Patrick Woodroffe is a poet and painter that is able to make

Question

Patrick Woodroffe is a poet and painter that is able to make a living at it

(A) Patrick Woodroffe is a poet and painter that is able to make a living at it 
(B) Patrick Woodroffe is able to make a living as a poet and painter 
(C) A poet and painter, Patrick Woodroffe is able to make a living at it 
(D) Patrick Woodroffe makes a living as a poet and a painter 
(E) By writing poetry and painting is how Patrick Woodroffe makes a living

The whole sentence is underlined. Though options B and D have different meanings, I don't find any of them is wrong. Can you please elaborate between B and D?

pqhai · Answer

Hi umeshpatil

I think "is able to to make" differs from "makes". 
"is able to" = "can". Please see two examples:
(1) He  plays  soccer every Monday
(2) Ha  can play  soccer every Monday

The (1) means that the action "play" is done by him every Monday. If you go to the soccer field on Monday, you can see him.
The (2) means he does not play soccer every Monday, but if a coach asks him to play every Monday, he can do so.

Back to your question. 
He makes a living as a poet and a painter ==> It means his  major income  is from selling poems and paintings.
He is able to make a living as a poet and painter ==> it means he has another job, if he lost that job, he could sell poems and paintings to make a living.

The second point is between "as a poet and painter" VS "as a poet and a painter". I absolutely agree with Zarrolou.

Hope it helps.

HumptyDumpty · Answer

Please specify the source.
D would never be correct on the GMAT as it changes the meaning of the original sentence.
 be able to do sh  is far away from  do sh . B is the best AC, second "a" can be correctly omitted.

ankurgupta03 · Answer

Patrick Woodroffe is a poet and painter that is able to make a living at it

(B) Patrick Woodroffe is able to make a living as a poet and painter 
 Parallelism error. It should be as "a poet and 'a' painter" 
(D) Patrick Woodroffe makes a living as a poet and a painter 
 Correct. This sentence corrects the error by saying "as a poet and a painter"

HumptyDumpty · Answer

You are wrong. The second article can be omitted.

ankurgupta03 · Answer

That was rude :-D

Can you please explain why it can be omitted correctly?

HumptyDumpty · Answer

I ment to be heard as I've written that already in this thread once and more than once in other threads. Users simply don't read others' responses but write their own responses straightaway and without any consideration whatsoever. But to the point: in parallel structures you can omit the second preposition, article, operator, etc. To proof this rule just read other genuine RC or CR problems and you will see it applied.

ankurgupta03 · Answer

Control your emotions man ... you don't need to fight to make yourself heard ... Its not a fight going on here ... everybody has a right to put forth their point and they do so by responding .. that's what i did

Your point noted, thanks for helping me.

ankurgupta03 · Answer

I think you need to get your eyes checked ... i explicitly wrote in the post above "your point taken, thanks for the inputs"

I believe lets stop this if you want to ... else we can go on and on and on ... posting irrelevant things which will help no one ... like the post you did ... Anyways ... how did the GMAT go ?? How did you fare? If i remember correctly you had it on the 27th?

Zarrolou · Answer

Yeah, you should really stop this. I edited the  HumptyDumpty  post with DiCaprio, removing the image.

Mistakes are made by everyone, and no one "spreads misleading information" on purpose so there is no need to continue this dispute.

Regards

btg9788 · Answer

Patrick Woodroffe is a poet and painter that is able to make a living at it

(A) Patrick Woodroffe is a poet and painter that is able to make a living at it
(B) Patrick Woodroffe is able to make a living as a poet and painter
(C) A poet and painter, Patrick Woodroffe is able to make a living at it
(D) Patrick Woodroffe makes a living as a poet and a painter
(E) By writing poetry and painting is how Patrick Woodroffe makes a living

I think as a x and as a Y is needed. The sentence intends to say that Patrick W made a living as a poet and also as a painter.

D is the correct option. The other have use of "it" without a clear indication of what noun its pointing to. The option D says "as a poet and (as) a painter" IMO.

So it has the correct parallelism.

unceldolan · Answer

Hey Guys,

I agree with you that  in this case  the second article is needed because it stresses that he does both. But the meaning is changed, thats why I wouldn't take it for a real GMAT question?!

jwang27 · Answer

Anyone have a better method to choose between B/D? They differ in meaning, and both seem to be structurally correct. Thoughts?

BassanioGratiano · Answer

Hi Humpty,

Will the GMAT SC questions always have the intended meaning in the first answer choice? I've noticed that several problems posted on gmatclub will have answers that change the first answer choice's meaning. Wondering if this rule is absolute or just a guideline. Thanks in advance!

jwang27 · Answer

I do not think so. Sometimes it is up to us to interpret the intended meaning, but most of the time it is pretty obvious because the original meaning will be nonsensical. In this case, however, the meaning in the original statement is reasonable.

Vaibhav0607 · Answer

Between B and D, 
B -> Patrick Woodroffe is able to make a living as a poet and painter 
D -> Patrick Woodroffe makes a living as a poet and a painter

I would say B is unnecessarily wordy. I play cricket on weekends is always better than I am able to play /I have the capability to play cricket on weekends.
IMO, this is the prime difference between B and D.
Secondly, as a poet and painter would combine to represent an single entity. However a poet and a pointer more clearly states the two individual entities.

mdacosta · Answer

can an expert please elaborate on B vs. D? I see others commentary but it still seems that the prompt has "able to" and D changes the meaning to "makes a living"

How can that be correct?

AD2GMAT · Answer

I also selected B during my practice session, but later realized that "able to" would be redundant here - as it has already captured in "makes a living."

DmitryFarber · Answer

mdacosta  We don't have to worry about "changing the meaning." We just have to select an answer that works. If one of the choices clearly misrepresents what the author is trying to say (as determined from looking at all five choices), we should eliminate it. But the meaning in the correct answer does not have to match the meaning in A. After all, A is wrong 80% of the time, and meaning is one of the things that can make it wrong!

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Patrick Woodroffe is a poet and painter that is able to make

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Patrick Woodroffe is a poet and painter that is able to make

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