The Federal Republic of Brazil achieved independence in 1822, became a

Question

The Federal Republic of Brazil achieved independence in 1822, became a republic in 1889, and consisted of 26 states and one federal district.

(A) The Federal Republic of Brazil achieved independence in 1822, became a republic in 1889, and consisted of 26 states and one federal district.

(B) The Federal Republic of Brazil, which achieved independence in 1822 and became a republic in 1889, consists of 26 states and one federal district.

(C) Achieving independence in 1822 and becoming a republic in 1889, the Federal Republic of Brazil consists of 26 states and one federal district.

(D) The Federal Republic of Brazil achieved independence in 1822, becoming a republic in 1889 and consisting of 26 states and one federal district.

(E) The Federal Republic of Brazil, which achieved independence in 1822, becoming a republic in 1889 and consisting of 26 states and one federal district.

Verbal Question of The Day: Day 90: Sentence Correction 
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gmatexam439 · Accepted Answer

The Federal Republic of Brazil achieved independence in 1822, became a republic in 1889, and consisted of 26 states and one federal district.

(A) The Federal Republic of Brazil achieved independence in 1822, became a republic in 1889, and consisted of 26 states and one federal district.
 Brazil consists of 26 states. This is a fact. The sentence is not parallel.

(B) The Federal Republic of Brazil, which achieved independence in 1822 and became a republic in 1889, consists of 26 states and one federal district.
 Correct. Brazil achieved independence in 1822 and post that became republic.

(C) Achieving independence in 1822 and becoming a republic in 1889, the Federal Republic of Brazil consists of 26 states and one federal district.
 This is a close one. This sentence is grammatically correct, but the wordings are very awkward.
 Example: "Making food, Joy went to park." or "Achieving highest marks in the test, John is wearing a red shirt". The first part of the sentence is not related to the second part of the sentence. 
While achieving independence Brazil didn't side by side break down into 26 states.

(D) The Federal Republic of Brazil  achieved  independence in 1822,  becoming  a republic in 1889 and consisting of 26 states and one federal district.
 Red part should be parallel. "Consisting" repeats option A's mistake.

(E) The Federal Republic of Brazil, which achieved independence in 1822, becoming a republic in 1889 and  consisting  of 26 states and one federal district.
 It is not a sentence.

GMATNinja · Answer

The parallelism sounds nice here: “…Brazil achieved independence, became a republic, and consisted of 26 states and one federal district.” But these three things happened at three different time periods, so it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to use three parallel, past-tense verbs – especially since Brazil still consists of 26 states and one federal district. (And a lot of amazing people – if you’ve never been to Brazil, I highly recommend it. One of my favorite countries.)

Anyway, (A) is out.

This seems better! The “which” modifier is placed correctly, and the stuff that happened in the 1800s is in the past tense – but “consists” is present. Keep (B).

On one hand, this isn’t completely awful. Superficially, the  “-ing” modifiers  “achieving” and “becoming” seem OK, since those are actions that were performed by Brazil. But I can’t understand why we would make “achieving” and “becoming” modifiers in this case. (B) makes much more sense: these should be verbs, since they’re not really modifying the phrase “Brazil consists of 26 states and one federal district.” (C) is gone.

(D) also warps the meaning a little bit. In this one, “becoming” and “consisting” are the modifiers, but I can’t understand why they would modify the phrase “Brazil achieved independence in 1822.” Those should be two separate actions, as in (B). Plus, the fact that Brazil currently consists of 26 states and one federal district is completely lost in (D), so we can safely eliminate it.

This isn’t even a sentence. We need an independent clause (with a subject and a verb), and we don’t have that here: the subject (Brazil) never actually performs any sort of action – we just have a bunch of modifiers. (E) is out, and (B) is the correct answer.

Madhavi1990 · Answer

The Federal Republic of Brazil achieved independence in 1822, became a republic in 1889, and consisted of 26 states and one federal district.

My method of solving is as follows:

(A) The Federal Republic of Brazil achieved independence in 1822, became a republic in 1889, and consisted of 26 states and one federal district.:  not correct on the interpretation - when did the states come about? 
(B) The Federal Republic of Brazil, which achieved independence in 1822 and became a republic in 1889, consists of 26 states and one federal district.  Noun, modifier and further description--> follows logic too - Federal republic --description -- consists of states.. 
(C) Achieving independence in 1822 and becoming a republic in 1889, the Federal Republic of Brazil consists of 26 states and one federal district. second best; but modifiers starting the sentence is not usually right. If B wasn't there I might have picked this because the meaning is clear 
(D) The Federal Republic of Brazil achieved independence in 1822, becoming a republic in 1889 and consisting of 26 states and one federal district. not parallel : achieved - becoming - consisting 
(E) The Federal Republic of Brazil, which achieved independence in 1822, becoming a republic in 1889 and consisting of 26 states and one federal district. same issue as D

madhukaramar · Answer

GMATNinja  -

if we ignore the GK that Brazil still has 26 states and one federal district , then choice B is changing the meaning right ?? . Original sentence used "consisted" but Choice B is 
using consists. For this reason , i went with choice A . Even if the three things (getting independence , becoming republic and consisting of state is not parallel). 
Could you please explain - can we ignore these meaning changes -

GMATNinja · Answer

If the initial meaning is illogical or unclear, then changing the meaning is good!

Better yet, think of it this way: we have five sentences to choose from. We want the best of the bunch. So the question isn't "did we change the meaning?" But rather, "which meaning is more logical?"

For starters, "consists" should be present tense, since Brazil still consists of those 26 states and one federal district. But even if you suspect that Brazil consisted of 26 states in the past but no longer does, notice how odd the parallel construction in A is:

Here, we have: x happened in 1822, y happened in 1889, and z... doesn't have a date at all! So I guess it was a state of affairs at some non-specified time in the past. That's at least a little weird, right?

Now contrast that with B:

Notice that the parallel marker, "and" has moved. Now "and" connects two elements rather than three, and those two elements are logically parallel: x happened in 1822 and y happened in 1889. In other words, because we moved the "and," "consists" no longer needs to be parallel to the other two verbs.

And since the parallel elements are part of a modifier ("which achieved... and became..."), the core sentence should make sense without it: "The Federal Republic of Brazil consists of 26 states and one federal district court." Now we have a more coherent statement: if Brazil currently has 26 states, there's no longer any need to specify a year. So the parallelism is actually more logical in (B).

Bottom line: don't worry about changing the meaning from answer choice (A). Worry about picking the best option.

I hope this helps!

Giorgosaek · Answer

Hi  GMATNinja ,
I'm little bit confused between B and C. 
I ended up picking C and the reason is that in option B the "which achieved independence in 1822 and became a republic in 1889," part is inside a comma pair making it like a non-essential modifier. 
I have seen a lot of questions in which a basic element of the stem becomes a non-essential modifier and hence incorrect. 
Can you please elaborate?
Thank you in advance!

DanTe02 · Answer

GMATNinja  I believe C is wrong of making a subtle mistake. Enlighten me if I'm delusional:

Achieving independence in 1822 and becoming a republic in 1889 , the Federal Republic of Brazil  consists  of 26 states and one federal district.

So Modifiers dont have a tense, whatever is the tense of the clause they are modifying is the tense of the modifiers
 e.g Wearing white shorts and Green hoodie, Mary is playing football.  ( So this means mary is playing football right at this moment and she's wearing those shorts and hoodie right now)
So clearly we can see the tense of main clause is present while the modifiers are screaming and stinking of past stating that independence was not achieved in present.

GMATNinja · Answer

Indeed, it doesn't really make sense for "achieving independence in 1822 and becoming a republic in 1889" to modify the present tense clause "the Federal Republic of Brazil consists of 26 states and one federal district."

But as explained in  this post , it's dangerous to assume that "-ed" and "-ing" modifiers automatically take on the "tense" of the clause that they modify. The time frame of such modifiers is indicated by the context, so just make sure that you aren't thinking too mechanically and thus potentially blinding yourself to the logical meaning of a sentence.

I hope that helps a bit!

yahya729 · Answer

was it not important to have be which achieved and which became? Didn't we need a second which or is it implied?

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The Federal Republic of Brazil achieved independence in 1822, became a

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The Federal Republic of Brazil achieved independence in 1822, became a

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