So heavy were the storm’s rains and hailstones, and its gusts of gale-

This time it was definitely not so Easy..

Eeeks ...I may be wrong this time

Mate, this question is testing idioms and parallelism. Be sure before you mark an answer..

Now that you have quoted me, let me tell you that my answers are hidden inside my remarks..you should have cross-checked the options 2.71 times atleast...sounds wierd? : ...think..think..

Yup got your hidden answer mate, but should not it be only so X that Y rather than so X,so Y that Z...the one enclosed within commas is modifying X....oops did I revealed the concealed ?....it's so covert that it's overt (..nice one mate )

Could someone explain what "its" is referring to here?

Arup

CAn you pl. expand your template into a full sentence. Let's see what follows So?

Arup

CAn you pl. expand your template into a full sentence. Let's see what follows So?

Use of 'and' between the two 'SOs' would have been most ideal; Without 'and' it looked as though the author is turning more poetic these days. Whether poetic or not, the author's rhetoric seems to be: After all the first part is a declarative clause but I want to intensify its effect by adding more info in the form of a modifier. So, I am using a modifier, and when I use a modifier you see there is no need to use neither a conjunction nor a verb. Therefore, what is the point?

One can give a benefit of the doubt for the deliberate missing of the verb 'were' saying that the verb is elided in the second arm, as we already have the same word verbatim in the earlier part.

Incidentally, here is a similar official question in those days that raised a bigger storm and gale wind


So dogged were Frances Perkins’ investigations of the garment industry, and her lobbying for wage and hour reform was persistent, Alfred E. Smith and Franklin D. Roosevelt recruited Perkins to work within the government, rather than as a social worker.

(A) and her lobbying for wage and hour reform was persistent,

(B) and lobbying for wage and hour reform was persistent, so that

(C) her lobbying for wage and hour reform persistent, that

(D) lobbying for wage and hour reform was so persistent,

(E) so persistent her lobbying for wage and hour reform, that


But the climax is yet to come. This is supposed to be an adaptation of an excerpt from the New York Times.

<https://www.nytimes.com/1993/11/14/books ... -club.html>

and the relevant portion pertaining to Perkins is as follows.


Strangely, the NYT version contains the all-important 'and', which GMAT woefully has missed.

Q1. A lot of students, including me, pick C.
What is grammatically wrong with C.? Is it simply because C. doesn't have "so"?

I think C. is a proper "noun + noun modifier".

Q2. If I modify choice C. to be "its gusts of gale-force wind SO relentless", would it be correct?

Q3. For the correct choice E., what is the role of "so relentless its gusts of gale-force wind"?
Does it modify "So heavy were the storm's rains and hailstones" in front of it?
Can we have an adjective as an appositive?

Generally, an absolute phrase must follow an independent clause. with the possessive and noun in the absolute phrase

OA for the SC above:
So heavy were the storm’s rains and hailstones, so relentless [were] its gusts of gale-force winds, that the city took nearly a decade to recover from the monumental hurricane.
Here, the verb in brackets is omitted but implied.
The two colored portions are parallel and serve the same function.

Because the two colored portions are parallel and serve the same function, they may correctly be connected solely by a comma.

An official example:
In a state of pure commercial competition, there would be a large number of producing firms, all unfettered by governmental regulations, each seeking to meet consumer needs and wants more successfully than the others.
Here, the two colored portions are parallel and serve the same function: each serves to describe the preceding noun (firms).
For this reason, the two colored portions may correctly be connected solely by a comma.