Though perhaps less visceral and emotionally satisfying than her

Semicolons are used to separate items of a list, if the list is nested within an item of another outer list, whose items are separated by commas.

Following is an example from Manhattan SC guide:

Wrong: I listen to Earth, Wind & Fire, Wow, Owls, and Blood, Sweat & Tears.
Right: I listen to Earth, Wind & Fire; Wow, Owls; and Blood, Sweat & Tears.

Another point to observe:

The back and forth movement takes place BETWEEN 3 items:
1. the comic and tragic,
2. the satirical
3. the intimately personal

It is correct to use "between" rather than "among" even when there are more than 2 items, when these items are distinct, and not referred as a group as a whole.

Though perhaps less visceral and emotionally satisfying than her previous novels, “The Namesake” attests to Jhumpa Lahiri’s ability to write a best seller that moves back and forth between the comic and tragic, the satirical and the intimately personal.

A)that moves back and forth between the comic and tragic, the satirical and the intimately personal.

B) that moves back and forth between the comic and tragic, with the satirical and the intimately personal.
"with" makes the phrase not parallel
C)that has moved back and forth between the comic and tragic, and between the satirical and intimately personal.
use of the present perfect is not necessary
D) moving back and forth between the comic and tragic, and the satirical and the intimately personal.
should say "that moves," the addition of "and" before "the satirical" is not necessary as it changes the meaning
E) moving back and forth between the comic and tragic and the satirical and the intimately personal.
should say "that moves," the addition of "and" before "the satirical" is not necessary as it changes the meaning and creates a run on sentence

Veritas Prep OFFICIAL EXPLANATION

This correct answer contains an unusual sentence construction, but it is the only one that is error free: (A) reads: to write a best seller that moves between the comic and tragic, (and between) the satirical and the intimately personal. This type of repeated structure, in which the second part seems incomplete because it does not repeat all the words from the original structure, is uncommon but correct. All of the other answer choices contain fatal flaws: in (B), the “with the satirical and the intimately personal” is neither parallel nor logical in relation to the rest of the sentence. In (C) the present perfect “has moved” is incorrect and illogical – the tense must be the universal “present tense” to apply to something permanent. (D) and (E) are both incorrect because the participle “moving” makes it unclear what is being modified – it seems to indicate the sentence is about her ability to write while moving! The relative clause with “that” is required to show that the clause that follows is referencing “the best seller” and not the earlier action in the sentence. Answer is (A).

Though perhaps less visceral and emotionally satisfying than her previous novels, “The Namesake” attests to Jhumpa Lahiri’s ability to write a best seller that moves back and forth between the comic and tragic, the satirical and the intimately personal


A)that moves back and forth between the comic and tragic, the satirical and the intimately personal.

Here A is correct and error free. The best seller moves back and forth between the comic and the tragic and also moves back and forth between the satirical and the intimately personal.

D) moving back and forth between the comic and tragic, and the satirical and the intimately personal.

Here the use of verb+ ing without a comma modifies only the preceding noun or noun phrase when it should actually modify the entire preceding clause. Further, this structure does not require ‘and’ there.

In this case, it is the best seller/novel that moves back and forth between two opposites. Without the comma, ‘moving’ will modify the noun phrase - Jhumpa Lahiri’s ability to write a best seller. It conveys the wrong meaning here.

Hope this helps!
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OptimusPrepJanielle:
Between is used only for 2 things. How can we say chose between A, B & C ?
We always use among for selection for more than 2 items.
In option B, using with makes the list one with 2 entities :
1. comic and tragic, with the satirical
&
2. and the intimately personal
Please help clarify the doubt ?

Between is used only for 2 things. How can we say chose between A, B & C ?
We always use among for selection for more than 2 items.
In option B, using with makes the list one with 2 entities :
1. comic and tragic, with the satirical
&
2. and the intimately personal
Please help clarify the doubt ?

Yes, between is used for two things. You would use among for A, B, and C. But that is not what is being done here. It's 1) the comic and tragic (between these two things) 2) the satirical and the intimately personal (between these two things)..not the comic and the tragic and the satirical and the intimately personal, or any other combination of these four items listed. In option B "with" is not correct. The satirical and intimately personal are separate from the comic and the tragic.

You are right but in the sentence "that moves back and forth between the comic and tragic, the satirical and the intimately personal" doesn't "the" show the parallelism marker to be "between"......and then "between" would be comparing 3 things??
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that moves back and forth between the comic and tragic, the satirical and the intimately personal.

Understand the sentence as follows: that moves back and forth between the comic and tragic, that moves back and forth between the satirical and the intimately personal.

I agree,

A may be correct but I kept failing to understand how..

either there is an extra THE fragment or it needed proper parallel marker.

On occasion, the correct answer choice in sentence corrections is still not the most ideal way of stating ideas. It's simply the most correct relative to the other choices.

When we have a parallel structure as in the above,
a and b,c and d(say) shoudn't the parallel lists be separated by a semicolon for the sake of clarity?

The absence of comma made me think that the satirical and intimately personal are one list items !
Isn't it a rule in gmat that a comma should precede and when there are more than 2 items?

Please explain !

A comma before the last item is optional.
In GMAT generally it is found that a comma is used before the last item. However in any official explanation I have not found that a comma is mandatory.

I understand why 'moving' is wrong here structurally. However, can anyone explain using the grammar rules why does the 'moving' refer to 'write' and not 'best seller' since it is a verb-ing modifier without a comma which modifies the preceding noun,which happens to be 'Best seller' here. sayantanc2k ?
Thanks in advance.

I do not see any problem with the use of "moving" here (present participle without comma) - it correctly modifies the noun it touches ("best seller"). The problem with D and E is the wrong usage of "and".

Hi,

can you please explain the difference between "that clause" and "moving" here?

There is none. A present participle (verb-ing) modifier without a comma may act in the same way as a that-clause does.

I saw a bird flying above the tree.
I saw a bird that was flying above the tree.

Both the above sentences have the same meaning and are grammatically correct. In the same way "...best seller that moves... " and " ...best seller moving...." are both correct.

This is a completely new concept to me. If you can help with any OG question or text book reference, it will be of great help to re-inforce my understandings.

This is a concept from English grammar - not a special tip or technique for GMAT. I would suggest that you check any good English grammar book (or even the internet, if you are confident about the authenticity of the source).

e.g.,
I must select between red, blue and green... correct.
I must select among those 3 colors...... correct.
Between A, B and C, B is the best.........correct
Among the boys standing there, the middle one is the best......correct