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Seldom more than 40 feet wide and 12 feet deep, but it ran 363 miles a 20 Jan 2022, 06:14
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Hoozan
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(A) Seldom more than 40 feet wide and 12 feet deep, but it ran 363 miles across the rugged wilderness of upstate New York, the Erie Canal connected
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). ;)

Quote:
(B) Seldom more than 40 feet wide or 12 feet deep but running 363 miles across the rugged wilderness of upstate New York, the Erie Canal connected
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).

Quote:
(C) It was seldom more than 40 feet wide and 12 feet deep, and ran 363 miles across the rugged wilderness of upstate New York, but the Erie Canal, connecting
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.

Quote:
(D) The Erie Canal was seldom more than 40 feet wide or 12 feet deep and it ran 363 miles across the rugged wilderness of upstate New York, which connected
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.

Quote:
(E) The Erie Canal, seldom more than 40 feet wide and 12 feet deep, but running 363 miles across the rugged wilderness of upstate New York, connecting
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 please could you explain how in option (A) is "it ran 363 miles across the rugged wilderness of upstate New York" after the "but" a dependent clause? It appears, to me, an Independent clause as it doesn't seem to depend on any information? While read by itself "it ran 363 miles..," conveys a complete idea so shouldn't it be an Independent clause?
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Hello Hoozan,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, "it ran 363 miles across the rugged wilderness of upstate New York" is an independent clause; it is "but it ran 363 miles across the rugged wilderness of upstate New York" that is a dependent clause; the inclusion of "but" before the clause makes it dependent.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
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Seldom more than 40 feet wide and 12 feet deep, but it ran 363 miles a 24 Jan 2022, 09:55
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Hoozan

GMATNinja please could you explain how in option (A) is "it ran 363 miles across the rugged wilderness of upstate New York" after the "but" a dependent clause? It appears, to me, an Independent clause as it doesn't seem to depend on any information? While read by itself "it ran 363 miles..," conveys a complete idea so shouldn't it be an Independent clause?
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You're right. "It ran 363 miles" is an independent clause, but because it's preceded by the conjunction "but," we expect another independent clause to be connected to it. So the first part of the sentence should be a clause as well. Instead we get the modifier, "seldom more than 40 feet long."

Because "but" needs to connect like grammatical forms, and in this case, it connects a modifier to an independent clause, we have faulty parallelism. (And a modifier that doesn't seem to describe anything.) Both are concrete errors.

I hope that clears things up!
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Seldom more than 40 feet wide and 12 feet deep, but it ran 363 miles a 03 Jul 2022, 23:54
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In choice B] we see two modifers parallel. However, structurally they are not parallel.
Can a prepositional phrase also be parallel to ing modifer where both function as noun modifier.

It will be very helpful if you could share any official example.
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Seldom more than 40 feet wide and 12 feet deep, but it ran 363 miles a 04 Jul 2022, 04:19
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himanshu0123
In choice B] we see two modifers parallel. However, structurally they are not parallel.
Can a prepositional phrase also be parallel to ing modifer where both function as noun modifier.

It will be very helpful if you could share any official example.
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Hello himanshu0123,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, "Seldom more than 40 feet wide and 12 feet deep" is not actually a prepositional phrase; the key modifiers in this phrase are "wide" and "deep", which do not act as prepositions.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
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Seldom more than 40 feet wide and 12 feet deep, but it ran 363 miles a 10 Dec 2022, 00:57
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Seldom more than 40 feet wide ( Modifier for Erie Canal) and 12 feet deep, but it ( Independent Clause, it is referring to Erie Canal ) ran (Verb) 363 miles across the rugged wilderness of upstate New York, the Erie Canal( Main clause subject) connected ( Main clause Verb) the Hudson River at Albany to the Great Lakes at Buffalo, providing the port of New York City with a direct water link to the heartland of the North American continent.


(A) Seldom more than 40 feet wide and 12 feet deep, but it ran 363 miles across the rugged wilderness of upstate New York, the Erie Canal connected ( Wrong: but it ran 363 miles .....clause and the Erie canal are not connected properly ( TWO IC connection,

It can clause should have been presented as a modifier )

(B) Seldom more than 40 feet wide and 12 feet deep but running 363 miles across the rugged wilderness of upstate New York, the Erie Canal connected

Right.

(C) It was seldom more than 40 feet wide and 12 feet deep, and ran 363 miles across the rugged wilderness of upstate New York, but the Erie Canal, connecting

Wrong:

Erie Canal is part of the non-essential modifier. The pronoun in the main clause should not refer to something present in the non-essential part.

It

1) was seldom

2) Ran

Grammatical parallelism is not there. Though it is not a deterministic error.

Connecting and providing should be joined with "and" not with "comma".



(D) The Erie Canal was seldom more than 40 feet wide or 12 feet deep and it ran 363 miles across the rugged wilderness of upstate New York, which connected

Wrong:

and it ran 363 miles ( this IC is not joined with the previous clause properly)

which at the end of the clause, can not go back to refer to the subject. which is referring to New york, and that makes no sense.



(E) The Erie Canal, seldom more than 40 feet wide and 12 feet deep, but running 363 miles across the rugged wilderness of upstate New York, connecting

Wrong: No verb for the subject Erie Canal.
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Seldom more than 40 feet wide and 12 feet deep, but it ran 363 miles a 14 Jul 2023, 06:32
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Doesn't (D) also have a comma splice error (2 independent clauses joined with just a coordinating conjunction but without a "comma")?
Is it correct to eliminate (D) just basis that?

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(D) The Erie Canal was seldom more than 40 feet wide or 12 feet deep and it ran 363 miles across the rugged wilderness of upstate New York, which connected
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Seldom more than 40 feet wide and 12 feet deep, but it ran 363 miles a 14 Jul 2023, 14:52
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Doesn't (D) also have a comma splice error (2 independent clauses joined with just a coordinating conjunction but without a "comma")?
Is it correct to eliminate (D) just basis that?

Quote:
(D) The Erie Canal was seldom more than 40 feet wide or 12 feet deep and it ran 363 miles across the rugged wilderness of upstate New York, which connected
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The GMAT doesn't often use the fact that a comma is missing as a reason for eliminating a choice. So, if I were to see that choice on the GMAT, I might look for another decision point just to be sure that the lack of a comma wasn't just an oversight.

That said, yes, the lack of a comma there is a clear error that makes that version incorrect.
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Seldom more than 40 feet wide and 12 feet deep, but it ran 363 miles a 21 Jul 2023, 10:17
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SlowTurtle

Actually, that's not a comma splice or a clear error. It's fine to join two clauses with just a conjunction. In fact, that's normally what we SHOULD do unless a comma is needed to improve clarity. A comma splice is when we join two clauses with just a comma and no conjunction at all. THAT'S an error!
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Seldom more than 40 feet wide and 12 feet deep, but it ran 363 miles a 21 Jul 2023, 10:30
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DmitryFarber
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Actually, that's not a comma splice or a clear error. It's fine to join two clauses with just a conjunction. In fact, that's normally what we SHOULD do unless a comma is needed to improve clarity. A comma splice is when we join two clauses with just a comma and no conjunction at all. THAT'S an error!
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DmitryFarber
My apologies, I actually meant that the sentence is a run-on - 2 independent clauses joined with just a coordinating conjunction.
So is it fair to say that run-on sentences and comma splices aren't tested in GMAT?
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