Like many others of his generation of Native American leaders, Joseph

Question

Like many others of his generation of Native American leaders, Joseph Brant lived in two worlds;  born into an Iroquois community and instructed in traditional Iroquois ways, he also received an education from English-speaking teachers.

(A) Like many others of his generation of Native American leaders, Joseph Brant lived in two worlds;

(B) Like many others of his generation of Native American leaders, living in two worlds, Joseph Brant was

(C) Like many another of his generation of Native American leaders, Joseph Brant, living in two worlds, was

(D) As with many others of his generation of Native American leaders, living in two worlds, Joseph Brant was

(E) As with many another of his generation of Native American leaders, Joseph Brant lived in two worlds;

egmat · Accepted Answer

Hi All, 
 Like many others of his generation of Native American leaders, Joseph Brant lived in two worlds;  born into an Iroquois community and instructed in traditional Iroquois ways, he also received an education from English-speaking teachers.

https://e-gmat.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Grammar.png

This sentence presents comparison. The entities that have been compared in this sentence are “many other leaders” and “Joseph Brant”. Per the comparison rule, “like” must be followed a “noun” and “as” must be followed by a “clause”.

Giving a break to the sentence solution, I would discuss a little bit about the usage of “like” and “as” in comparison sentences. Let’s take these examples.
1. Tina dances like her sister.
2. Tina dances as her sister does.
Structure wise, both these sentences are correct. In sentence 1, “like” is followed by noun “sister” and in sentence 2, “as” is followed by clause “her sister does”. If you examine the sentence closely, you will see that there is no difference in the meaning of the both the sentences. Hence, when used correctly for comparison, sentences with “like” and “as” have almost the same meaning. Again on closer examination, you will notice that in both the sentences, Tina has been compared to her sister because she “dances” like her. The similarity is in the manner of dancing, an action. Hence, “like” can compare both “noun” and “actions” but “like” is ALWAYS followed by a NOUN, and never be a clause.

Coming back to the error analysis, the sentence presents the correct comparison between Brant and the other leaders of his generation. Also, semicolon has been correctly used to join two independent sentences. The sentence written after the semicolon perfectly stands on its own. The sentence begins with two verb-ed modifiers “born” and “instructed” that correctly modify the subject of the main clause “he”. And, from the first sentence (before the semicolon) we know that “he” refers to “Joseph Brant”. This sentence is correct as is.

POE

Choice A: Correct  for the reasons stated above.

Choice B:  Like many others of his generation of Native American leaders, living in two worlds, Joseph Brant was.  Incorrect.  The verb-ibg modifier “living” is written between two commas. This makes it ambiguous that who it should refer to – many other leaders lived in two worlds or Joseph Brant lived in two worlds. This ambiguity makes this choice incorrect.

Choice C:  Like many another of his generation of Native American leaders, Joseph Brant, living in two worlds, was.  Incorrect.  “many another” is a wrong phrase to use here. Again, verb-ing modifier “living” is preceded by a comma. This means that it should modify the preceding clause. But there is no clause before it.

Choice D:  As with many others of his generation of Native American leaders, living in two worlds, Joseph Brant was.  Incorrect.  This choice repeats the same error of verb-ing modifier “living” as in choice B. Also, in comparison “as” must be followed by a clause. Here “as” is followed a prepositional phrase and not a clause.

Choice E:  As with many another of his generation of Native American leaders, Joseph Brant lived in two worlds:  Incorrect.  This choice repeats the same “as” error as in choice D and the “many another” phrase error as in choice C.

https://e-gmat.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Takeaway.png

1. In comparison sentences, "like" must be followed by "noun" and "as" must be followed by "clause".
2. Modifiers must clearly modify the entity that are meant to modify

Hope this helps.
Thanks.
Shraddha

vinay.kaipra · Answer

According to me,

A and E cannot fit in, since ";" should separate 2 sentences which can stay alone. Here second part cannot stay alone.
C looks fine. But, "Like many another" seems awkward.
Among B and D the only difference is usage of "Like" and "As with". Now "like" should be used to compare people or things or nouns. Here we are not comparing the people rather we are comparing a clause of "people living in two different worlds". Hence it should be "As with".
I would go with D. 
Please let us know the OA and explanation for the same.

nusmavrik · Answer

Awesome ! Thanks the OA is A. As pointed out in this post B and D have modifier issue. "living in two worlds" starts modifying the "Native American leaders". Among A, C and E. The unidiomatic usage eliminates C and E. "many another" is wrong :-D

vinay.kaipra · Answer

So my first attempt was wrong. But, just wanted to clarify one thing here. Is the placement of ";" proper here. Can the second statement stay alone? I think I made the mistake because of that confusion also with the usage of "like". So here "Like" is comparing with people and Joseph Brant. Hence, that should be fine. But, could you please clarify about the usage of ";"?

nusmavrik · Answer

Indeed. Lets analyze option A

Like many others of his generation of Native American leaders,  Joseph Brant  lived in two worlds; born into an Iroquois community and instructed in traditional Iroquois ways,  he   also received an education from English-speaking teachers.

Like many others of his generation of Native American leaders, Joseph Brant ---> phrase modifier, noun1 + clause1
born into an Iroquois community and instructed in traditional Iroquois ways, he ---> phrase modifier, pronoun + clause2

clause1 and clause2 are independent sentences BUT related (he in second sentence refers to Brant) - so they should be joined by semi-colon.

daagh · Answer

The expression ‘living in two worlds’ is wrong because, it gives a tangle as if something of the present is being compared with either an event in the past or a person of the past. This distorts the meaning of text, which wants to compare Brant with his contemporaries, people who lived around the same time of Brant. So BCD are out.

E lacks a verb for the first part of the sentence- wrong; we can’t use the conjunction 'as' without verb.

A remains.

E lacks a verb for the first part of the sentence- wrong; we can’t use the conjunction 'as' without verb.

A remains.

gmatopoeia · Answer

Answer: A Strike one: Eliminate C and E. It should be 'others' and not 'another'. Strike two: modifier error - 'Joseph Brant' should come right after modifier '...Native American leaders,' . Eliminates B and D. Leaving us A as the answer. we can use below rule (as mentioned by Temp 33) to serve as a check for correctness! :-D

pavanpuneet · Answer

Isnt living in two worlds, modifies the whole clause? ... isnt it following ,+verbing rule?

egmat · Answer

Hi there,

A verb-ing modifier modifies the preceding clause when it is placed after a clause and is preceded by a comma. However, in choice D, “As with many others of his generation of Native American leaders,” is not a clause. There is no verb in this phrase. In this case, the verb-ing modifier will modify the preceding noun entity “many others of his generation of Native American leaders”. I don’t say just “Native American leaders” because it is part of the big noun phrase starting with “many” and the prepositional phrases cannot be placed anywhere in the sentence.

Take for example this sentence from  OG 12#21

Neuroscientists, having amassed a wealth of knowledge over the past twenty years about the brain and its development from birth to adulthood, are now drawing solid conclusions about how the human brain grows and how babies acquire language.

Here, “having amassed…” is a verb-ing modifier that is preceded by a comma but is placed only after a noun entity. In this case, it correctly modifies the preceding noun entity “neuroscientists”.
So we must pay heed to the placement of the verb-ing modifier. We must check whether the verb-ing modifier is placed after a clause or just a phrase. Accordingly, we must ascertain the function of the verb-ing.

Hope this helps.
Thanks.
Shraddha

baaniNitin · Answer

IMO A

Question :- "As with many others " is this is correct ? any possibility that this can be used anywhere from GMAT perspective ?

sayantanc2k · Answer

Yes.. can be used.

Consider the comparison  as X, Y

It is possible that each of the parallel elements X and Y contains a prepositional phrase starting with  with .

Example:

As  with many others  the mysterious event happened in the past few days,  with me  it happened yesterday night.

BansalT · Answer

I am confused here how can statement 2 stand alone. It has the construction He also....
also symbolize that there should be something else.

vv65 · Answer

Something 'can stand alone' means that it can work as a grammatical sentence. So the ALSO does not mean that the second part (after the semi-colon) is not a sentence.

For example, see this:  He ate some fruit. He also ate some cake. 
"He also ate some cake" is a proper sentence.

You are right, when there is an ALSO then there should be something else too. That can be in an earlier sentence or in an earlier part of the same sentence. In the above example the 'something else' is that he ate fruit.

born into an Iroquois community and instructed in traditional Iroquois ways, he also received an education from English-speaking teachers. 
Here the 'something else' is that Chief Joseph was born into a traditional Iroquois family and was instructed in traditional Iroquois ways. In addition, he ALSO received education from English-speaking teachers.

Posted from my mobile device

RonTargetTestPrep · Answer

The second independent clause starts after the underline—immediately following the semicolon—so there's no variation within it; you're definitely looking at a valid way of writing that part.

Here's that clause:
  born into an Iroquois community and instructed in traditional Iroquois ways , he also  received an education from English-speaking teachers .

The purple idea comes first. "Also" introduces the second idea, which is green. This is the direct answer to your question.

By the way—You are really not going to see relationships that are demarcated more clearly than this. You have descriptions of language learning in 2 different languages, which are cleanly divided between left and right.

You should have ZERO trouble identifying these two parts. Any significant trouble doing so is a major red flag. 
If you can't identify the purple and green ideas quickly, easily, and effortlessly, you're ignoring the meaning of the words.

Intended meaning is THE reason why sentences don't work in uniform, algorithmically predictable ways, whereas algebraic equations do—which in turn is the basis for the Q/V split into two scores. 
If you ignore intended meaning (or context, which determines it), you're basically pretending that SC is a quant topic. That won't turn out well.

RonTargetTestPrep · Answer

More generally, comparisons can be split across clauses as an alternative to the usual parallel forms.

E.g.,
 Consumers are generally willing to pay  more  for a Mac with given specs  than  for a Windows PC with the same specs. 
(Basic comparison structure: parallelism using "more... than...")

vs.
 Most consumers are willing to pay up to $1000 for a Windows laptop with minimum VR specs; for a Mac with those specs, they will pay a few hundred dollars   more  . 
(The underlined "more" means "more than $1000". You, the reader, need to make this connection on the basis of ordinary common sense, because there's no complement for "more"   this time.)

Also of note:  __ED modifiers may be simultaneous with the main clause, or they may refer to an earlier timeframe. 
This flexibility stands in contrast to the rigidity of __ING modifiers, which MUST be simultaneous with the main clause.

In this sentence, "born" is obviously a prior timeframe. "Instructed" is best interpreted as a prior timeframe as well—because it's in parallel with "born", but also because it's nonsense if you interpret it as simultaneous with the main clause. (In that case you'd have two completely distinct sets of language studies that share a timeframe. The way to connect independent things within one timeframe is "x AND y".)

RonTargetTestPrep · Answer

Please don't forget that "__ED" stands for participles that literally end in the two letters __ED, but can also stand for one of the LARGE number of such participles that are irregular (i.e.., don't literally end in __ED), such as  driven, born, bitten, done, seen,  etc.
In this problem, there are two participles that count as "__ED". The second one is  instructed , which shouldn't stir up any trouble. The first, though, is  born . 
If you find it supremely awkward to call  born  an "__ED" participle... give it a little time and work through a couple more examples. It'll become intuitive more quickly than you might think—and it's WAY better than dumping formal grammar terminology in there instead.

Grammar terms are never your friends here. (You do need to know the basic building blocks: "noun", "adjective", "clause", etc. Grammar terms beyond that level just don't tend to be helpful; they're much more likely to be counterproductive.

E.g., "comma _ING modifier" is a great name that's perfectly descriptive. If you replace "_ING" with whatever it's called in formal grammar terminology, that's a negative value-add: The first thing you'll have to do with that name is realize that it means "_ING". Better to just start at "_ING".

Worse yet, some of the formal names tell lies. This issue mostly lurks behind tenses and timeframes, which have simplistic names that can't cover the whole range of relationships written with a given tense.
The "present tense", for instance, only falls into the present timeframe if it's used for a 'state' verb (= not an action verb, but a description of a state or condition that can last for x amount of time. E.g., "I  am  very happy.." does, in fact, mean that I'm happy RIGHT NOW in the present.
For action verbs, though, it's IMPOSSIBLE for the "present tense" to describe the present. (¯\_(ツ)_/¯ one would think it'd have been renamed by now, but, nope.) Action verbs in "the present tense", despite the name, are PERMANENT truths that are not tied to any timeframe or any order of events—they're true now and they'll be true forever and ever.
If you actually want to narrate an action verb as happening RIGHT NOW, the correct tense is "is/are __ING".

Abhishekgmat87 · Answer

Although I marked Option A as correct, I eliminated Option B as it's a comma splice. However no one has pointed the error in any explanation. We have 2 independent clause- 1. Like many others....., Joseph was born ...in Iroquois ways. 2 . he also received an education from English-speaking teachers. Am I correct?

ExpertsGlobal5 · Answer

Hello  Abhishekgmat87 ,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, your observation is indeed correct.

The sentence formed by Option B does form a comma splice; "Joseph Brant was born into an Iroquois community and instructed in traditional Iroquois ways" and "he also received an education from English-speaking teachers" are both independent clauses.

Kudos.

All the best!
Experts' Global Team

VerbalBot · Answer

Hello from the GMAT Club VerbalBot!

Thanks to another GMAT Club member, I have just discovered this valuable topic, yet it had no discussion for over a year. I am now bumping it up - doing my job. I think you may find it valuable (esp those replies with Kudos).

Want to see all other topics I dig out? Follow me (click follow button on profile). You will receive a summary of all topics I bump in your profile area as well as via email.

Like many others of his generation of Native American leaders, Joseph

Prep Toolkit

Top 5 GMAT Debrief Videos

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards

GMAT Sentence Correction (SC - EA only) Questions

Like many others of his generation of Native American leaders, Joseph

Prep Toolkit

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards