Two seismic shocks experienced in the United States of America in the

The non-essential (?) modifier "commencing with the collapse of Lehman Brothers" seems to modify "the global financial crisis" piece, which is parallel to "global wars", but it looks very unnatural in the sentence.

Is it a good quality question?

I agree with globaldesi - something seems to be missing.

At the moment the only feasible answer is
Commas go after dates, although there's a weird rule about one kind of date that I don't recall.

akash7gupta11 , would you please check to see whether you have transcribed the question correctly? (I make typos all the time). If this question is from egmat, A is not the answer.

Hi Generis,

The answer indeed seems to be A, not D as I initially thought.

The dash is supposed to give us the examples of two seismic shocks: (1) terrorist attacks and (2) the global financial crisis

Thus the initial skeleton of the sentence looks like as below:

Two seismic shocks affected the entire world - terrorist attacks and the global financial crisis

Later both examples got described by modifiers:

What kind of terrorist attacks? The terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, which led to the long-drawn wars in the eastern hemisphere (tells about the date and consequences of the attack)

What kind of global financial crisis? Commencing with the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the global financial crisis (tells about how the crisis commenced, it commenced with collapse of LB)

Thus: Two seismic shocks - the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, which led to the long-drawn wars in the eastern hemisphere, and commencing with the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the global financial crisis, which raised questions about income inequality, job insecurity, and globalization.

D is incorrect because it incorrectly implies that the terrorist attacks commenced the collapse of the LB and the global financial crisis.

Your thoughts on my post will be appreciated

What kind of global financial crisis? Commencing with the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the global financial crisis (tells about how the crisis commenced, it commenced with collapse of LB)

Two seismic shocks experienced in the United States of America in the early 21st century affected the entire world in the subsequent years—the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, which led to the long-drawn wars in the eastern hemisphere, and commencing with the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the global financial crisis, which raised questions about income inequality, job insecurity, and globalization.

A. which led to the long-drawn wars in the eastern hemisphere, and commencing with the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the
B. the long-drawn wars led in the eastern hemisphere, commencement of the collapse of Lehman Brothers, and the
C. leading to the long-drawn wars in the eastern hemisphere and commencing with the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the
D. led to the long-drawn wars in the eastern hemisphere and commenced the collapse of Lehman Brothers and
E. which led to the long-drawn wars in the eastern hemisphere, commencing with the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the
generis

generis
In the following structure,

prepositional phrase, which...
In which cases can "which" refer to either of the portion of the prepositional phrase?
I am aware that the following could
of
on *in this case

Two seismic shocks experienced in the United States of America in the early 21st century affected the entire world in the subsequent years—the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, which led to the long-drawn wars in the eastern hemisphere, and commencing with the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the global financial crisis, which raised questions about income inequality, job insecurity, and globalization.

generis
Could you tell me what the "which" (i am talking about the first "which") modifies here?

Also, better if you explain how the COMMA is being used before AND?

Can you introduce the part commencing with the collapse of Lehman Brothers.

Do you think that commencing with the collapse of Lehman Brothers helps to make the parallel between X and Y?

EDIT, thanks to @ShukhratJon and Asad , +1 to both

As ShukhratJon noted, the core of the sentence is

Two seismic shocks that affected the entire world—the terrorist attacks and the global financial crisis.

The punctuation and phrasing in this sentence are brutal.
A bit of sleep and coffee help.
Clearly I needed more coffee. And more sleep.

• REWRITE of stripped sentence.

Blue = keep for sure
Pink = WTH

Two seismic shocks experienced in the U.S. United States of America in the early 21st century affected the entire world in the subsequent years —the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, which led to the long-drawn wars in the eastern hemisphere, and commencing with the collapse of Lehman Brothers,[???] the global financial crisis , which raised questions about income inequality, job insecurity, and globalization.

The final stripped sentence is
Two seismic shocks in the U.S. affected the entire world—the terrorist attacks, and commencing with the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the global financial crisis.

• A rough diagram of material after the em dash (—)

the terrorist attacks
---of September 11, 2001,
-----which led to
---------long-drawn wars
--------------in the eastern hemisphere,
AND
[??]COMMENCING with the collapse of Lehman Brothers,
the global financial crisis,
------which raised questions about
--------------income inequality, job insecurity, and globalization.

• Option A is the best of five, but parallelism seems problematic

Given these five choices, (A) is the best answer but
-- I do not believe it is parallel, AND
-- in order to defend parallelism, albeit weakly, the "commencing with the collapse of Lehman Brothers" needs a comma before commencing

• Parallelism: find what lies to the right of the marker AND

Look to the right of AND for the Y element.
Whatever is present in Y must be present in X.

(The other way around is not always the case. That is, X can have some elements that Y does not if we are using ellipsis or substitution or both.

On the RHS of AND we have
Y = commencing with the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the global financial crisis [which raised questions about income inequality, job insecurity, and globalization.]

Because this is the right side of the comparison, we had better find a similar structure on the LHS.
On the LHS of AND we have

X = the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, [which led to the long-drawn wars in the eastern hemisphere,]
This situation is not looking good.

• Strike the which-clauses from both the X and Y elements

We can strike the final which-clauses, which led to and which raised questions about.
They are, ironically, parallel. Neither is essential.

Now, RHS and LHS are

Y = commencing with the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the global financial crisis

X = the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001

• What to do with commencing with the collapse of Lehman Brothers?

What do we say about commencing with the collapse of Lehman Brothers?
The X element has no counterpart.
I think that the phrase ruins parallelism.

I have no idea what theory or approach makes
-- a Y element whose noun includes pre-modification by a participial phrase
parallel with
-- an X element whose noun has no such pre-modification.

Pre-modification by a participial phrase just means that the commencing . . . modifier of the global financial crisis comes before the noun.
The X element has no verbING modifier before it.

Maybe the theory is that the prepositional phrase "on September 11, 2011" is an adjectivial phrase that modifies attacks,
and similarly (?), that the "commencing with" phrase is also an adjectivial phrase that modifies "crisis," albeit beforehand.

If that is the theory, I find it strange. And I do not buy it, although perhaps I should.
Structurally, a participial phrase that comes before the noun seems fundamentally different from a prepositional phrase that comes after the noun.
I do not recall any official question in which the modifying phrases of two parallel elements were this far apart in structure.

Although I believe that this sentence lacks parallelism because "commencing with . . ." is present, Answer A is still the best.

I am happy to stand corrected on the parallelism issue.
These sentences are hella hard to write. Try writing just one.
At the same time, we do not want to get too clever by half.

I am tagging GMATNinja , GMATNinjaTwo , MartyTargetTestPrep , DmitryFarber , and egmat in order to ask: am I missing something about parallelism in this instance?

Two seismic shocks experienced in the United States of America in the early 21st century affected the entire world in the subsequent years—the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, which led to the long-drawn wars in the eastern hemisphere, and commencing with the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the global financial crisis, which raised questions about income inequality, job insecurity, and globalization.

EDIT, thanks to @ShukhratJon and Asad , +1 to both

As ShukhratJon noted, the core of the sentence is

Two seismic shocks that affected the entire world—the terrorist attacks and the global financial crisis.

The punctuation and phrasing in this sentence are brutal.
A bit of sleep and coffee help.
Clearly I needed more coffee. And more sleep.

• REWRITE of stripped sentence.

Blue = keep for sure
Pink = WTH

Two seismic shocks experienced in the U.S. United States of America in the early 21st century affected the entire world in the subsequent years —the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, which led to the long-drawn wars in the eastern hemisphere, and commencing with the collapse of Lehman Brothers,[???] the global financial crisis , which raised questions about income inequality, job insecurity, and globalization.

The final stripped sentence is
Two seismic shocks in the U.S. affected the entire world—the terrorist attacks, and commencing with the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the global financial crisis.

• A rough diagram of material after the em dash (—)

the terrorist attacks
---of September 11, 2001,
-----which led to
---------long-drawn wars
--------------in the eastern hemisphere,
AND
[??]COMMENCING with the collapse of Lehman Brothers,
the global financial crisis,
------which raised questions about
--------------income inequality, job insecurity, and globalization.

• Option A is the best of five, but parallelism seems problematic

Given these five choices, (A) is the best answer but
-- I do not believe it is parallel, AND
-- in order to defend parallelism, albeit weakly, the "commencing with the collapse of Lehman Brothers" needs a comma before commencing

• Parallelism: find what lies to the right of the marker AND

Look to the right of AND for the Y element.
Whatever is present in Y must be present in X.

(The other way around is not always the case. That is, X can have some elements that Y does not if we are using ellipsis or substitution or both.

On the RHS of AND we have
Y = commencing with the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the global financial crisis [which raised questions about income inequality, job insecurity, and globalization.]

Because this is the right side of the comparison, we had better find a similar structure on the LHS.
On the LHS of AND we have

X = the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, [which led to the long-drawn wars in the eastern hemisphere,]
This situation is not looking good.

• Strike the which-clauses from both the X and Y elements

We can strike the final which-clauses, which led to and which raised questions about.
They are, ironically, parallel. Neither is essential.

Now, RHS and LHS are

Y = commencing with the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the global financial crisis

X = the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001

• What to do with commencing with the collapse of Lehman Brothers?

What do we say about commencing with the collapse of Lehman Brothers?
The X element has no counterpart.
I think that the phrase ruins parallelism.

I have no idea what theory or approach makes
-- a Y element whose noun includes pre-modification by a participial phrase
parallel with
-- an X element whose noun has no such pre-modification.

Pre-modification by a participial phrase just means that the commencing . . . modifier of the global financial crisis comes before the noun.
The X element has no verbING modifier before it.

Maybe the theory is that the prepositional phrase "on September 11, 2011" is an adjectivial phrase that modifies attacks,
and similarly (?), that the "commencing with" phrase is also an adjectivial phrase that modifies "crisis," albeit beforehand.

If that is the theory, I find it strange. And I do not buy it, although perhaps I should.
Structurally, a participial phrase that comes before the noun seems fundamentally different from a prepositional phrase that comes after the noun.
I do not recall any official question in which the modifying phrases of two parallel elements were this far apart in structure.

Although I believe that this sentence lacks parallelism because "commencing with . . ." is present, Answer A is still the best.

I am happy to stand corrected on the parallelism issue.
These sentences are hella hard to write. Try writing just one.
At the same time, we do not want to get too clever by half.

I am tagging GMATNinja , GMATNinjaTwo , MartyTargetTestPrep , DmitryFarber , and egmat in order to ask: am I missing something about parallelism in this instance?

• REWRITE of stripped sentence.

Blue = keep for sure
Pink = WTH

Two seismic shocks experienced in the U.S. United States of America in the early 21st century affected the entire world in the subsequent years —the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, which led to the long-drawn wars in the eastern hemisphere, and commencing with the collapse of Lehman Brothers,[???] the global financial crisis , which raised questions about income inequality, job insecurity, and globalization.

The final stripped sentence is
Two seismic shocks in the U.S. affected the entire world—the terrorist attacks, and commencing with the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the global financial crisis.

ShukhratJon - nicely done! +1
You nailed it. Good timing. I just finished a post in which, after sleep and coffee, I explained answer A using somewhat similar analysis, though you seem more comfortable than I am about modifiers that do not resemble one another.

You untangled the post em dash material with precision, locating the two examples of "seismic shocks" and their respective modifying phrases.

This part of your analysis is especially helpful:


The "commencing" phrase that precedes "the global financial crisis" seems to come out of nowhere. You made it clear. You also made it appear normal.

ShukhratJon , is your position that adjectivial modifiers of any sort render the elements parallel? (I think so. I'm checking.)

I absolutely agree that of these five choices, (A) is the best. But stretching parallelism to include the mere fact of two adjectivial modifiers irrespective of structure is too much of a stretch for me.

That stretch seems to be the only way to support parallelism. I do not recall any official question in which two parallel elements had such radically different modifier forms. (Then again, every OG that is published contains at least one surprise.)

Again, your analysis is excellent. Just as valuable is your strategic position: the other four answers make no sense. Answer (A) makes quite a bit of sense even if not perfectly. Mark (A) and move along. That approach will take you far in SC.

What the highlighted part does here?
It does not make sense anymore to me!
Let,
commencing with the collapse of Lehman Brothers is a modifier (according to you).
How do you remove this modifier from the final stripped part? We CAN'T use just ONE COMMA if the modifier is used in the middle of the sentence! There is a COMMA after "Lehman Brothers", but how do you get ANOTHER COMMA. If you think that commencing with the collapse of Lehman Brothers is the initial modifier then there is NO need another COMMA.
Ok. If commencing with the collapse of Lehman Brothers is the initial modifier of "the global financial crisis", then there is NO consistent between "the terrorist attacks" and "the global financial crisis". I mean: "the global financial crisis" WON'T be the part of "Two seismic shocks".

Originally developed for detecting air pollutants, a technique..., which can quickly analyze...
Commencing with the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the global financial crisis, which raised questions...

EDIT, thanks to @ShukhratJon and Asad , +1 to both

As ShukhratJon noted, the core of the sentence is

Two seismic shocks that affected the entire world—the terrorist attacks and the global financial crisis.