Patience Lovell Wright, whose travelling waxworks exhibit preceded Mad

Can wax be modified with the adjective skillful? It feels like skillfully rendered wax figures makes more sense.

Hello
As per the explanation "as" is the parallelism marker. Since it is a closed marker, doesn't it make the adjective "well known" exclusive to the first entity, introducing a parallelism error?

Patience Lovell Wright, whose travelling waxworks exhibit preceded Madame Tussaud's work by 30 years, became well known as much because of having an eccentric personality as for having skillfully rendered popular public figures in wax.


(A) well known as much because of having an eccentric personality as for having skillfully rendered popular public figures in wax

(B) well known as much for having an eccentric personality as for her skillful wax renderings of popular public figures

(C) well known as much because of her eccentric personality as she was for her skillful wax renderings of popular public figure

(D) as well known for having an eccentric personality as having skillfully rendered popular public figures in wax

(E) as well known for her eccentric personality as for her skillful wax renderings of popular public figures

The idiom is as well known as. So parts before and after well known should maintain strict parallelism. As well known X as Y. X and Y should be parallel. For this reason we can eliminate all options except E.

Hi Mike,
Your insights are very much valuable. Thanks a lot.

I have a doubt in the option D of the following question:
https://gmatclub.com/forum/according-to ... 89303.html



Can't we assume "prominently " after the second "as" and thus we have a parallel sentence.(refering to the above explanation)

one thing that I think of this option D as wrong is that cherry-picking is not allowed. Kindly correct me.

Regards,
Gaurav

Hey Experts,
I'm unable to understand why B isn't right.
Do we need to have the same structure?
here both are introduced by Preposition. then why aren't the two items are parallel.
In E as well known, do we have to consider the parallel list after " well known "or after "as"
if we have to after " well known " what difference will it make if we keep it before as ?

GMATNinja GMATNinjaTwo daagh

can you please explain the parallelism issue in option B.
"For having" and "for her skillfull ...."
i would like to know what parts of speech does "having" belong to in this sentence.

When we have a comparison, we want the things being compared to match grammatically as much as possible. In (B), I think it would be useful to look at the whole phrases that are being compared:

• The first side of the comparison is "for having an eccentric personality," and the second side is "for her skillful wax renderings."
• While the "having" is acting like a noun here (making it a gerund, if you like the jargon), it is the whole phrase ("having an eccentric personality") that makes the noun.
• On the other hand, "renderings" is a noun on its own, so it doesn’t need an entire phrase to complete the noun (‘skillful’ and ‘wax’ modify "renderings" but aren’t necessary).
• So in (B) one side of the comparison contains a noun phrase and the other contains a standalone noun: (1) for {her} having something and (2) for her thing. Even though the sentence is grammatically ok, the parallelism isn’t ideal.

Now look at (E):

• The first side of the comparison is "for her eccentric personality," and the second is "for her skillful wax renderings of popular public figures."
• Stripping out some modifiers, we're left with "for her personality" and "for her {wax} renderings ."
• Notice that "personality" and "renderings" are both standalone nouns. Neither requires an entire phrase to complete the noun.
• So the sentence is grammatically correct, and the comparison is clearly parallel.

For sentence correction questions, the goal is not to label 4 sentences as WRONG and one as RIGHT. It's to select the BEST option out of the 5 available. Although the parallelism in (B) isn't wrong, the parallelism in (E) is better -- making the comparison clearer and easier to follow.

I hope that helps!

Hello GMATNinja

Even though I picked the correct answer, I just have a couple of doubts that this question highlighted with a bright, neon light:


(1) Consider the Idiom:

She is as well known FOR ....X.... as FOR .......Y....


Is this Construction similar to a "Closed Parallelism Marker" that is discussed by other prep companies?

I was under the impression that one of the General Rules is the following: whatever words or phrases come after the 1st Part of the "Closed Marker" (i.e, "not only") must be repeated after the 2nd Part of the "Closed Marker" ("but also").

Therefore, is it that case in Answer (E) that the 1st Part of the "Closed Marker" for this Idiom is -----> "as well known ....."

and the 2nd Part is ------> " ... as ....." ?

Or does this General Rule not apply to this scenario at all?

Patience Lovell Wright, whose travelling waxworks exhibit preceded Madame Tussaud's work by 30 years, became well known as much because of having an eccentric personality as for having skillfully rendered popular public figures in wax.

(A) well known as much because of having an eccentric personality as for having skillfully rendered popular public figures in wax "because of..." is not parallel to "for having...". Eliminate.

(B) well known as much for having an eccentric personality as for her skillful wax renderings of popular public figures "for having..." is not perfectly parallel to "for her...". While both are possessives, only one uses the participle form. I would hold on to this option at this time.

(C) well known as much because of her eccentric personality as she was for her skillful wax renderings of popular public figure "because of..." is not parallel to "she was...". Eliminate.

(D) as well known for having an eccentric personality as having skillfully rendered popular public figures in wax "for having..." is not parallel to "having...". Eliminate.

(E) as well known for her eccentric personality as for her skillful wax renderings of popular public figures Correct answer. Has perfect parallelism by using "for her" in both instances. Given such a clean option, we can eliminate option (B) now.

Hope this helps.

I just tried to choose an option, which expresses meaning with less effective words, grammatically perfectly, and parallels. I eliminated all the having at the first look. Did not take C for it's wordyness.

The answer is E.

Hi mikemcgarry thanks for your explanation.
Just wondering, if I slightly rephrase option B into something like this, "well known as much for HER eccentric personality as for her skillful wax renderings of popular public figures" will it be grammatically correct?
Thank you!

I think "for having" in choice d is wrong.

I am well known for my high gmat score.
this is correct
I am well known for having a high gmat score
this is wrong because "having..." dose not refer to "I". it is unclear who have a high gmat score. but if we write

having a good sense of gmat grammar, I have passed gmat easily

in this sentence, "having..." refer to subject "I" grammatically, so, the sentence is logical

I hope we differentiate two kind of "doing"/"having".

I sorry but that does not sound logical to me at all. Can anyone please clarify?

I don't see why we must not place "well known" before as.

Which one is better:
A. I am as well known for my grades as for my movies.
B. I am well known as for my grades as for my movies.
C. I am well known as for my grades as my movies.

I think C would be the only correct choice.

Hello Foreheadson,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, only A is correct; to convey the intended meaning, such a sentence must use either the construction "as well known" or "as much for" in order to convey that the quality being compared is that status of being "well known" and that the comparison is between how well known the speaker is known for two things.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
Experts' Global Team

Looks E better option than B.

Option B:
Patience Lovell Wright,
whose travelling waxworks exhibit preceded Madame Tussaud's work by 30 years,
became well known
as much
for having an eccentric personality
as
for her skillful wax renderings of popular public figures


Option E:
Patience Lovell Wright,
whose travelling waxworks exhibit preceded Madame Tussaud's work by 30 years,
became
as well known
for her eccentric personality
as
for her skillful wax renderings of popular public figures

Patience Lovell Wright, whose traveling waxworks exhibit preceded Madame Tuscan’s work by 30 years, became well known as much because of having an eccentric personality as for having skillfully rendered popular public figures in wax.

Lets take an example of idion as X as Y .
I am as successful as he is.
I am as tall as giraffe.

here if we simply the sentence, became as well known for X as for Y.

A) well known as much because of having an eccentric personality as for having skillfully rendered popular public figures in wax

became well known as much because of X as for Y [not parallel : incorrect comparison]

(B) well known as much for having an eccentric personality as for skillful wax renderings of popular public figures.

became well known as much for having X as for Y. [not parallel : incorrect comparison]

(C) well known as much because of her eccentric personality as she was for her skillful wax renderings of popular public figures.

[not parallel : incorrect comparison]

(D) as well known for having an eccentric personality as having skillfully rendered popular public figures in wax.

became as well known for having X as [missing for] having Y

(E) as well known for her eccentric personality as for her skillful wax renderings of popular public figures.

became as well known for her X as for her Y

Patience Lovell Wright, whose travelling waxworks exhibit preceded Madame Tussaud's work by 30 years, became well known as much because of having an eccentric personality as for having skillfully rendered popular public figures in wax.

Option Elimination -
For the comparison, we need parallel elements on both sides of the comparison.
At the same time, be mindful of the words that can be repeated, as in option E. "well known" after the second "as" is implied.

(A) well known as much because of having an eccentric personality as for having skillfully rendered popular public figures in wax - "because of having an eccentric personality " is not parallel to "for having skillfully rendered popular public figures in wax."

(B) well known as much for having an eccentric personality as for her skillful wax renderings of popular public figures - "for having an eccentric personality" is not parallel to "her skillful wax renderings of popular public figures."

(C) well known as much because of her eccentric personality as she was for her skillful wax renderings of popular public figures - "because of her eccentric personality" is not parallel to "she was for her skillful wax renderings of popular public figures."

(D) as well known for having an eccentric personality as having skillfully rendered popular public figures in wax - "for having an eccentric personality" is not parallel to "having skillfully rendered popular public figures in wax." "well known" is implied in the second part after as.

(E) as well known for her eccentric personality as for her skillful wax renderings of popular public figures. - "for her eccentric personality" is parallel to "for her skillful wax renderings of popular public figures." "well known" is implied in the second part after as.