A New York City ordinance of 1897 regulated the use of bicycles, manda

Dear Friends,

Here is a detailed explanation to this question-

Meaning is crucial to solving this problem:
Understanding the intended meaning is key to solving this question; the intended meaning of this sentence is that a New York City ordinance of 1897 regulating the use of bicycles mandated a maximum speed of eight miles an hour, required cyclists to keep feet on pedals and hands on handlebars at all times, and granted pedestrians right of way.

Concepts tested here: Meaning + Parallelism + Grammatical Construction

• All elements in a list must be parallel.
• A list separated by commas represents similar elements; in this case, the phrases involved have different roles in the correct meaning of the sentence.
• The introduction of the present participle ("verb+ing"- “granting” in this case) after comma generally leads to a cause-effect relationship.

A: This answer choice incorrectly places "regulated the use of bicycles", "mandated a maximum speed of eight miles an hour", "required...all time", and "it granted...way" together in a list; remember, a list separated by commas represents similar elements; in this case, the phrases involved have different roles in the correct meaning of the sentence; "regulated" is the primary purpose of the ordinance, and "mandated", "required", and "granted" are subordinate actions. Further, Option A fails to maintain parallelism among "regulated the use of bicycles", "mandated a maximum speed of eight miles an hour", "required...all time", and "it granted...way"; please remember, all elements in a list must be parallel.

B: This answer choice incorrectly places "regulated the use of bicycles", "mandated a maximum speed of eight miles an hour", and "required...all time" together in a list; remember, a list separated by commas represents similar elements; in this case, the phrases involved have different roles in the correct meaning of the sentence; "regulated" is the primary purpose of the ordinance, and "mandated" and "required". Further, Option B alters the meaning of the question through the phrase "granting pedestrians right-of-way"; the use of the "comma + present participle ("verb+ing"- “granting” in this case)" construction incorrectly implies that the ordinance required cyclists to keep feet on pedals and hands on handlebars at all times, and as a result, granted pedestrians the right of way; the intended meaning is that the ordinance required cyclists to keep feet on pedals and hands on handlebars at all times, and as a separate action, granted pedestrians the right of way; remember, the introduction of the present participle ("verb+ing"- “granting” in this case) after comma generally leads to a cause-effect relationship.

C: This answer choice alters the meaning of the sentence through the phrase "required cyclists that they keep feet on pedals and hands on handlebars at all times"; the construction of this phrase leads to an incoherent meaning; the intended meaning is that the ordinance required cyclists to keep feet on pedals and hands on handlebars at all times. Further, Option C fails to maintain parallelism among "mandated a maximum speed of eight miles an hour", "required...all time", and "it granted...way"; please remember, all elements in a list must be parallel.

D: This answer choice fails to form a complete sentence; "regulating", "mandating", and "requiring" are all present participles ("verb+ing") acting as noun modifiers, and "granted" is part of a dependent clause, so there is no independent verb to act upon the subject - ordinance.

E: Correct. This answer choice acts upon the subject - "ordinance" - with the active verbs "mandated", "required", and "granted" to form a complete thought, leading to a complete sentence. Further, Option E uses the phrases "required cyclists to...all times" and "granted pedestrians right of way", conveying the intended meaning - that the ordinance required cyclists to keep feet on pedals and hands on handlebars at all times and, as a separate action, granted pedestrians right of way. Additionally, Option E correctly places only the similar elements - "mandated a maximum speed of eight miles an hour", "required...all time", and "granted...way" - in a list together; these three phrases all refer to actions subordinate to "regulating the use of bicycles". Besides, Option E maintains parallelism among "mandated a maximum speed of eight miles an hour", "required...all time", and "granted...way".

Hence, E is the best answer choice.

To understand the concept of "Comma + Present Participle for Cause-Effect Relationship" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~3 minutes):



All the best!
Experts' Global Team

OA is E.
it is a meaning and ||ism question.

the law is regulating the use of bicycles mandated X.......required y, and granted Z....

Only E does the job. So E is the OE.

not that i don't understand the difference between regulating and regulated. Of course i do, but the thing is i am not sure why is regulating being used here since the rest of the sentences in #5 are in past tense " mandated, granted"

thanks

i think "regulating" here is a modifier of A New York ordinance of 1897, Verb 1 (mandated) + verb 2 (required) + verb 3 (mandated) is perfect paralel structure.
This ordinance is now not effected anymore (that's why main verbs are in the past), however "A New York ordinance of 1897" which is an act that regulates "the use of bicycle" is a fact so using "regulating" here is rational.
Hope it helps

I fell for C, but after having a look at
https://www.manhattangmat.com/forums/sc- ... t7988.html

I realized my mistakes. What the above link says is:

1. 'it gratned' is not in parallel with the rest of the sentence.
2. "Required X do Y" is correct but not "Required X that they do Y"

I think it is easy... A

B Use of granting made it a modifier which is incorrect.

C, D and E - A New York City ordinance of 1897 regulating ... , and makes it is a indpendent clause for which there is not verb.

The only reason E appalled me is the lack of a comma before the "mandated" therefore considered as a running sentence.

If B was written as below , would it be right ?
regulated the use of bicycles, mandated a maximum speed of eight miles an hour and required cyclists to keep feet on pedals and hands on handlebars at all times, granting

I thought regulated , mandated and required are in a list and should be parallel.
Please help me understand how to understand which ones to consider for list ?

Hi AG
The parallel structure is: mandated || required || granted. <== Results of a new regulation.
In your version of B, the parallel structure can't be hold because:
- "regulated" should not be a main verb, but rather a verb-ing modifier. If "regulated" || mandated || ..... ==> It does not make sense.
- "granting" used as verb-ing modifier is not correct. It should be a main verb rather than a modifier.

Hope it helps.

Correct answer is E.
Meaning: A NY city ordinance of 1897 (about what) regulating the use of bicycle
(what it does) 1)mandated...... ,2) required...., and 3)granted...
3 things are parallel.Now check answer which conveys similar meaning.

A. regulated the use of bicycles, mandated a maximum speed of eight miles an hour, required of cyclists to keep feet on pedals and hands on handlebars at all times, and it granted ...... Not parallel it granted and regulated incorrectly consider as 4 item in the list
B. regulated the use of bicycles, mandated a maximum speed of eight miles an hour, required cyclists to keep feet on pedals and hands on handlebars at all times, granting .... Not parallel granting and regulated.
C. regulating the use of bicycles mandated a maximum speed of eight miles an hour, required cyclists that they keep feet on pedals and hands on handlebars at all times, and it granted... same as A
D. regulating the use of bicycles, mandating a maximum speed of eight miles an hour, requiring of cyclists that they keep feet on pedals and hands on handlebars at all times, and granted.... Same as B
E. regulating the use of bicycles mandated a maximum speed of eight miles an hour, required cyclists to keep feet on pedals and hands on handlebars at all times, and granted ... Corrected regulating as the description of ordinance and 3 items of list in parallel (mandated,required,granted).

E is correct.

E. regulating the use of bicycles mandated a maximum speed of eight miles an hour,
required cyclists to keep feet on pedals and hands on handlebars at all times, and
granted

What I can understand is "A New York City ordinance " did the following three things
1) mandated a maximum speed of eight miles an hour
2) required cyclists to keep feet on pedals and hands on handlebars at all times
3) and granted pedestrians right-of-way.

There by regulating the use of bicycles.

I was looking for a option as below:
A New York City ordinance of 1897 mandated a maximum speed of eight miles an hour,required cyclists to keep feet on pedals and hands on handlebars at all times and granted pedestrians right-of-way, regulating the use of bicycles.

or

Regulating the use of bicycles,A New York City ordinance of 1897 mandated a maximum speed of eight miles an hour,required cyclists to keep feet on pedals and hands on handlebars at all times and granted pedestrians right-of-way

So the verb-ing modifier modifies the whole clause.

But with option E) regulating being a verb-ing modifier should modify the preceding noun or noun entity which is "A New York City ordinance of 1897". I was actually looking for a comma separating the modifier from the subject.

Can somebody please clarify the doubt. Somehow I am not comfortable with the sentence structure (I have to, the official answer is E)

Dear Kinjal,

Thank you for posting your question here.

Here is the sentence structure of the correct version of this sentence:

• A New York City ordinance of 1897 (subject)
• regulating the use of bicycles (verb-ing modifier that gives additional information about the ordinance)
• mandated a maximum speed of eight miles an hour, (mandated = verb 1)
• required cyclists to keep feet on pedals and hands on handlebars at all times, (required = verb 2)
• and granted pedestrians right-of-way. (granted = verb 3)


Your understanding of the three parallel items on the list is perfectly fine. As you pointed out, "regulating" as a verb-ing modifier should modify the preceding noun, since there is no comma between the modifier and the noun. "Regulating" correctly modifies "ordinance" in option E. Remember that modifiers can 'jump over' other modifiers. Here, "requiring" can jump over "of 1897" to modify the preceding noun.

If I were to identify the main point of the sentence or to summarize the sentence, I would say that this sentence is about the ordinance. It tells us three things about the ordinance: it (1) mandated something, (2) required something and (3) granted something. Notice that the modifier beginning with "regulating" can be removed from the sentence without affecting the clause in any way. This is what modifiers about nouns do: they give you additional information about the noun.

You may wonder whether the status of "regulating" as a modifier can be identified by doing a meaning analysis of the original sentence. It can if you pay close attention to the intended meaning of the sentence. In the original incorrect version, "regulated" seems to be on par with the verbs "mandated," "required" and "granted". However, this is only a superficial parallel list. This can be identified by focusing on the meaning. "Regulated the use of bicycles" gives us the general information that the ordinance imposed some rules on the use of bicycles. The next three verbs actually give us three specific rules about the use of bicycles that were imposed by the ordinance. So, logically, these three items can't be on par with the general information about what the ordinance was about.

I hope this helps with your doubt!

Regards,
Meghna

A. regulated the use of bicycles, mandated a maximum speed of eight miles an hour, required of cyclists to keep feet on pedals and hands on handlebars at all times, and it granted
here the list is not properly connected. before required and is needed.
ordinance 1) regulated; 2)mandated; and 3)required

B. regulated the use of bicycles, mandated a maximum speed of eight miles an hour, required cyclists to keep feet on pedals and hands on handlebars at all times, granting
same mistake as in A.

C. regulating the use of bicycles mandated a maximum speed of eight miles an hour, required cyclists that they keep feet on pedals and hands on handlebars at all times, and it granted
now the list is changed. regulating modifies the ordinance, and the ordinance now has 2 verbs: mandated and required. again the list is not properly connected.

D. regulating the use of bicycles, mandating a maximum speed of eight miles an hour, requiring of cyclists that they keep feet on pedals and hands on handlebars at all times, and granted
changes the 3 verbs into ing modifiers. the ordinance now does not have a verb.

E. regulating the use of bicycles mandated a maximum speed of eight miles an hour, required cyclists to keep feet on pedals and hands on handlebars at all times, and granted
now regulating modifies the ordinance, which has 3 verbs that are parallel: mandated, required and granted.

In (E), is a comma between 'bicycles' and 'mandated' required? Per the rules that I have learnt, NOUN + NO COMMA + PAST PARTICIPLE = omitted relative pronoun and verb 'be' e.g. 'which had' or similar. Bicycles didn't mandate anything. Hence, I eliminated (E).

Am I confusing 'mandated' between a past participle with past simple tense?

Thanks

A New York City ordinance of 1897 regulating the use of bicycles mandated...., required......, and granted...........

Subject: A New York City ordinance of 1897
Verb: mandated, required, granted (3 parallel verbs in simple past tense)
Modifier for the subject: regulating the use of bicycles

We do not need a comma before "regulating", since this present participle modifier is an essential (or restrictive) modifier - it defines the ordinance - there could be many City ordinances in 1897; the modifier specifies which of those ordinances is discussed here.

To solve this, we need to understand the meaning of the sentence first.
the law about regulating the use of bicycles mandated X.......required y, and granted Z.... (we need to make sure that these 3 things are parallel)

Correct Option: E

it is very easy to start looking into the parallelism error without understanding the meaning and mark option A as the correct answer.
Therefore, always make sure that you understand the meaning of the sentence before looking for other errors.

Hi Prabhakar, participles (both present and past participles) don't have tense of their own. They derive their tense from the main verb. For example:

I see a crying bay.
- Present Participle crying; the sentence is in simple present tense (as indicated by the main verb see).

I see a crying bay.
- Present Participle crying; the sentence is in simple past tense (as indicated by the main verb saw).