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505-555 Level|   Parallelism|                        
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TheUltimateWinner
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Joan of Arc, a young Frenchwoman who claimed to be divinely inspired, 17 Feb 2021, 11:38
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TheUltimateWinner
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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

(D) persuaded Charles VII of France to claim his throne

Request Expert Reply:
Hi honorable experts,
MartyTargetTestPrep, GMATNinja, GMATGuruNY, AjiteshArun, VeritasPrepHailey, BrightOutlookJenn,
I've a thirst to know the use of his in choice D (correct choice). In this choice, his has been used for 'Charles VII', right? But, if the sentence is something like below, then will it be 'pronoun ambiguity'? I mean: is there any chance the second her may mean Joan of Arc?

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 persuaded y(female) of France to claim her throne.
Thanks__
just the curiosity to know the fact....
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I'm eagerly expecting feedback from my honorable experts! Appreciating your help, experts.
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Joan of Arc, a young Frenchwoman who claimed to be divinely inspired, 10 Mar 2021, 14:30
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Debayandc
I interpreted the sentence as "Joan of Arc turned the tide of war by liberating and persuading..."

What if Charles VII is not easily persuaded but Joan of Arc did just that and because of THAT action, she turned the tide of war?

Am I missing something here? Can the experts please help?
Hello, Debayandc. I also wanted to interpret the parallel actions as liberating... and persuading. The only problem is that the two choices that provide this continuation, (C) and (E), also provide a meaningless and ungrammatical that clause following the second action, where we would expect Charles VII to appear instead. How can anyone persuade that...? This realization, coupled with the fact that someone persuades another to do something, forced me to backtrack and examine other options.

- Andrew
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Hi AndrewN

I don't see why you cannot persuade a THAT clause.

Per the OA, you can persuade someone but you cannot persuade an action or an event (action represented by THAT clause obviously)

But don't we say the following ?

I persuaded THAT ACTION be taken
I persuaded THAT she not be fired
x persuaded THAT Y be fired

OR are both my sentences wrong ?
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Joan of Arc, a young Frenchwoman who claimed to be divinely inspired, 10 Mar 2021, 16:55
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Debayandc
I interpreted the sentence as "Joan of Arc turned the tide of war by liberating and persuading..."

What if Charles VII is not easily persuaded but Joan of Arc did just that and because of THAT action, she turned the tide of war?

Am I missing something here? Can the experts please help?
Hello, Debayandc. I also wanted to interpret the parallel actions as liberating... and persuading. The only problem is that the two choices that provide this continuation, (C) and (E), also provide a meaningless and ungrammatical that clause following the second action, where we would expect Charles VII to appear instead. How can anyone persuade that...? This realization, coupled with the fact that someone persuades another to do something, forced me to backtrack and examine other options.

- Andrew

Hi AndrewN

I don't see why you cannot persuade a THAT clause.

Per the OA, you can persuade someone but you cannot persuade an action or an event (action represented by THAT clause obviously)

But don't we say the following ?

I persuaded THAT ACTION be taken
I persuaded THAT she not be fired
x persuaded THAT Y be fired

OR are both my sentences wrong ?
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Hello, jabhatta2. Regardless of what people might say, the sentences you have written above in pink would not be considered correct on the GMAT™. They beg the question, Persuaded whom? You can write, I persuaded [someone] not to fire her. You can also write, X persuaded Z to fire Y, but there is an agent who does the persuading and another who becomes persuaded. That is just the way this particular verb operates. I think your sentences could work with a similar word instead, perhaps recommended.

I hope that helps. Good luck with your studies.

- Andrew
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Joan of Arc, a young Frenchwoman who claimed to be divinely inspired, 10 Mar 2021, 19:25
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AndrewN

Hello, Debayandc. I also wanted to interpret the parallel actions as liberating... and persuading. The only problem is that the two choices that provide this continuation, (C) and (E), also provide a meaningless and ungrammatical that clause following the second action, where we would expect Charles VII to appear instead. How can anyone persuade that...? This realization, coupled with the fact that someone persuades another to do something, forced me to backtrack and examine other options.

- Andrew

Hi AndrewN

I don't see why you cannot persuade a THAT clause.

Per the OA, you can persuade someone but you cannot persuade an action or an event (action represented by THAT clause obviously)

But don't we say the following ?

I persuaded THAT ACTION be taken
I persuaded THAT she not be fired
x persuaded THAT Y be fired

OR are both my sentences wrong ?
Hello, jabhatta2. Regardless of what people might say, the sentences you have written above in pink would not be considered correct on the GMAT™. They beg the question, Persuaded whom? You can write, I persuaded [someone] not to fire her. You can also write, X persuaded Z to fire Y, but there is an agent who does the persuading and another who becomes persuaded. That is just the way this particular verb operates. I think your sentences could work with a similar word instead, perhaps recommended.

I hope that helps. Good luck with your studies.

- Andrew
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Hi AndrewN - i think my take-away is you cannot persuade an action but you can persuade a person

Alternatively, recommend works because you can recommend an action BUT you cannot recommend a person.

Correct : I recommend THAT she be fired
Incorrect : I recommend she be fired

Here the first is correct because you are recommending an action but you cannot recommend "she" [a person]

Thoughts on this take-away ?
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Joan of Arc, a young Frenchwoman who claimed to be divinely inspired, 11 Mar 2021, 10:36
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jabhatta2
Hi AndrewN - i think my take-away is you cannot persuade an action but you can persuade a person

Alternatively, recommend works because you can recommend an action BUT you cannot recommend a person.

Correct : I recommend THAT she be fired
Incorrect : I recommend she be fired

Here the first is correct because you are recommending an action but you cannot recommend "she" [a person]

Thoughts on this take-away ?
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All of the above is correct, although in a different context, you could recommend a person: I recommend her for the job or I recommend John for the job. Language is a tricky proposition. Quite often, I cannot rationalize why one verb, in this case, or a phrase or clause behaves in one way while another does not, but I learn what I can from each exception to my general rule and see if that knowledge is brought to bear on other questions. In this case, I think you have extracted just about everything you could. I hope such considerations may serve you well down the road.

- Andrew
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Joan of Arc, a young Frenchwoman who claimed to be divinely inspired, 04 Apr 2021, 06:58
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I heard in one of Erica’s video that both -Ed and -ing are participial phrases and can parallel to each other if it helps sentence to make sense. Is it true? Does it help to explain the question here?

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Joan of Arc, a young Frenchwoman who claimed to be divinely inspired, 04 Apr 2021, 12:05
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zoeuno
I heard in one of Erica’s video that both -Ed and -ing are participial phrases and can parallel to each other if it helps sentence to make sense. Is it true? Does it help to explain the question here?

Posted from my mobile device
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Hello, zoeuno. Yes, it is true that -ed and -ing participial phrases can be parallel to each other. Take the beginning of this official question, for example:

Dressed as a man and using the name Robert Shurtleff...

The first participle makes more sense than dressing would, since the -ing form would seem to convey that someone was actually getting dressed.

That said, just because you see what is a verb in its natural form being conjugated in -ing or -ed form, you cannot be sure that you are dealing with a participle. Take the sentence at hand, for example:

Quote:
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.
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The pink words are all verbs, while the orange ones are acting as nouns. We are not looking for parallel participial phrases, then, but for parallel actions (verbs) or parallel noun phrases at the end of the sentence—i.e. by [what-ing] and [what-ing]. Since we cannot say by persuaded, we should test the persuading answer choices if we want to see whether it is the noun phrases that will be parallel. A problem, though, arises when we get two words in: persuading that is not the correct way to express this notion. Persuading a person would make sense instead.

This realization forces us to reconsider the persuaded options. And when we see that persuaded as a verb could be parallel to the earlier action turned, we can appreciate that the sentence makes sense. At its heart, Joan of Arc turned the tide and persuaded someone to do something. That is why (D) is the correct answer, not because of parallel participles.

I hope that helps add clarity to the matter. If you have further questions, feel free to ask. Good luck with your studies.

- Andrew
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Joan of Arc, a young Frenchwoman who claimed to be divinely inspired, 15 Aug 2022, 02:42
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KarishmaB

And is a parallelism indicator so I checked what is parallel with liberating ... persuading seemed to be correct. Eliminate A,B and D
C uses passvie voice - eliminate
Hence E, can you please help me understand why it is wrong
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Joan of Arc, a young Frenchwoman who claimed to be divinely inspired, 16 Aug 2022, 04:12
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KarishmaB

And is a parallelism indicator so I checked what is parallel with liberating ... persuading seemed to be correct. Eliminate A,B and D
C uses passvie voice - eliminate
Hence E, can you please help me understand why it is wrong
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If you go back a bit further, you find 'turned' which can be parallel to 'persuaded.'

Joan of Arc ... turned the tide of English victories ... and persuaded Charles... - this looks good.
So we cannot eliminate (A), (B) and (D).

In (C) and (E), even if we assume that 'persuading' is parallel with 'liberating' (though in such cases, it is better to repeat the preposition 'by' to show what it is actually parallel to), the use of 'persuading that...' is incorrect. It doesn't tell us who was persuaded.

A persuaded B to do C.

There has to be someone who is getting persuaded. Instead, one can use 'A insisted that ...' - this would be acceptable.
The meaning of persuade is to prevail on someone to do something. So there has to be a receiver of the action.
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Joan of Arc, a young Frenchwoman who claimed to be divinely inspired, 16 Aug 2022, 04:30
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Rickooreo
KarishmaB

And is a parallelism indicator so I checked what is parallel with liberating ... persuading seemed to be correct. Eliminate A,B and D
C uses passvie voice - eliminate
Hence E, can you please help me understand why it is wrong
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Hello Rickooreo,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, Option E is incorrect because the construction of the phrase "persuading that Charles VII of France should claim" leads to an incoherent meaning.

Further, the parallel actions joined by "and" are actually "turned" and "persuaded".

We hope this helps.
All the best!
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Joan of Arc, a young Frenchwoman who claimed to be divinely inspired, 19 Aug 2023, 16:55
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