The term "genre novel" is loosely defined, promoted by those critics

The term "genre novel" is loosely defined, promoted by those critics who do not consider novels that rely on romantic relationships, crime drama, or use fantastic elements to be mainstream literature and thus exclude these from consideration when awarding literary prizes.

a) use fantastic elements to be mainstream literature and thus exclude these
Incorrect: Defeats Parallelism
b) fantastic elements mainstream literature and thus exclude these
Incorrect. 'these' is ambiguous
c) use fantastic elements as mainstream literature and thus exclude these works
Incorrect: Defeats Parallelism
d) fantastic elements as if they were mainstream literature and thus exclude these
Incorrect. 'these' is ambiguous
e) fantastic elements mainstream literature and thus exclude these works
Correct. Corrects both parallelism as well as specifies these works

I find it absolutely wrong for the sentence to have a list of things mentioned and not have the word 'as' or 'to be' before mainstream literature, because essentially that word describes the relationship between the list and mainstream litreature . Kindly explain.

The term "genre novel" is loosely defined, promoted by those critics who do not consider novels that rely on romantic relationships, crime drama, or use fantastic elements to be mainstream literature and thus exclude these from consideration when awarding literary prizes.

Use of "consider A B" idiom

a) use fantastic elements to be mainstream literature and thus exclude these
b) fantastic elements mainstream literature and thus exclude these --> "these" without the "works" is wrong usage
c) use fantastic elements as mainstream literature and thus exclude these works
d) fantastic elements as if they were mainstream literature and thus exclude these
e) fantastic elements mainstream literature and thus exclude these works --> correct

The term "genre novel" is loosely defined, promoted by those critics who do not consider novels that rely on romantic relationships, crime drama, or use fantastic elements to be mainstream literature and thus exclude these from consideration when awarding literary prizes.

a) use fantastic elements to be mainstream literature and thus exclude these
b) fantastic elements mainstream literature and thus exclude these
c) use fantastic elements as mainstream literature and thus exclude these works
d) fantastic elements as if they were mainstream literature and thus exclude these
e) fantastic elements mainstream literature and thus exclude these works

A and C: Parallelism is wrong. critics who do not consider novels that rely on romantic relationships, critics who do not consider novels that rely on crime drama, or critics who do not consider novels that rely on "use fantastic elements" The correct version has to be fantastic elements here, eliminate A/C.

D: "as if they were" does not make sense, the pronoun "they" refers back to novels reading: critics do not consider novels that rely on romantic relationships.... as if novels were mainstream literature. Eliminate D. Side note: the "these" at the end needs something to modify, so works would be correct.

You are left with B/E. The only difference is the "works" at the end of the sentence and you have to choose the answer with the best meaning. Here "these" should modify a noun to make the meaning clear. Maybe someone can explain this better. I think when "these" is left alone in this sentence it is ambiguous and I almost want to have to refer back to novels. Reading: critics do not consider and thus exclude novels from consideration. If someone can explain it better, I would really appreciate it.

CrackVerbalGMAT, could you please explain this one?

The option E sounds very weird to me.

e) fantastic elements mainstream literature and thus exclude these works and thus exclude these works
"fantastic elements mainstream literature" - how are these 4 words connected to each other?
fantastic - adjective, which is modifying "elements"
elements - a noun...so, is it elements "of" mainstream literature?
mainstream - adjective, which is modifying "literature"
literature - noun

=> fantastic elements mainstream literature [if modifiers are omitted]

If read together with the main sentence: The term "genre novel" is loosely defined, promoted by those critics who do not consider novels that rely on romantic relationships, crime drama, or fantastic elements mainstream literature and thus exclude these works.

It sounds like something is missing between the words "elements" and "literature", as the relationship is not properly established between the two.

Request experts to please explain this. zhanbo - could you please help here. Thanks in advance.

Here is how I understand the structure of the sentence as written by option (E).

The term "genre novel" is loosely defined, promoted by those critics who do not consider novels that rely on romantic relationships, crime drama, or fantastic elements mainstream literature and thus exclude these works.

"fantastic elements" is part of the list X, Y, or Z (romantic relationships, crime drama, or fantastic elements) in the restrictive clause that modifies novels. (X, Y, Z should maintain parallelism. We can eliminate option A and C this way.)

If we remove the whole clause for a moment, we get:
"those critics who do not consider ("genre") novels mainstream literature ..."

Consider, as a transitive verb, can mean "to think of someone or something in a particular way". As the examples at https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries. ... h/consider show, consider can be used in multiple ways:
consider somebody/something + noun
consider somebody/something (to be) something
consider somebody/something (as) something // as can be omitted.

Examples: He considers himself an expert on the subject.
Similarly: They consider genre novels mainstream literature.
They do not consider genre novels mainstream literature.

Wow! Your explanations couldn't have been better. This is exactly what I was looking for- a broken-down structure explaining details so clearly.
Thanks a ton zhanbo ! Really appreciate it!

IMO E please note that 'these' should never be used without noun. Use of these for making copies is ambiguous if only 'these' is used without noun for which 'these' is used to make copies.

Further parallelism can be used to eliminate c which uses verb structure a third element-instead of a noun.

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Well...never say never on GMAT Vikas:)

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