It is ironic that Sherlock Holmes, a fictional character created by

Ignore the non underlined portion for a minute.

It is ironic that Sherlock Holmes, a fictional character created by British author and physician Sir Arthur Conan Doyle,.........., was highly disorganized in his personal life.

The sentence is already complete. You don't need a new clause with a verb. You need a non essential modifier which even if you remove, the sentence will stand on it's own.
And that's why D is better than C.

Thank you!

Hi Experts,

Isn't " a fictional character created by British author and physician Sir Arthur Conan Doyle" an appositive here?
In that case, whatever follows that appositive will refer to Sherlock Holmes and not Doyle.
Please let me know where I am going wrong in this case.

GMATNinja

I don't get it.
The presence of "who" or not doesn't change the fact that "methodical..." is a noun modifier. Therefore, it should follow the touch rule. It's pretty unclear and ambigous to be used as an exception of the touch rule. The previous modifier set off by commas is long and conveys a lot of information. Using another modifier to refer to Sherlock Homes doesn't sound right in that position. Can someone help me?

jennpt mikemcgarry

Hi AndrewN - Request you to please enlighten me with the basic understanding on modifier.

In the given question, "who" can logically refer to "Sherlock Holmes", as well as "Sir Arthur Conan Doyle", so isn't the usage of "who" ambiguous here?

It is ironic that Sherlock Holmes (S1),
a fictional character created by British author and physician Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (S2),
who was methodical in high complexity thinking like deductive reasoning (S3),
was highly disorganized in his personal life (S4).

I want to understand why my interpretation, as below, is incorrect?
S2 is modifying "Sherlock Holmes", and S3 is modifying "Sir Arthur Conan Doyle".
So, it becomes: It is ironic that Sherlock Holmes , S2, S3, was highly disorganized in his personal life.

I am backing my logic with this official example

More than 300 rivers drain into Siberia's Lake Baikal, which holds 20 percent of the world's fresh water, more than all the North American Great Lakes combined.

More than 300 rivers drain into Siberia's Lake Baikal (S1),
which holds 20 percent of the world's fresh water (S2),
more than all the North American Great Lakes combined (S3).

S2 modifies "Lake Baikal", and S3 modifies "Lake Baikal".

Hello, Pankaj0901. This sentence makes no sense to me, unless the reader has read Sherlock Holmes stories, and the sentence aims to convey that this fictional character was disorganized when not on the job. Otherwise, if the sentence is meant as a commentary on the author, the two actors should trade places. The following is a sample sentence to that end:

It is ironic that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the British author and physician who created the fictional character Sherlock Holmes, a character methodical in such highly complex thinking as deductive reasoning, was highly disorganized in his personal life.

I get the point of the sentence, even if a relationship between complex thinking and disorganized behavior may not be ironic.

Concerning the Lake Baikal sentence, your S3 must modify S2, since, if you were to remove S2, the S1 to S3 bridge would be illogical:

More than 300 rivers drain into Siberia's Lake Baikal... more than all the North American Great Lakes combined.

In the above sentence, more can only reasonably refer to 300 rivers, but the connection between these rivers and all the North American Great Lakes is tenuous at best—there are just five such Great Lakes, and it does not take a math genius to realize that more than 300 > 5. Thus, we can conclude that S3 comments on S2:

... Lake Baikal, which holds 20 percent of the world's fresh water, more than all the North American Great Lakes combined.

In the above sentence, more is understood to refer to fresh water, as in, more fresh water than all the North American Great Lakes combined. The comparison in freshwater volume is much clearer than the river-to-Great Lake numerical comparison in the earlier sentence.

Thank you for thinking to ask.

- Andrew

Thank you, I think I got the point AndrewN.

Just one more silly question - Is the following structure acceptable? I just made up a sentence to understand whether "who"/"which" can modify a "noun" before the comma pair. (Please ignore the logical sense of the example, as I am keen to understand whether the structure, in case it makes sense logically, is acceptable or not.)

It is ironic that Sherlock Holmes, a fictional character popular among kids during the 1990s, who was methodical in critical thinking, is highly disorganized in real life.
Here, can "who" refer to "Sherlock Holmes", as there is an appositive in between? Or, this sentence is incorrect as "who" doesn't have a clear antecedent (noun) in the immediately preceding phrase

Hello again, Pankaj0901. Yes, who can reach over a modifying phrase or clause to refer to a logical referent. Although your sentence above would be illogical (since Sherlock Holmes cannot be said to have a real life), the who could only refer to Sherlock Holmes—the verb was removes any doubt that who could be referring to kids.

A small but interesting point about punctuation: the comma before who is optional, but it is not incorrect. I could see many writers wanting to make the who clause restrictive and extend the appositive phrase, as in, a fictional character popular among kids during the 1990s who was methodical.... However, in the sentence as written, perhaps the author (you!) intended to make a clear break from the appositive phrase while adding a second modifier to describe the character. Such a structure is functional (and reminds me of the leafy spurge question, even if that one includes a prepositional phrase instead of a clause).

Thank you for following up.

- Andrew

The dreaded "leafy spurge" question distorted the realms of "meaning" in the GMAT world. I still frown over how "with its milky sap" is turned into an inessential modifier and the entire plant is attributed to giving mouth sores. Though none of the other choices made any more sense, (B) coming out as the correct answer is just too much to handle. I have marked it as a meaning anomaly in my error log.

Hi AndrewN & PyjamaScientist, This sentence does not make sense to me and seems illogical. How can Sherlock Holmes, which is a fictional character, have a personal life? Also, we can not use who to refer to a fictional character. Am I correct in my understanding?

Hello, tarun001. I have expressed my views on the question a few posts above. I will say that we can talk about fictional characters as though they had personal lives, and who is fitting to refer to a character in such a discussion. Still, I think this question has gotten enough airtime, and people could undoubtedly get more out of studying official SC questions.

Thank you for thinking to ask.

- Andrew

Hi tarun001,
You are correct in terms of doubting the logicality of this SC question.
And, thus I'd reiterate what Andrew has said above. There are plenty of official questions to practice and learn from so you can pass the non-official ones that seem to be doing funny stuff.
Best of luck.

E could still be ruled out for redundancy