Jane and William will represent our school at the modern arts

Question

Jane and William will represent our school at the modern arts  convention, for their creations have been outstanding this semester .

(A) convention, for their creations have been outstanding this semester

(B) convention, their creations in this having been outstanding this semester

(C) convention; their creations this semester have been outstanding

(D) convention; they having been outstanding in their creations this semester

(E) convention, for they have this semester done outstanding creations

BarneyStinson · Answer

Can someone throw more light on the author's intended meaning of the sentence?

The most lay-man's reading will give a meaning that Jane and William will represent "because" their creations have been outstanding this semester. And "for" is a perfect replacement of "because".

How are both the clauses separate and still tend to make the same meaning as above? Jane and William will represent; their creations have been outstanding.....blah...blah....blah!!!! How is this perfect and how does it showcase the author's intended meaning?

what is the source of this question?

swatirpr · Answer

I agree that Both words explain the reason for something but they are not interchangeable. Here For can not replace Because. For can be used to explain the reason why Jane and William will represent our school, but in that case sentence should be
"Jane and William will represent our school at the modern arts convention for their creations have been outstanding this semester." "," should be omitted if using FOR.

or

"Jane and William will represent our school at the modern arts convention, because their creations have been outstanding this semester"

"Jane and William will represent our school at the modern arts convention; because their creations have been outstanding this semester"

now keep ; and omit because

"Jane and William will represent our school at the modern arts convention; their creations have been outstanding this semester"

we can simply use ";" as second part is an information that can stand independently. Because is not written but we can get meaning that second part is the reason of first part's happening.

as done in option C.

Correct me if I am doing it wrong.

Thanks.

Nitya, I agree ',' is not required in option A.

BarneyStinson · Answer

Hmmmmm, your explanation makes sense to me. There are actually several different ways of establishing a casual relationship between independent clauses to form meaningful wholesome sentences.

"," cannot precede "for".
",because", ";because" and ";" can all sound similar.

Most SC questions, the trick is to just listen to your ear. But there are questions as well that can trick the ear.
Interesting!!!!!

dwivedys · Answer

consider the two variants

1) their creations have been outstanding this semester. 
2) their creations this semester have been outstanding

choice 1) makes it appear that their creations have been outstanding ONLY in this semester - it does not clarify WHEN the creations were made.

choice 2) on the other hand specifies clearly that the creations were made THIS SEMESTER and also that they were outstanding.

This constitutes a modifier problem. As far as the usage of FOR is concerned - it's considered a bit too formal and I believe GMAT does not prefer it although there is nothing wrong per se with it. This question is testing a modifier issue.

mmagyar · Answer

I had trouble with this at first. A and C are both grammatically correct. You can connect two independent and related sentences with either a semi-colon or a comma and a FANBOY (the comma can be optional depending on how it affects the meaning). Here each clause in A and C is independent. For is the correct conjunction because it shows purpose or why (basically, "for" functions identically to "because," except that "for" is for connecting 2 independent clauses instead of a dependent clause to an independent clause).

So why A or C if each construction is okay? Let's look at the differences:

(A) convention, for their creations have been outstanding  this semester 
(C) convention; their creations  this semester  have been outstanding

Whenever something moves around, ALWAYS consider how it affects the meaning because it is often a modifier issue. Here, what is "this semester" modifying?

In A, it modifies the verb "have been" and tells us when the creations were outstanding. This is an improper meaning because it implies that the creations existed before this semester and now are outstanding (think of a sports player that is having a good season this year). It is odd to say that art was outstanding during a specific time period - art would be either outstanding or not and that wouldn't change.

In C, it is a restrictive modifier for "their creations" and tells us that their creations that came into existence this semester are outstanding. Therefore, C has the correct intended meaning.

pqhai · Answer

My suggestion. This question is poor written. Do NOT study a question that you do NOT know its source. If you don't know the source, why you study? The more you study, the lower scores you get. First of all, there is NO problem with A because: - "for" is a perfect substitution of "because" if it is put in the middle of a sentence and after a comma . - In addition, we need cause-effect structure to make the sentence sensible. - Moreover, in C the adverb phrase "this semester" is put in the middle of the question. That's quite weird in official writing that prefers adverb phrase put at the beginning or at the end of a sentence. You can refer to a famous OFFICIAL question from OG in which "for" means "because" . the-olympic-games-helped-to-keep-peace-among-the-pugnacious-85874.html Hope it clears your doubt. Enjoy official questions folks.

mmagyar · Answer

I agree that one should avoid unofficial questions. That being said, this one isn't so bad. The GMAT loves to move modifiers around to create subtle differences in meaning. Here are a few official examples: OG12SC3 Answer D specifically (although-various-eighteenth-and-nineteenth-century-american-88063.html) OG13SC6 surpassed only/only surpassed (diabetes-together-with-its-serious-complications-ranks-21132.html) OG13SC14 placement of corresponding/correspondingly (rising-inventories-when-unaccompanied-correspondingly-by-97784.html) As to your post, the modifier "this semester" is actually an adjective because it is an essential modifier to identify the specific creations in question, so I disagree that it should be placed at the end. I also disagree that adverbs should be at the beginning or end as a general rule. There are many times in which adverbs are in the middle of the sentence in GMAT (and sometimes placement in the middle can also create a much clearer meaning than placement at the end), so I wouldn't rely on that - the meaning and clarity are probably more important. Here is an example of this from the verbal review: according-to-its-proponents-a-proposed-new-style-of-63927.html

daagh · Answer

Jane and William will represent our school at the modern arts convention, for their creations have been outstanding this semester.

(A) convention, for their creations have been outstanding this semester

There is a punctuation rule that if a subordinate clause is placed in the latter half of the sentence, then there is no comma required before the subordinate conjunction. The comma is required only when a subordinate conjunction starts a sentence. 
Example
Because their creations this semester have been outstanding, Jane And Willy will represent our school at the convention 
Jane and Willy will represent our school at the convention because their creations this semester have been outstanding.

Both of the above examples are correct although the second one is not marked with the comma before the word 'because'. 
In the given case although a school grammar teacher might fault choice A for using a comma in the latter part, it is a fact that GMAT is not fastidious about punctuations.
as far as word order is concerned, it is a thumb rule that the modifier is kept preferably close or at least as close as possible to the modified part. 'Creations this semester have been outstanding' is substantively more informative than 'creations have been outstanding' this semester. To that extent, A is inferior.

RonPurewal · Answer

I like choice (c) the best here. i will explain the differences between (a) and (c):

* MEANING 
(a) contains "for", which carries the meaning of because. therefore, the meaning of sentence (a) is that jane and william are being invited to represent the school because of the work they have done this semester -- a reasonable meaning. 
(c) contains a semicolon, which shows that the two clauses are related in meaning but doesn't exactly specify how. so, in this sentence, it's possible that jane and william are going to the convention for other reasons (such as a longer history of good work), but that the narrator still wants to emphasize the continuing quality of their most recent work. this is also a reasonable meaning.

* MODIFIER PLACEMENT 
i don't like the placement of "this semester" in choice (a) -- it appears to modify the action/clause their creations have been outstanding. in other words, taken literally, choice (a) suggests that the creations are very good this semester -- but that, during other semesters, the same creations might not be so great. that's not very reasonable. 
by contrast, (c) places "this semester" right next to their creations, specifying unambiguously that the creations were made this semester. that's better.

saarthakkhanna04 · Answer

Hello everyone can someone explain why A is wrong. I picked the right choice but could not rule out A.

Jane and William will represent our school at the modern arts

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Jane and William will represent our school at the modern arts

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