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Joan of Arc, a young Frenchwoman who claimed to be divinely inspired, Updated on: 08 Nov 2019, 17:57
Originally posted by betterscore on 15 Jul 2012, 21:14.
Last edited by bb on 08 Nov 2019, 17:57, edited 7 times in total.
Edited the question.
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D
Be sure to select an answer first to save it in the Error Log before revealing the correct answer (OA)!

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74% (01:09) correct 26% (01:16) wrong based on 7250 sessions

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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

(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

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Parallelism
Because this sentence consists of many parts, including lengthy modifiers (a young Frenchwoman … ; by liberating … ), it is crucial to make the basic structure of it—the subject and verbs of the main clause—as clear and as concisely expressed as possible. Joan of Arc is the subject, turned is the first verb of the main clause, and persuaded is the second verb; so the sentence should be Joan … turned … and persuaded. Inserting she before the second verb both violates the parallelism and adds an unnecessary word.

(A) Persuaded, not she persuaded, is parallel to turned.

(B) The idiomatic construction is persuade x to do y, not persuade x in doing y.

(C) Here persuading is linked to liberating, but even if it were said that Joan did turn the tide of English victories by persuading Charles to claim the throne, a person cannot be said to persuade a clause (that the thrown be claimed), a person persuades another person or other entity; be claimed by is wordy.

(D) Correct. In this sentence, persuaded is parallel to turned, and the idiomatic construction persuades x to do y is used

(E) Parallel form links persuading and liberating when persuaded should be parallel to turned; persuading that x is not a correct idiom: a person can only persuade another person or other entity.

The correct answer is D.


The Official Guide for GMAT Review, 10th Edition, 2003

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The Official Guide for GMAT Review, 11th Edition, 2005

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Question No.: SC 129
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Joan of Arc, a young Frenchwoman who claimed to be divinely inspired, 16 Jul 2012, 00:40
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An important thumb rule to follow while handling compound sentences is the omission of the subject in the second IC, if the subject of first IC can fit in as well as the subject. Here the subject of both the ICs is Joan and hence you can drop the pronoun – she - in the second IC. The whole sentence will still be //. Secondly, the right idiom is to claim. Both these combinations, you find in choice D only
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Joan of Arc, a young Frenchwoman who claimed to be divinely inspired, 07 Jul 2013, 10:48
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ashishyadav
Hello all,

I have a question/doubt in this question

Why not liberating is in parallel with persuading ?
It can be viewed as Joan of arc turned the tide of english victories in her country by doing two tasks :

1. by liberating the city of orleans
2. by persuading charles VII of france to claim his throne.

Why these two things not in parallel ??, and thus why C is not an answer??

Yes , C and E have an idiom error, but if we fix the idiom error, they may be the answer ?. So , my basic question is , why the above two are not parallel??

Hope somone would answer my query !! :( :( Confused
Show more

Hi ashish,

i think you just misinterpreted the meaning of the sentence:
original sentence:
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 Orleans and she persuaded Charles VII of France to claim his throne.

in this the highlited part is a noun modifier and is modifying the noun JOAN OF ARC....now youmust know that a sentence must convey its meaning gramatically without its modifier...so lets remove the modifier part.'
sentence becomes:
Joan of Arc TURNED the tide of English victories in her country by liberating the city of Orleans AND she persuaded Charles VII of France to claim his throne.
now if you see here in this sentence....you can figure out that SHE is refering to JOAN OF ARC....
SO joan of arc TURNED ..........AND JOAN OF ARC PERSUADED.......
now whenever you have a parallelism marker such as AND here....then both sides must be parallel...
MOREOVER whenever you have two actions(verb)...and 1 subject then you must always connect those verb by a conjunction and always remove the subject of second part ..because it will be redundant and hence wrong gramatically.

so here you focus in order to correct the sentence should be.....make the two verbs ...turned and persuaded ..parallel
connect them properly by a conjunction such as AND
REMOVE THE SUBJECT OF THE SECOND PART...means remove SHE from second part.
so till now must have understood thet here we dont have to make liberating and persuading parallel...
rather
we have to make two verbs parallel..
all this error are removed in option D
(D) persuaded Charles VII of France to claim his throne...

HOPE IT HELPS..
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Joan of Arc, a young Frenchwoman who claimed to be divinely inspired, 14 Jul 2022, 02:47
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Dear Friends,

Here is a detailed explanation to this question-
betterscore
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

Show more

Meaning is crucial to solving this problem:
Understanding the intended meaning is key to solving this question; the intended meaning of the crucial part of this sentence is that Joan of Arc persuaded Charles VII of France to claim his throne.

Concepts tested here: Meaning + Verb Forms + Grammatical Construction + Idioms

• Semicolons and the “comma + conjunction” construction are used to link two independent clauses; commas are used to link an independent clause with a dependent one; commas cannot be used to join two independent clauses.
• "persuaded + to" is the correct, idiomatic construction.

A: This answer choice incorrectly uses conjunction ("and" in this case) to join the independent clauses "Joan of Arc...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"; remember, semicolons and the “comma + conjunction” construction are used to link two independent clauses.

B: This answer choice incorrectly uses the unidiomatic construction "persuaded + in"; remember, "persuaded + to" is the correct, idiomatic construction.

C: This answer choice alters the meaning of the sentence through the phrase "persuading that the throne be claimed"; the construction of this phrase leads to an incoherent meaning; the intended meaning is that Joan of Arc persuaded Charles VII of France to claim his throne. Further, Option C incorrectly uses the present participle ("verb+ing" - "persuading" in this sentence) to refer to an action that concluded in the past; remember, the simple past tense is used to refer to actions that concluded in the past.

D: Correct. This answer choice uses the phrase "persuaded Charles VII of France to claim", conveying the intended meaning - that Joan of Arc persuaded Charles VII of France to claim his throne. Further, Option D correctly uses the simple past tense verb "persuaded" to refer to an action that concluded in the past. Additionally, Option D avoids the grammatical construction error seen in Option A, as the sentence formed by Option D contains only one independent clause. Besides, Option D correctly uses the idiomatic construction "persuaded + to".

E: This answer choice alters the meaning of the sentence through the phrase "persuading that Charles VII of France should claim"; the construction of this phrase leads to an incoherent meaning; the intended meaning is that Joan of Arc persuaded Charles VII of France to claim his throne. Further, Option E incorrectly uses the present participle ("verb+ing" - "persuading" in this sentence) to refer to an action that concluded in the past; remember, the simple past tense is used to refer to actions that concluded in the past.

Hence, D is the best answer choice.

To understand the concept of "Simple Tenses" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~2 minutes):



To understand the use of punctuations on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~10 minutes):



All the best!
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Joan of Arc, a young Frenchwoman who claimed to be divinely inspired, 15 Jul 2012, 22:46
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betterscore
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 Orleans 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
Show more

In this sentence, the verb "persuade" is the same kind of items to be paralleled with "turned", not the same kind of item with "liberating", the verb used to modifies the action of "turned the tide of English victories in her country". Moreover, the idiom: persuade sb to do sth is correct in choice D, makes it to be the best answer.
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Joan of Arc, a young Frenchwoman who claimed to be divinely inspired, 16 Jul 2012, 09:41
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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 Orleans and she persuaded Charles VII of France to claim his throne.

the sentence construction is as follows :-

Joan of Arc,------, turned-------- and she persuaded-----.

the sentence construction should be :-


Joan of Arc,------, turned-------- and persuaded-----.

so strike off A,C & E.

so idiomatically D is the answer.
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Joan of Arc, a young Frenchwoman who claimed to be divinely inspired, 16 Jul 2012, 19:24
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Claimed is part of the relative clause modifying Joan of Arc.
while "turned" and "persuaded" are part of the parallel independent clauses, sharing common subject "Joan of Arc".

We cannot have by liberating...in claiming

The meaning of the sentence is
Joan of Arc did two actions
1) turned the tide of English victories in her country by liberating the city of Orleans
and
2)persuaded Charles VII of France to claim his throne
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Joan of Arc, a young Frenchwoman who claimed to be divinely inspired, 17 Jul 2012, 03:55
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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 Orleans 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
Show more

The underlined portion and the answer choices show us that there are two problems

Problem 1: Parallelism error (the very obvious one)
Joan of Arc, [long modifier that can be ignored (since it is not underlined)], turned [....] and she persuaded [...].
Rule of parallelism: grammatically equivalent elements should match. So, instead of "she persuaded" we need "persuaded".
That leaves us with answer choice (B) and (D).

Problem 2: Idiom error
Compare "in claiming" vs "to claim"; latter is the correct idiom.
That leaves us with answer choice (D).
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Joan of Arc, a young Frenchwoman who claimed to be divinely inspired, 11 Sep 2012, 21:11
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Can someone explain when liberating and persuading are not parallel?
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Joan of Arc, a young Frenchwoman who claimed to be divinely inspired, 11 Sep 2012, 23:00
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Liberating Orleans was part of the act of turning the tide of English victories. Persuading was a totally different act; you can parallellize liberating and persuading only when they are part of a list. In fact correct list is indeed turned and persuaded. That is the reason that they are required to be // rather than liberating and persuading
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Joan of Arc, a young Frenchwoman who claimed to be divinely inspired, 14 Oct 2012, 05:03
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Concept Tested: Parallelism, Idioms
Difficulty: Moderate
Illustration:
A. The clause after "and" is an independent clause and thus requires a "," before the and.
B. Unidiomatic. "Persuaded X to do Y" is the correct idiomatic construction.
C. Unidiomatic. "Persuaded X to do Y" is the correct idiomatic construction.
D. Correct usage of parallel structure and idioms.
E. Same error as B and C. Also "should" implies moral obligation.
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Joan of Arc, a young Frenchwoman who claimed to be divinely inspired, 14 Oct 2012, 05:05
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Point to note here is that "she" is not entirely redundant.
Maggie woke up with a rush, and she dressed up as fast as she could to meet her boyfriend.
Nothing is wrong with the above sentence.
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Joan of Arc, a young Frenchwoman who claimed to be divinely inspired, 07 Jul 2013, 09:00
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Hello all,

I have a question/doubt in this question

Why not liberating is in parallel with persuading ?
It can be viewed as Joan of arc turned the tide of english victories in her country by doing two tasks :

1. by liberating the city of orleans
2. by persuading charles VII of france to claim his throne.

Why these two things not in parallel ??, and thus why C is not an answer??

Yes , C and E have an idiom error, but if we fix the idiom error, they may be the answer ?. So , my basic question is , why the above two are not parallel??

Hope somone would answer my query !! :( :( Confused
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Joan of Arc, a young Frenchwoman who claimed to be divinely inspired, 07 Jul 2013, 10:32
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ashishyadav
Hello all,

I have a question/doubt in this question

Why not liberating is in parallel with persuading ?
It can be viewed as Joan of arc turned the tide of english victories in her country by doing two tasks :

1. by liberating the city of orleans
2. by persuading charles VII of france to claim his throne.

Why these two things not in parallel ??, and thus why C is not an answer??

Yes , C and E have an idiom error, but if we fix the idiom error, they may be the answer ?. So , my basic question is , why the above two are not parallel??

Hope somone would answer my query !! :( :( Confused
Show more
Alright, so your doubt is in C, so lets get directly down to C.

Apart form obvious idiom error, C doesnt maintain a parallel structure as well if we talk about the two tasks mentioned in your mail..
....... by liberating the city...... and [by] persuading "that"...... are not parallel.
On the other hand,
.......turned 'XYZ'.... and ......persuaded 'PQR'... would be perfectly parallel, as in D.


Without "that" C/E could have been parallel to liberating. However, even then meaning would be distorted.
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Joan of Arc, a young Frenchwoman who claimed to be divinely inspired, 08 Jul 2013, 00:11
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Hi,

This is query is not related to this question, rather a general one.
For Example if the sentence is

"Joan of Arc, a young Frenchwoman who claimed to be divinely inspired, turned the tide of English victories in her country by doing X and by doing Y"

Can we remove the second by? and if yes, when can we do so ...

"Joan of Arc, a young Frenchwoman who claimed to be divinely inspired, turned the tide of English victories in her country by doing X and doing Y"
is this correct?
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Joan of Arc, a young Frenchwoman who claimed to be divinely inspired, 08 Jul 2013, 00:37
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Hi - No you can't.

This doesn't make sense

"Joan of Arc, a young Frenchwoman who claimed to be divinely inspired, turned the tide of English victories in her country by doing X and by doing Y"

What you can do though is be more radical and cut out the 'doing' as well. The below sentence works out.

"Joan of Arc, a young Frenchwoman who claimed to be divinely inspired, turned the tide of English victories in her country by doing X and Y"
is this correct?
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Joan of Arc, a young Frenchwoman who claimed to be divinely inspired, 09 Mar 2014, 00:12
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Hi Mike ,

I am bit confused on choosing elements that needs to be in parallelism.Please find below a problem form OG 13 -127 and my understanding on it.

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 Orleans 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

As per my understanding ,Joan of Arc , ..... , turned the tide of English victories in her country by liberating the city of Orleans and by persuading Charles VII of France to claim his throne.

Shouldn't 'by liberating ' and 'by persuading' be in parallel construction ?

Please Advise.

Thanks,
Vinay
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Joan of Arc, a young Frenchwoman who claimed to be divinely inspired, 10 Mar 2014, 14:41
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vmgmat
Hi Mike ,

I am bit confused on choosing elements that needs to be in parallelism.Please find below a problem form OG 13 -127 and my understanding on it.

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 Orleans 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

As per my understanding ,Joan of Arc , ..... , turned the tide of English victories in her country by liberating the city of Orleans and by persuading Charles VII of France to claim his throne.

Shouldn't 'by liberating ' and 'by persuading' be in parallel construction ?

Please Advise.

Thanks,
Vinay
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Dear Vinay,
I'm happy to respond. :-)

This is a very subtle logical point. Let's think about this. Joan or Arc "turned the tide of English victories in her country." Exactly how did she do this? Certainly one step was "by liberating the city of Orleans": liberating a major city sounds as if it could constitute a military reversal. Then the next action, "by persuading Charles VII of France to claim his throne" --- is this really the stuff of major military swings? Joan says to Charles VII, "You should claim the throne," and Charles VII says, "OK, I officially claim the throne." In any of that, did anything military happen? Did anything change that would really alter the fate of armies on the battlefield? Probably not. Words and claims, by themselves, rarely have much impact on the way battles turn out. That's why "persuading" is not properly in parallel with "liberating."

Instead, Joan of Arc is famous for two actions:
1) she turned the tide of English victories in her country by liberating the city of Orleans
2) she persuaded Charles VII of France to claim his throne
Action #2 is separate from the military stuff in action #1, and is parallel to it. These two verbs are in parallel in the OA.

Notice, the GMAT is kind to us and doesn't really make us wrestle with this logical subtlety, because the two answers with "persuading" are atrociously incorrect.

Does all this make sense?
Mike :-)
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russ9
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Joan of Arc, a young Frenchwoman who claimed to be divinely inspired, 21 May 2014, 16:37
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Hi All,

I know that this was touched in many of the previous post's but I still have a question:

Ignoring other idiom issues, I ended up with "e" because i made the error of making "liberating" parallel to "persuading". I did this because I read backwards from "and" and made both ends of "and" parallel (Liberating and persuading).

How would I have known to go and make "turned" parallel to the second half?
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Joan of Arc, a young Frenchwoman who claimed to be divinely inspired, 21 May 2014, 21:31
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russ9
Hi All,

I know that this was touched in many of the previous post's but I still have a question:

Ignoring other idiom issues, I ended up with "e" because i made the error of making "liberating" parallel to "persuading". I did this because I read backwards from "and" and made both ends of "and" parallel (Liberating and persuading).

How would I have known to go and make "turned" parallel to the second half?
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Hi russ9,

Let’s try to figure out the difference in the original sentence and options D & E.


• Joan of Arc, a young Frenchwoman
• who claimed to be divinely inspired,
o turned the tide of English victories in her country by liberating the city of Orleans
• and she persuaded Charles VII of France to claim his throne.


MEANING

• The sentence tells us that a young Frenchwoman Joan of Arc turned the tide of English victories in her country. How did she do so? By liberating the city of Orleans.

o By the way, she claimed to be divinely inspired.

• Also, she persuaded Charles VII to claim his throne.


So, Joan of Arc did two things:
1. Turned the tide of English victories.
2. Persuaded Charles VII to claim his throne.



Now, let’s consider option E.

• Joan of Arc, a young Frenchwoman who claimed to be divinely inspired, turned the tide of English victories in her country
• by
o liberating the city of Orleans
o and persuading that Charles VII of France should claim his throne.


MEANING

• Joan of Arc turned the tide of English victories. How did she do so?

o By liberating the city of Orleans.

o And by persuading that Charles VII of France should claim his throne.



ERRORS

1. Now, it’s not clear from the sentence whom did Joan of Arc persuade?

2. Also, the action of persuading did not turn the tide of English victories. It was the action of liberating the city of Orleans that turned the tide.

3. ‘persuade’ is a verb that requires a use of infinitive (to + verb).


I persuaded him that he should go abroad for higher studies. (Incorrect)

I persuaded him to go abroad for higher studies. (Correct)


Option D corrects all these errors. (Note the use of ‘persuaded …. to claim’)

• Joan of Arc, a young Frenchwoman who claimed to be divinely inspired,
o turned the tide of English victories in her country by liberating the city of Orleans
o and persuaded Charles VII of France to claim his throne.


TAKE AWAYS

Our main focus should be on the intended meaning of the sentence. Specially in case of verb-ing modifiers, it becomes more important to focus on the meaning.


Hope this helps! :)
Manyu
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