Seldom more than 40 feet wide and 12 feet deep, but it ran 363 miles a

Although "B" is a correct choice. I wanted to know if someone else can throw a few convincing points about WHY A and C are incorrect? Thanks.

Although mikemcgarry clearly rules on this question with some brilliant answers out there. I would like to add a quick note from my side.

Mike I know you have clarified the confusion between "and" and "or" I am still not getting it completely, may be because it's just the way, we non-natives have been using till date.

CrackVerbalGMAT
GMATNinja
ChiranjeevSingh
DmitryFarber
egmat

Dear experts,
could you elaborate, why in the following sentence pronoun "it" refers to the verb "ran" after "comma + and" that split two independent clause ?

It was seldom more than 40 feet wide and 12 feet deep, and ran 363 miles across the rugged wilderness of upstate New York,

I have supposed that after "comma + and" ought to be new IC: Noun + Verb. Otherwise we have to remove "comma" before and.

Thank you in advance.

I still couldn't understand one thing that how does this structure ,but Independent clause, Independent clause creates run-on ?

Isn't the first appearance of 'BUT' is making the sentence 'it ran...' a dependent clause (DC) and overall structure as DC, IC, which is acceptable on GMAT?

Please guide.

Hello aarkay87,

I will be glad to help you out with this one.

The clauses that preceded and follow the connector "comma + but" are independent clauses. But in Choice A, "comma + but" is NOT preceded by an independent clause. It is merely preceded by a modifier. So, even the clause after "comma + but" is not an independent clause technically.

So, then why there is a structural issue? It is a structural issue because the intended contrast between the width and the depth and the length of the canal has not been presented in a parallel structure. The first part is a phrase while the second part is a clause. The correct answer choice presents both sides of the contrasting information in the form of modifiers. Therefore, parallelism is maintained between them.


Hope this helps.
Thanks.
Shraddha

Thanks, Shraddha egmat

Apologies that my question is not asked in a clear, explicit manner.

As per the explanation by Mike in (Most helpful expert reply) https://gmatclub.com/forum/seldom-more- ... l#p1276298

(A) we have a modifier "seldom more than ..." in parallel with an independent clause "it ran ....", a failure of parallelism. Then, we get a run-on sentence --- two independent clauses separated only by a comma.

which two clauses is he referring to?

I understand the issue of parallelism within modifiers, but unable to exactly pinpoint the run-on in original choice.
See if you can help

Regards

This is a hot mess. We start with a modifier (“seldom more than 40 feet wide and 12 feet deep”) that needs to describe “the Erie Canal”, but then it takes an eternity to actually get to any mention of the canal. That’s not OK.

Similarly, the pronoun “it” is an awfully long way from its referent (“the Erie Canal”). It can be OK for a pronoun to precede the noun it refers to, but it’s awfully confusing when the “it” is THIS far away from “the Erie Canal.”

Finally, it’s hard to make sense of the phrase beginning with “but.” Logically, I guess the phrase “but it ran 363 miles…” is trying to provide a counterpoint to the fact that the Erie Canal is “seldom more than 40 feet wide and 12 feet deep.” But it’s not structured correctly: “seldom more than 40 feet wide…” is a modifier, and I don’t think a dependent clause starting with “but” could logically provide a counterpoint for a modifier – the initial phrase would need to be an independent clause, not a modifier.

But even if your eyes glazed over reading that last paragraph, there are plenty of other reasons to eliminate (A).


I don’t think this sounds great, but I don’t have a problem with it, either. The entire phrase before the comma is just one big, complicated modifier, telling us more about the Erie Canal: it’s “seldom more than 40 feet wide” but runs "363 miles across upstate New York". Fair enough. All of those things reasonably describe the canal.

If you're skeptical: notice that “but” is doing something different in (B) than in (A). In (A), “but” is followed by “it ran..” – so we have a full clause (dependent, in this case) in (A). In (B), “but” is followed by an “-ing” modifier, “running 363 miles…” – and that “-ing” modifier serves as an adjective that modifies the Erie Canal. That's really not a problem at all: the phrase "running 363 miles..." is parallel to the phrase "seldom more than 40 feet deep...", since they both modify a noun ("the Erie Canal").

I don’t see any other potential issues, so let’s keep (B).

(B) Seldom more than 40 feet wide or 12 feet deep but running .....

This is a hot mess. We start with a modifier (“seldom more than 40 feet wide and 12 feet deep”) that needs to describe “the Erie Canal”, but then it takes an eternity to actually get to any mention of the canal. That’s not OK.

Similarly, the pronoun “it” is an awfully long way from its referent (“the Erie Canal”). It can be OK for a pronoun to precede the noun it refers to, but it’s awfully confusing when the “it” is THIS far away from “the Erie Canal.”

Finally, it’s hard to make sense of the phrase beginning with “but.” Logically, I guess the phrase “but it ran 363 miles…” is trying to provide a counterpoint to the fact that the Erie Canal is “seldom more than 40 feet wide and 12 feet deep.” But it’s not structured correctly: “seldom more than 40 feet wide…” is a modifier, and I don’t think a dependent clause starting with “but” could logically provide a counterpoint for a modifier – the initial phrase would need to be an independent clause, not a modifier.

But even if your eyes glazed over reading that last paragraph, there are plenty of other reasons to eliminate (A).




I don’t think this sounds great, but I don’t have a problem with it, either. The entire phrase before the comma is just one big, complicated modifier, telling us more about the Erie Canal: it’s “seldom more than 40 feet wide” but runs "363 miles across upstate New York". Fair enough. All of those things reasonably describe the canal.

If you're skeptical: notice that “but” is doing something different in (B) than in (A). In (A), “but” is followed by “it ran..” – so we have a full clause (dependent, in this case) in (A). In (B), “but” is followed by an “-ing” modifier, “running 363 miles…” – and that “-ing” modifier serves as an adjective that modifies the Erie Canal. That's really not a problem at all: the phrase "running 363 miles..." is parallel to the phrase "seldom more than 40 feet deep...", since they both modify a noun ("the Erie Canal").

I don’t see any other potential issues, so let’s keep (B).


This one is such a hot mess that it’s oddly tricky to explain why it’s such a hot mess.

The first problem here is that the word “it” is an awfully long way from its referent, “the Erie Canal.” It’s OK to have a pronoun precede its referent on the GMAT, but it’s pretty confusing when there’s so much stuff between the “it” and “Erie Canal.”

Another is that the “but” doesn’t really make sense where it’s placed. The sentence is trying to draw a contrast between the canal’s small size (“seldom more than 40 feet wide and 12 feet deep”) and… well, basically everything else in the sentence, including the fact that it runs 363 miles across the state. So if anything, the “but” needs to be placed BEFORE the phrase “ran 363 miles…”

And then the phrase “but the Erie Canal…” needs a verb somewhere. The sentence starts with an independent clause (“it was seldom more than 40 feet wide…”), and then we have “but” followed by a noun – so we’re going to need a verb next for this to make any sense. And it never happens – we just have more modifiers (“connecting” and “providing”).

But if you just read (C), said “holy poop on a stick, this is a mess”, and crossed it out, that’s cool, too.


It’s pretty easy to eliminate (D) based on the modifier “which connected…” Noun modifiers beginning with "which" generally need to modify the immediately preceding noun (or at least a noun that's reasonably close!). So (D) seems to be saying that either “upstate New York” or maybe “the wilderness of upstate New York” connected the Hudson River to the Great Lakes, and that makes zero sense.

You could also argue that it’s illogical to use “and” to connect the phrase “the Erie Canal was seldom more than 40 feet wide…” with “it ran 363 miles.” Ideally, the canal’s small width and depth should be contrasted with its length – so a “but” would be more appropriate.

So (D) is out.


This thing is basically just a string of modifiers and dependent clauses, and it isn’t actually a sentence at all. We have: “The Erie Canal, (modifier), (dependent clause), (modifier), (modifier).” Not cool.

So we can eliminate (E), and we’re left with (B), even though it arguably sounds kinda funny.

GMATNinja In option B, aren't two dependent clauses being connected with a coordinating junction, "But" ? Aren't only independent clauses supposed to be connected with coordinating junctions? egmat Bunuel

Dear NewKid123
I'm happy to help with this one. I like this question. What's the source?

(A) we have a modifier "seldom more than ..." in parallel with an independent clause "it ran ....", a failure of parallelism. Then, we get a run-on sentence --- two independent clauses separated only by a comma. See:
https://gmat.magoosh.com/lessons/916-run-on-sentences
This choice is incorrect.

(B) [modifier] "but" [modifier], [subject][verb] .... all correct. This is promising.

(C) "It was ..." (independent clause), "and ran" (verb in parallel, so far, so good), "but the Erie canal" [modifier][modifier]
This is a failure of parallelism --- after that comma and "but", we need either a full verb or a complete independent clause, and we get neither. For more on parallelism, see:
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2013/parallelis ... orrection/
This is incorrect.

(D) Misplaced modifier!! A classic mistake!! "... the rugged wilderness of upstate New York, which connected the Hudson River at Albany to the Great Lakes at Buffalo ..." The canal did that connecting, not the wilderness of upstate NY. The canal is the intended modifier, but the modifier is nowhere near the canal. This is a violation of the Modifier Touch Rule --- see:
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2013/modifiers- ... orrection/

(E) The missing verb mistake!! Another oldie but goodie!! This choice has modifier after modifier --- it has a perfectly good subject, "The Erie Canal" at the beginning, but this subject has absolutely no verb. There is no full verb anywhere in the sentence, only participial modifiers. See
https://gmat.magoosh.com/lessons/914-the ... rb-mistake

Thus, the only completely correct choice, and hence the only possible answer, is (B).

Does all this make sense?
Mike

This is a hot mess. We start with a modifier (“seldom more than 40 feet wide and 12 feet deep”) that needs to describe “the Erie Canal”, but then it takes an eternity to actually get to any mention of the canal. That’s not OK.

Similarly, the pronoun “it” is an awfully long way from its referent (“the Erie Canal”). It can be OK for a pronoun to precede the noun it refers to, but it’s awfully confusing when the “it” is THIS far away from “the Erie Canal.”

Finally, it’s hard to make sense of the phrase beginning with “but.” Logically, I guess the phrase “but it ran 363 miles…” is trying to provide a counterpoint to the fact that the Erie Canal is “seldom more than 40 feet wide and 12 feet deep.” But it’s not structured correctly: “seldom more than 40 feet wide…” is a modifier, and I don’t think a dependent clause starting with “but” could logically provide a counterpoint for a modifier – the initial phrase would need to be an independent clause, not a modifier.

But even if your eyes glazed over reading that last paragraph, there are plenty of other reasons to eliminate (A).


I don’t think this sounds great, but I don’t have a problem with it, either. The entire phrase before the comma is just one big, complicated modifier, telling us more about the Erie Canal: it’s “seldom more than 40 feet wide” but runs "363 miles across upstate New York". Fair enough. All of those things reasonably describe the canal.

If you're skeptical: notice that “but” is doing something different in (B) than in (A). In (A), “but” is followed by “it ran..” – so we have a full clause (dependent, in this case) in (A). In (B), “but” is followed by an “-ing” modifier, “running 363 miles…” – and that “-ing” modifier serves as an adjective that modifies the Erie Canal. That's really not a problem at all: the phrase "running 363 miles..." is parallel to the phrase "seldom more than 40 feet deep...", since they both modify a noun ("the Erie Canal").

I don’t see any other potential issues, so let’s keep (B).


This one is such a hot mess that it’s oddly tricky to explain why it’s such a hot mess.

The first problem here is that the word “it” is an awfully long way from its referent, “the Erie Canal.” It’s OK to have a pronoun precede its referent on the GMAT, but it’s pretty confusing when there’s so much stuff between the “it” and “Erie Canal.”

Another is that the “but” doesn’t really make sense where it’s placed. The sentence is trying to draw a contrast between the canal’s small size (“seldom more than 40 feet wide and 12 feet deep”) and… well, basically everything else in the sentence, including the fact that it runs 363 miles across the state. So if anything, the “but” needs to be placed BEFORE the phrase “ran 363 miles…”

And then the phrase “but the Erie Canal…” needs a verb somewhere. The sentence starts with an independent clause (“it was seldom more than 40 feet wide…”), and then we have “but” followed by a noun – so we’re going to need a verb next for this to make any sense. And it never happens – we just have more modifiers (“connecting” and “providing”).

But if you just read (C), said “holy poop on a stick, this is a mess”, and crossed it out, that’s cool, too.


It’s pretty easy to eliminate (D) based on the modifier “which connected…” Noun modifiers beginning with "which" generally need to modify the immediately preceding noun (or at least a noun that's reasonably close!). So (D) seems to be saying that either “upstate New York” or maybe “the wilderness of upstate New York” connected the Hudson River to the Great Lakes, and that makes zero sense.

You could also argue that it’s illogical to use “and” to connect the phrase “the Erie Canal was seldom more than 40 feet wide…” with “it ran 363 miles.” Ideally, the canal’s small width and depth should be contrasted with its length – so a “but” would be more appropriate.

So (D) is out.


This thing is basically just a string of modifiers and dependent clauses, and it isn’t actually a sentence at all. We have: “The Erie Canal, (modifier), (dependent clause), (modifier), (modifier).” Not cool.

So we can eliminate (E), and we’re left with (B), even though it arguably sounds kinda funny.