sonusaini1
Joan of Arc, a young Frenchwoman who claimed to be divinely inspired, turned the tide of English victories in her country by liberating the city of Orléans and
she persuaded Charles VII of France to claim his throne.
(A) she persuaded Charles VII of France to claim his throne
(B) persuaded Charles VII of France in claiming his throne
(C) persuading that the throne be claimed by Charles VII of France
(D) persuaded Charles VII of France to claim his throne
(E) persuading that Charles VII of France should claim the throne
Dear
generis sir
Why option A is incorrect? please help me to understand the reason.
she unwrapped the gift voucher to check the gift and she found the gift of no use to her. ( 1)
OR
she unwrapped the gift voucher to check the gift and found the gift of no use to her. (2)
OR
she unwrapped the gift voucher to check the gift, and found the gift of no use to her. (3)
which construction is correct?i am a bit confused. please help.
Thanks & Regards
Hi
sonusaini1 , it's easy to get confused about these issues, whose subtlety makes them hard for both native and non-native speakers.
I need to ignore your three examples for a moment because they get us off on a tangent.
(Quick answer: #1 depends on context but is usually wrong; #2 is correct; #3 is wrong)
The tangent is important because it partly informs the reason to reject A and accept D, but your first question was "Why is option A incorrect?"
• Compare A to D. D is betterIn my opinion, the best answer to this question is that Answer A is not as good as Answer D.
We do not need to repeat the pronoun
SHE.
-- Joan of Arc did two things. She turned the tide of XYZ and persuaded Charles VII to ABC.
-- Generally, GMAC favors concision and directness.
-- No reason exists to repeat the subject with the pronoun SHE, although that fact may not be evident until we read option D.
It may seem as if the sentence is clearer when we repeat the subject by using the pronoun SHE.
Whether to repeat the subject in a compound predicate is a matter of opinion.
No hard and fast rule exists, although one guideline helps.
That guideline is to keep the connection between a subject and her two verbs as uninterrupted as possible.
-- A comma between a subject and her second verb interrupts the connection (as in your #3)
-- A pronoun between a subject and her second verb may interrupt the connection unnecessarily. (as in your #1) (Sometimes we do need to repeat the pronoun, but these instances depend on context and on the other answer choices.)
Further, this sentence is about what Joan of Arc
did.To emphasize the verbs (the action), we should keep them parallel.
Joan of Arc
--
turned the tide of English victories
AND
--
she persuaded Charles VII to claim his throne.
Turned and
she persuaded are not parallel.
As is the case in D, eliminate the pronoun SHE.
In answer D, the verbs are parallel:
turned and
persuaded. Both verbs are connected to the subject without interruption.
Keeping subjects and verbs together forms the basis of my "tangent" discussion of your examples.
Almost all of the time, GMAC prefers that a subject followed by two verbs
not be repeated before the second verb.
Further, 99 percent of the time, GMAC does
not want a comma between the subject and its second verb (not at issue in this question, but raised by your #3)
• Guidelines for subjects followed by two verbs • If possible, do not separate subjects and verbs with commas [NOT at issue in this question, but at issue because of your sentence #3]
Your example #3 is incorrect.In a "simple" sentence with one subject and one verb, we do not separate the subject and the verb by a comma.
--
Wrong:
Mohamed Salah, scored an astonishing 25-meter goal against Chelsea. 
--
Correct:
Mohamed Salah scored an astonishing 25-meter goal against Chelsea. 
Extend this "no separation" principle to a sentence in which a subject is followed by
two verbs (a "compound
predicate").
That is, almost without exception, a subject followed by two verbs should not be separated from either verb by a comma.
--
Wrong:
Mohamed Salah scored an astonishing 25-meter goal against Chelsea, and inspired David Luiz to comment that Salah's goal was "impossible for the goalkeeper" to save. --
Correct: Mohamed
Salah scored an astonishing 25-meter goal against Chelsea
and inspired David Luiz to comment that Salah's goal was "impossible for the goalkeeper" to save.
Salah did two things:
scored and
inspired.Look at the second part of the Salah sentence:
, and inspired David Luiz to comment that Salah's goal was "impossible for the goalkeeper" to save. -- Because a [comma + AND] exists, and because we separate
independent clauses with a comma plus a conjunction, that second part looks as if it might be independent clause.
-- It is not an independent clause. That clause does not have a subject after
comma + and.
Unless verb phrases are very long or the sentence is complex, it is preferable not to separate a subject from its second verb by a comma.*
• If possible do keep a subject connected to both verbs and do not interrupt the subject-verb connectionYour sentence #2 is similar to answer D. Sentence #2 is correct because
-- (1) a single subject who does two actions is not repeated before the second action. (This construction is more concise and arguably more parallel than if the subject were repeated.)
-- (2) a single subject who does two actions is NOT separated from the second action by a comma (we want subjects and verbs not to be disconnected by a comma).
• Repeating the subject? Whether to do so depends on the context of each question and the answer choices available-- #1 She unwrapped the gift voucher to check the gift and she found the gift of no use to her.
No. Eliminate the second SHE. We do not need it.
This sentence does not seem strange to most people because there does not seem to be much harm in repeating the subject.
Take a look at these clunky examples:
-- The cat was stuck in a tree and the cat meowed loudly.
-- I ordered a glass of wine before dinner and I drank another glass of wine with my dinner.
-- The woman was confused and the woman was frustrated.
-- The woman was confused and she was frustrated.
Better:
The woman was confused and frustrated.We are trying to describe her state of being or how she feels. Repeating the subject is not necessary. Omitting the repeat subject makes the sentence more effective.
I hope those examples demonstrate that we should usually avoid repeating a subject that does two things.
• Keep Joan of Arc connected to her verbs Most of the time we do not want to separate a subject from either of its verbs, whether by repeating the subject or by inserting a comma.
What did Joan of Arc do? Two things
turned the tide of XYZ
and
persuaded Charles VII to do ABC
Keep her connected to her verbs. Do not add SHE.
[If the options were different: Do not add a comma before the "persuaded" verb phrase.]
Above all,
A is not better than D.Use other choices to your advantage.
If you are not sure whether an answer has a really obvious error, compare it to another sentence that also seems to have no obvious error.
In this case, ask: do we need the SHE in A? Or is D grammatical and clear without SHE?
On the GMAT, bet on concision.
Do not repeat the subject. Reject A. Choose D.
(Whew.)
Hope that helps.
*Other phrases such as parentheticals may be set off by commas, but those commas do not separate the
subject . . . verb 1 . . . AND verb 2 structure itself. The commas exist to set off the parenthetical.
-- sometimes commas show up because of comma rules, but again, those commas do not separate the subject from the verb.
For example, after dates that include years, we use a comma after the year.
The reader in English is accustomed to this convention. As she reads the sentence, in her mind's ear, she does not "hear" separation between subject and verb #2.
Nov 20
Nov 22
Nov 25
28 Mar 2016, 14:58
I like the words "etched into my conscious part." 
