personhood as an innately bounded unit

(B) individualism, anthropologists have defined a peculiar form of personhood to be an innately bounded unit, studying European women of the Renaissance

(C) individualism, a peculiar form of personhood is defined as an innately bounded unit by the anthropologist, studying European women of the Renaissance

(D) individualism and studying European women of the Renaissance, anthropologists define a peculiar form of personhood as an innately bounded unit

(E) individualism, the anthropologist who has studied European women of the Renaissance has defined a peculiar form of personhood to be an innately bounded unit

generis · Accepted Answer

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION \ Project SC Butler: Day 168: Sentence Correction (SC1) • HIGHLIGHTS • the phrase European women of the Renaissance is placed in different spots in each option. We should start looking for modifier problems: a descriptive noun phrase is too far from the noun it modifies • past participles and present participles can describe the same thing. • "Peculiar" does not mean strange in this sentence. It means particular or distinctive. • The meaning of the sentence is fairly simple but may be hard to see: Influenced by two things, anthropologists define X as Y. THE PROMPT Major ideas • Someone has been influenced by Western individualism and has also been studying (or is now studying) European women of the Renaissance • the someone is "the anthropologist" • the anthropologist defines a distinctive or particular kind of personhood as an innately bound unit. -- innately bound unit? I understand the noun only vaguely. As long as these words don't change and I understand the function of the noun (it describes or refines "personhood"), though, my vague understanding of content is okay. Some scholars define personhood in a distinctive way (as an innately bounded unit). THE OPTIONS • noun/pronoun disagreement: plural they should refer to plural anthropologists , not "the anthropologist" -- even if we changed the noun to plural "anthropologists," we would still have error because "they" is a problem. • they in the introductory modifier ruins the parallelism signaled by the word AND. eakabuah , I liked "I was silently rooting for" this option.

The word and joins similar parts of speech. "Influenced by Western individualism" is an adjective (and participial) phrase. It describes a noun: what sort of person is she? The sort who has been influenced by Western individualism. -- they studied European women of the Renaissance is not a participle (verbED) and not an adjective, but rather a full sentence . -- It has a subject, a verb, and an object. -- Full sentences (also called independent clauses) must be paired with other full sentences. -- Things joined by "AND" must be equals ... must be the same parts of speech. -- an adjective describes just one part of a full sentence: a noun. -- a full sentence, by contrast, expresses a whole thought and contains at least a subject (noun) and a verb. -- So those two items cannot be joined by "and." Doing so ruins parallelism. They are not the same parts of speech. They are not equals. -- if by "noun clause" you mean something that I am missing (as in substantive clause), let me know • to maintain a parallelism that is easier to see, we could use two verbED phrases, this way: Influenced by Western individualism and educated about European women of the Renaissance, anthropologists ... Eliminate A • studying European women of the Renaissance is a misplaced modifier. It's just sort of "tacked" onto the end of the sentence. -- It should modify anthropologists -- It is in the form comma + ___ING and as such, most likely modifies the whole preceding clause. -- Cause and effect are reversed and illogical: Studying European women of the Renaissance partially caused anthropologists to define a certain form of personhood in a certain way. The phrase should precede anthropologists. -- defined to be is not idiomatic. Defined as is correct. • Influenced by Western individualism could modify an anthropological concept such as personhood. -- Careful: an ideology could influence scholarly categorization of an abstract construct. True, that meaning is not the intended meaning. But an ideology can influence a psychological construct. That meaning is not possible in this case because we have "defined . . . by the anthropologist." The anthropologist is the noun who is influenced by Western individualism. Fatal modifier error. • Once again, studying European women of the Renaissance is tacked onto the end of the sentence and is not a meaningful modifier. The logical relationships between the modifier, its target, and the sentence as a whole are unclear. • "the" anthropologist is not standard. The word "the" indicates that we know about the noun in question. Either we have read about it already or we know that the noun is meant to be representative, such as "the killer whale." The standard rendition is anthropologists. "The" is not necessarily wrong, but in this sentence it is weird. • comma + ING modifiers typically modify the preceding clause. Not always. Sometimes they modify the immediately preceding noun. See this official question, here . -- comma + ING does not necessarily have to describe the result of the previous clause, either. See this official question, here . • This comma + ING issue is not settled. -- Ask this question about comma + ING modifiers: do they make sense with the clause that precedes them? Are they logically related in some way? -- AND yes, on the GMAT, most of the time comma + ___ING modifies the previous clause and presents the result of the clause Eliminate C • Bingo. This sentence makes perfect sense. Two adjectives, influenced and studying , describe the noun anthropologists . • Meaning? Anthropologists who have been influenced for decades by Western individualism and who are now studying European women of the Renaissance define personhood in a certain way. The highlighted parts are the relative clauses that have been reduced in this sentence. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, don't worry about it. mykrasovski , you wrote ArtVandaley , you wrote: On what basis do both of you make these assertions? (And mykrasovski , I'm about to change your example. You've created a straw man, not an analog.) I see no evidence. I see no official questions. No allusion to or explanation of grammar you've been taught. You are both wrong. MGMAT, Sentence Correction Guide, 6th edition: "Though not common on the GMAT , you can also pair present and past participles." p.88 Or have a look at this question here . Spoiler. That question is official. I've just given away the answer. In the official question, the thing that is modified by both past and present participles takes a verb in present tense. Parallelism is grounded in logic. If logic requires different participles, grammar adapts. This sentence, for example, is correct and not different from the one at issue: Influenced by a long history of white supremacy and soaking up hateful rhetoric from an irresponsible leader, at least one-third of U.S. citizens define "American" as "white." Perhaps more familiar concepts will make the logical parallelism easier to grasp. We do not know whether or when that definition by that group will change. For now, the description is accurate and likely to hold true for some time. mykrasovski , you wrote: I agree. The meaning is weird. But you completely disconnected the main clause from the intro. Your example is thus not analogous to the sentence in this question. Let's try your example this way: Scared by a big dog and crying on the way home, the boy does not yet know that he will be okay. Even this amended example is not truly on point. We are talking about ideas. There are many schools of anthropology. Anthropologists, probably from the same school of thought, define personhood in a certain way. For a really long time, these anthropologists have been steeped in an ideology that causes them to think in certain ways about personhood. They are now studying and/or have been studying European women of the Renaissance. Something about that group of women is instructive. This group of anthropologists defines personhood in a certain way—just as at least 1/3 of U.S. citizens define "American" as "white." The only difference is that the anthropologists are not hateful, xenophobic, and ruthless. The descriptors in option D make sense because they come from reduced relative clauses, which I highlighted in the "Meaning" bullet point. You can search my posts for my explanations of reduced relative clauses. Life does not happen all at the same time. Correct: Fatigued by the abrasiveness of a couple of people and lacking reserves to fight the fatigue, she considers shutting down the project she runs. • "defined to be" is unidiomatic. • The sentence is written in passive voice. Between 15 and 40 percent of correct OAs are in passive voice. -- In this case, the idiom error disqualifies an answer that seems attractive. • Idiom aside, rhetorically, D is better. D conveys details about Big Abstract Ideas, not about the work of one person. Eliminate E The answer is D. Notes I have erased more paragraphs than I have written. Discretion is often the better part of valor. It's almost dawn where I am. These next words do not apply to most of you. My threads are partly about creating a community. I do not tolerate toxic. There's enough waste. Don't ever mistake kindness for weakness. *********** COMMENTS gotoeurope and Same Good Kid (great usernames, both), welcome to SC Butler.

Most of these answers are good. More importantly, most are a very nice display of people who help to make a community of learning. thinkvision , eakabuah , exc4libur , J2S2019 , TheNightKing , gvij2017 , zhanbo , and Ashokshiva I am tagging you to give you notice. Kudos to all correct answers that explain.

Same Good Kid · Answer

Selected E.
Correctly specifies that “the anthropologist” was influenced by western individualism
B could have been close only if it had “ studying the European women of ...” at the correct place.

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gotoeurope · Answer

Selected D
A: "they"
B: define A "AS" B
C: subject shall be "the anthropologist"
E: define A "AS" B

ArtVandaley · Answer

D is best of the lot.

In A, influenced by is not parallel to the clause (beginning with they).

For B&E, prefer define X as Y over define X to be Y.

C can be eliminated as it can be inferred that a peculiar form is influenced by Western xyz. Rather anthropologists are influenced by it.

D wins, although I don't like the verb define. "Anthropologists define" may convey that the action of defining occurs frequently. Rather it's a one time deal. I will prefer defined over define.

Had the opening modifier not been there, define would have made absolute sense.

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thinkvision · Answer

Question: 
Influenced by Western individualism and they studied European women of the Renaissance, the anthropologist defined a peculiar form of personhood as an innately bounded unit.

30 ft level:
On the face, the question tests Modifiers. Rule - Whenever the sentence starts with a modifier, the subject come immediately after the comma.

(A) individualism and they studied European women of the Renaissance, the anthropologist defined a peculiar form of personhood as an innately bounded unit -  To many errors, incorrect use of pronoun, not parallel

(B) individualism, anthropologists have defined a peculiar form of personhood to be an innately bounded unit, studying European women of the Renaissance  - last phrase of the sentence "studying European women...." is misplaced and ambiguous. Who is studying? Further, correct idiom is "define X.... as.... Y".

(C) individualism, a peculiar form of personhood is defined as an innately bounded unit by the anthropologist, studying European women of the Renaissance -  "a peculiar" can not be the subject (refer 30 ft level para above)

(D) individualism and studying European women of the Renaissance, anthropologists define a peculiar form of personhood as an innately bounded unit -  looks good!

(E) individualism, the anthropologist who has studied European women of the Renaissance has defined a peculiar form of personhood to be an innately bounded unit -  Incorrect idiom. Correct idiom is "define X.... as.... Y".

Answer = D

eakabuah · Answer

Option B is incorrect because of the erroneous use of  have defined , which is present perfect tense. This is incorrect. A simple past tense form  defined  is appropriate in the context.

Option C wrongly uses the verb  is defined  for an action that occurred in the past. The use of  is defined  is not appropriate because of the wrong tense sequence. Simple past tense  was defined  is appropriate.

Option E is incorrect because  has defined  is in the wrong tense. I'm not too sure if the use  has studied  is correct though in the context.

Option A is incorrect because of pronoun error.  they  logically refers to a singular noun  the anthropologist . The correct form should be  he  or  she , or the noun could be changed to  the anthropologists  in order to correct the sentence.

The correct answer is D.  Influenced by Western individualism  and  studying European women of the Renaissance , anthropologists  define  a peculiar form of personhood as an innately bounded unit. The noun phrase  Influenced by Western Individualism  is parallel to the noun phrase  studying European women of the Renaissance . The verb tense is also appropriate in the simple present tense.

PS. I liked option A, and I was silently rooting for it, but alas, the pronoun error came in ruined it for me. I was hoping to test the scenario where a noun phrase can be made parallel to a noun clause as per option A, but then and again, that is not meant to be.  generis  I would appreciate it very much if you can touch on the parallelism between a noun phrase and a noun clause.

mykrasovski · Answer

Influenced by Western individualism and they studied European women of the Renaissance, the anthropologist defined a peculiar form of personhood as an innately bounded unit.

(A)  individualism and they studied European women of the Renaissance, the anthropologist defined a peculiar form of personhood as an innately bounded unit

- Incorrect. "They" is missing an antecedent.

(B)  individualism, anthropologists have defined a peculiar form of personhood to be an innately bounded unit, studying European women of the Renaissance

- Incorrect. The sentence is okay until the very last comma, "..., studying European women of the Renaissance" - what does it modify? Unit? Anthropologists? Entire clause?

(C)  individualism, a peculiar form of personhood is defined as an innately bounded unit by the anthropologist, studying European women of the Renaissance

- Incorrect. There is a modifier error, i.e. "a peculiar form of personhood" cannot be influenced by Western individualism... Nasty meaning problem.

(D)  individualism and studying European women of the Renaissance, anthropologists define a peculiar form of personhood as an innately bounded unit

- Correct. While "Influenced and studying" can theoretically be parallel, there is a subtle problem with the tense in the main clause, which uses present tense. Think of an example: "Scared by a big dog and crying on the way home, a boy wants to be a soccer player". Does it make sense? Maybe, but the meaning is a bit weird...

Usually, the parallel structure can be broken down into pieces and each piece must make sense. Let's simplify option D:

Studying European women of the Renaissance, anthropologists define a peculiar form of personhood as an innately bounded unit.  - This sentence is fine.

(E)  individualism, the anthropologist who has studied European women of the Renaissance has defined a peculiar form of personhood to be an innately bounded unit

- Maybe correct. There is no modification error in the beginning of the sentence. The remainder of the sentence has clear meaning, but one can question the tenses. The anthropologist probably did the following (in order): (1) studied European women, and (2) defined smth. Can 1 and 2 be parallel? Perhaps...

Option  E is questionable , while  D is correct .

generis , I look forward to your explanation.

exc4libur · Answer

MEANING
what was/were influenced? anthropologist(s), not a form;
who was/were studying the Renaissance? anthropologist(s), not a form;

IDIOM: defined…as

(A) "influenced… and they" not parallel and unintended; "and they  … the anthro  " sva error;
(B) "defined… to be" unidiomatic; "have  " is used to express a past event that might change in the present, however, the event in which they defined the form was final (or completed), thus this is unnecessary and unintended;
(C) "influenced… a form" unintended; "bounded unit by the anthro" imps the form is an unit by the anthro, so an "anthro unit" nonsensical;
(E) "defined… to be" unidiomatic; "has  " unintended;

Answer (D): "influenced  … and studying  … anthros define…as" parallel and intended meaning.

J2S2019 · Answer

IMO the correct answer is D

Influenced by Western individualism and they studied European women of the Renaissance, the anthropologist defined a peculiar form of personhood as an innately bounded unit.

(A) individualism and  they studied European women of the Renaissance , the anthropologist defined a peculiar form of personhood as an innately bounded unit - the marked portion after the parallelism marker "and" is incorrect, entities before & after "and" are not parallel - "Influenced by Western individualism" - Past participle modifying "the anthropologist" correctly whereas "they studied European women of the Renaissance" is a complete cluase, not parallel & not modifying the subject of the sentence. - INCORRECT

(B) individualism, anthropologists  have defined  a peculiar form of personhood  to be  an innately bounded unit,  studying European women of the Renaissance  - The last part of the sentence has employed a VerbING modifier after "," - As per GMAT rule, this should modify the preceding clause & indicate a result of it; also usage of present perfect tense implies something started in past, still has its intended effect in present - Here this is awkward in terms of meaning; - INCORRECT

(C) individualism, a peculiar form of personhood is defined as an innately bounded unit by the anthropologist, studying European women of the Renaissance - "Influenced by Western individualism " - has to modify the nearby noun, it is modifying "a peculiar form of personhood" - purely non-sensical; also, unnecessary usage of passive form, generally not the case in GMAT - iNCORRECT

(D)  individualism and studying European women of the Renaissance , anthropologists  define  a peculiar form of personhood as an innately bounded unit - "Influenced by Western individualism" & "studying European women of the Renaissance" are parallel to each other, past & present participle usage, modifying the subject; Fact statement correctly depicted in simple present tense - CORRECT

(E) individualism,  the anthropologist who has studied European women of the Renaissance   has defined  a peculiar form of personhood  to be  an innately bounded unit - Same error as of B; also the usage of relative pronoun "who" without "," indicating a restrictive usage of modification for the subject, not going with the intended meaning - INCORRECT

TheNightKing · Answer

gvij2017 · Answer

Use of V+ed and V+ing, Subject +Verb (simple present)..

Should I always go for simple present tense?

zhanbo · Answer

I pick  (D)  after spending 2 minutes 49 seconds deliberating mainly between D and E.

The issue with original sentence is rather evident: "Influenced by Western individualism and they studied European women of the Renaissance" is incorrect. As a modifier, it cannot contain a complete sentence structure "they studied European women of the Renaissance". To make it grammatically correct, it has to be "individualism and studying European women of the Renaissance". Well, this is exactly what D does. But, we need to be careful and check other options.

(B) There is no good reason to move "studying European women of the Renaissance" to the very end of sentence. It also introduces ambiguity regarding who is "studying ..:

(C) The subject "a peculiar form of personhood" is not compatible with the modifier. So C is definitely out.

(D) Looking good. Keep.

(E) Now, this one is not clearly wrong, though we can ultimately rule it out.
(e.1) the use of two "has" (In "has studies" and "has defined") just does not feel right. Too redundant? 
(e.2) "define something as" is preferred. ("Define something to be" may not be idiomatic.)
(e.3) Just one "anthropologist"? Which one? "who has studied European women of the Renaissance"? This restrictive clause indicates that is just one "anthropologist who has studied European women of the Renaissance". How likely is that?

So I decided against E and picked D.

Ashokshiva · Answer

IMO E

Influenced by Western individualism and they studied European women of the Renaissance, the anthropologist defined a peculiar form of personhood as an innately bounded unit.

(A) individualism and  they studied  European women of the Renaissance, the anthropologist defined a peculiar form of personhood as an innately bounded unit
 Incorrect parallelism

(B) individualism, anthropologists have defined a peculiar form of personhood to be an innately bounded unit,  studying European women of the Renaissance 
 Incorrect modifier at the end

(C) individualism,  a peculiar form  of personhood is defined as an innately bounded unit by the anthropologist, studying European women of the Renaissance
 Incorrect modifier at the end

(D) individualism  and  studying European women of the Renaissance, anthropologists define a peculiar form of personhood as an innately bounded unit
 Not sure if the two modifers can be connected by "and"

(E) individualism, the anthropologist who has studied European women of the Renaissance has defined a peculiar form of personhood to be an innately bounded unit
 Looks ok

generis · Answer

I have posted the official explanation  HERE

generis · Answer

gvij2017  , no. It depends on the sentence.

Here is one in which the main clause is in past tense. It's close to a sentence in MGMAT.

Fatigued by the sun and dreaming of mice, the cat napped lazily on the porch.

Also, see the official question linked in my OE (present tense).

Hope that helps.

mykrasovski · Answer

Hi generis , thanks much for a great explanation of the problem. I would like to reply to your comments I meant the fact which you highlighted with a MGMAT quote in an excellent way, and I just did not find proper words to describe what I wanted to say... Also, for some reason I could not make sense of three tenses "influenced, studying, and define", but you did a really great job describing why a correct sentence can have all these tenses altogether. Thank you. I was not 100% happy with my example, but I actually hoped that you will help to analyze and compare it with the original sentence. It is much more clear now Overall, I think this is a pretty difficult problem and I spent at least one hour thinking about it and edited my post at least 4-5 times... And since then I have been eagerly waiting for your explanation

So, many thanks for helping all of us!

thinkvision · Answer

Hi  generis  - Applaud to your work and gmatclub for such series. It actually brings consistency in our routine.

Also, would like to make a suggestion, if we can have questions at much frequent intervals (like, daily or 5 times a week). I know that's actually too much to ask for! :P

- k

nehasomani33 · Answer

(A) individualism and they studied European women of the Renaissance, the anthropologist defined a peculiar form of personhood as an innately bounded unit - Incorrect - use of they is incorrect. How can anyone get influenced by individualism and they studied.

(B) individualism, anthropologists have defined a peculiar form of personhood to be an innately bounded unit, studying European women of the Renaissance - Incorrect - ing modifier incorrectly modifies the entire clause.

(C) individualism, a peculiar form of personhood is defined as an innately bounded unit by the anthropologist, studying European women of the Renaissance - Same as B

(D) individualism and studying European women of the Renaissance, anthropologists define a peculiar form of personhood as an innately bounded unit - Looks Correct - Inspired by two things, anthropologist define (verb usage is also right)

(E) individualism, the anthropologist who has studied European women of the Renaissance has defined a peculiar form of personhood to be an innately bounded unit - INCORRECT - The word "Who" incorrectly narrows down the world of anthropologist. This means, the sentence is only talking about the anthropologists who define, no other!

Hope this helps!

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generis · Answer

thinkvision , your suggestion is good and understandable. I am glad that you asked, but sad to report I do not have enough good questions to post more frequently than 3 times a week. In this post, here I explained to someone else that finding questions for Butler is very hard. Doing so takes a long time. In that linked post I issued this invitation, which I'll reissue here: Forum members: If you would like to do so, please provide me, via PM, with questions to post in SC Butler. For every question you provide that is 650 level or higher and that is publishable, I will happily credit you in the OP as the provider and give you a kudos for any good post of yours that you choose. Let's see whether a call for questions works. If it does, I'll post five times a week. If the invitation does not work, I will think of something else that could happen daily.

Influenced by Western individualism and they studied European women

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GMAT Sentence Correction (SC - EA only) Questions

Influenced by Western individualism and they studied European women

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