It consists of over ten thousand lines of blank verse and Milton’s Par

B is the correct answer

A has parallelism issue and the sentence does not make sense
" and " connecting blank verse and Milton's paradise lost is wrong it seems to suggest that there some other book apart from Milton's book
B We do not have subject for the sentence after comma there should have been a connector
C Correct
D As an is incorrect
E dealing is incorrect the should be and to maintain parallelism and convey two ideas.

Why option B is wrong? "deals" as mentioned in option C is right or we need "dealt".
Please explain. Thanks.

Option B is

There are a couple of ways you can quickly get rid of this option:

1. The use of the past tense was with an epic poem: we should use the present tense here, as the information being introduced is not restricted to the past (that is, its status as an epic poem is not expected to have changed).

2. The lack of a conjunction for the verbs: read the option as A was a B that consists of C, was first published in D. There are 3 verbs here (was, consists, and was published). Now, whether the sentence is going with (a) was and was first published or (b) consists and was first published, we need an and to join the verbs in that list.

In E, can't i say dealing.... modifies the preceding clause by telling why Paradise Lost was an epic poem?

I think E is wrong for below reason,


E) Consisting of over ten thousand lines of blank verse, Milton’s Paradise Lost was an epic poem that was first published in 1667 in a volume of ten books, dealing

Here clause starting from that incorrectly modifies epic poem. Poem was not first published in 1667 but the Milton's Paradise. There might be many epic poems, which were published before and after 1667,so using that just after epic poem changes the intended meaning.

A) It consists of over ten thousand lines of blank verse and Milton’s Paradise Lost, an epic poem, was first published in 1667 in a volume of ten books and deals . ---- "an epic poem" is placed incorrectly here.

B) Milton’s Paradise Lost was an epic poem that consists of over ten thousand lines of blank verse, was first published in 1667 in a volume of ten books that dealt. ---- ", was first published" is incorrect. ", and was" is required here.

C) An epic poem consisting of over ten thousand lines of blank verse, Milton’s Paradise Lost was first published in 1667 in a volume of ten books and deals --- This is correct.

D) As an epic poem consists of over ten thousand lines of blank verse, Milton’s Paradise Lost was first published in 1667 in a volume of ten books and dealt -- two independent clauses are joined by just comma.

E) Consisting of over ten thousand lines of blank verse, Milton’s Paradise Lost was an epic poem that was first published in 1667 in a volume of ten books, dealing -- ",dealing" should not be used as verb-ing here.

What is the answer here..it should be E.

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Please look The OA - Answer is C. There are quite a few explanation.

E) Consisting of over ten thousand lines of blank verse, Milton’s Paradise Lost was an epic poem that was first published in 1667 in a volume of ten books, dealing

the 'dealing' at the end of the underlned part is meant to modify the phrase,but the verb+ing can be used to provide a result or explaing the phrase better, but in this scenario
dealing cannot be used because the publishing has nothing to do with what the poem deals with. option C is the correct answer as it coveys the correct intended meaning.

@experts, i understand why C is correct, but could you please help with why "dealing" is incorrectly used in answer choice E? generis AjiteshArun daagh
thanks!

Hi Kriti

Let me try to answer your query.

The verb+ing modifier form, when appearing at the end of a clause, is to be applied to the entire clause ie; it modifies the entire clause. For eg:

The actor spent less than an hour looking over his lines last week, playing Hamlet for the third time in a year.

Here, it is not merely that the actor was playing Hamlet for the third time in a year, but that because of that he spent less than an hour looking over his lines. The additional details provided (ie; modification) of "playing Hamlet for the third time in a year" are for the entire preceding clause ie; "The actor spent less than an hour looking over his lines last week" and not just for "The actor".

Similarly, if we plug in (E) into the question, we get:

Consisting of over ten thousand lines of blank verse, Milton’s Paradise Lost was an epic poem that was first published in 1667 in a volume of ten books, dealing with the Biblical story of the ‘Fall of man’.

Now, the verb+ing modifier appearing at the end of the clause should modify the entire preceding clause. In other words, "dealing with the Biblical story of the ‘Fall of man’" should provide additional information about "Milton’s Paradise Lost was an epic poem that was first published in 1667 in a volume of ten books" and not just "Milton's Paradise". As you can see, what the poem deals with does not have anything to do with when it was published, and hence the above structure does not make logical sense.

Hope this clarifies.

Hey CrackVerbalGMAT . Thanks for the explanation. So the rule that you just mentioned is only applicable to the the verbing modifier appearing at the end of the clause right? And will it always hold true? What if there is only a normal sentence such as "Ram fell off the cliff, hurting his left leg".
So here verbing modifier appearing at the end would always mean that this modifier is for the entire preceeding clause and not just for Ram?

I get why all other options are incorrect. But in option C, are "was" and "deal" parallel.

I ask this question because on several other questions I have made the mistake of not keeping tense leading to incorrect selection. Could anyone provide info regarding the same. Also any additional links for the same will be of great help.

Thanks in advance.

Dissecting choice C:

Can someone clarify if I'm right:

An epic poem consisting of over ten thousand lines of blank verse, -- noun + ing-modifier

Milton’s Paradise Lost -- subject/noun

was first published -- verb
deals -- verb
these are verbs in parallel

in 1667 in a volume of ten books -- prepositional phrase

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION

Meaning Analysis
Itconsists of over ten thousand lines of blank verse,
and Milton’s Paradise Lost, an epic poem,
was first published in 1667 in a volume of ten books and
deals with the Biblical story of the ‘Fall of man’.
This sentence starts by saying that something consists of over ten thousand lines of blank verse. Then it states that Milton’s Paradise Lost, which is an epic poem, was first published in 1667 in a volume of ten books, and it deals with the Biblical story of the ‘Fall of man’.

Logically from the context of the sentence it is clear that “something” in the first part of the sentence is ‘Paradise Lost’.

Error Analysis
In this sentence two independent clauses are connected using and. This is an error since two independent clauses can be connected using a semicolon or comma + FANBOYS.

There is yet another issue with the sentence construction. Typically the order of placement of noun and pronoun is that noun is placed first and then the pronoun is placed. This ensures continuity in the flow of reading. Thus, a better sentence construction would have been the one in which “Paradise Lost” was placed prior to the pronoun “it” so that the pronoun reference was absolutely clear.

Answer Choices
A. It consists of over ten thousand lines of blank verse and Milton’s Paradise Lost, an epic poem, was first published in 1667 in a volume of ten books and deals

Incorrect:

This choice has the error pointed out in the error analysis.

B. Milton’s Paradise Lost was an epic poem that consists of over ten thousand lines of blank verse, was first published in 1667 in a volume of ten books that dealt

Incorrect:

1) Since the verbs “was” and “was first published” are both for the subject “Milton’s Paradise Lost, they should be connected with a parallelism marker.

2) The simple past tense verbs “was” and “dealt” are incorrectly used to present facts about the contents of a book. Such information must be presented in the simple present tense.

C. An epic poem consisting of over ten thousand lines of blank verse, Milton’s Paradise Lost was first published in 1667 in a volume of ten books and deals

Correct:

1) The modifier “an epic poem…” correctly modifies “Milton’s Paradise Lost”.

2) The simple present tense “deals” is correctly used to present a fact about the contents of a book.

3) The two verbs “was published” and “deals” for the subject “Milton’s Paradise Lost” are properly connected using the connector “and” and are parallel to each other.

D. As an epic poem consists of over ten thousand lines of blank verse, Milton’s Paradise Lost was first published in 1667 in a volume of ten books and dealt

Incorrect:

1) The use of “as” is incorrect here. It seems to indicate that the reason that Milton’s poem was published is that epic poem consists of certain lines of something, meaning that is absolutely illogical.

2) The simple past tense “dealt” is incorrect here as explained in the POE for choice B.

E. Consisting of over ten thousand lines of blank verse, Milton’s Paradise Lost was an epic poem that was first published in 1667 in a volume of ten books, dealing

Incorrect:

1) The simple past tense verb “was” is incorrectly used to refer to the contents of a book.

2) The comma + verb-ing modifier “dealing” is incorrectly used here since the action of “dealing” does not logically describe when the book was published.

Thanks for explanation... could you please explain about the parallelism in option C
was published and deals with......X and Y....
but here X is passive and Y is active.
is it OK??

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It consists of over ten thousand lines of blank verse and Milton’s Paradise Lost, an epic poem, was first published in 1667 in a volume of ten books and deals with the Biblical story of the ‘Fall of man’.

A) It consists of over ten thousand lines of blank verse and Milton’s Paradise Lost, an epic poem, was first published in 1667 in a volume of ten books and deals -> IC + Conjunction + IC is a correct form. Incorrect.

B) Milton’s Paradise Lost was an epic poem that consists of over ten thousand lines of blank verse, was first published in 1667 in a volume of ten books that dealt -> Same as A.

C) An epic poem consisting of over ten thousand lines of blank verse, Milton’s Paradise Lost was first published in 1667 in a volume of ten books and deals -> DC, IC is a correct form. Further, and deals is making sense too, because we are talking about general characteristics of the poem. Let's keep it.

D) As an epic poem consists of over ten thousand lines of blank verse, Milton’s Paradise Lost was first published in 1667 in a volume of ten books and dealt -> IC, IC is incorrect form. Incorrect.

E) Consisting of over ten thousand lines of blank verse, Milton’s Paradise Lost was an epic poem that was first published in 1667 in a volume of ten books, dealing -> Dealing is incorrect as it is not describing the book. Incorrect.

So, I think C.