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Self-compassion is made up of mindfulness, the ability to manage thoug Updated on: 28 Jul 2021, 00:28
Originally posted by Bunuel on 26 Apr 2019, 04:49.
Last edited by Bunuel on 28 Jul 2021, 00:28, edited 1 time in total.
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Self-compassion is made up of mindfulness, the ability to manage thoughts and emotions without being carried away or repressing them, common humanity, or empathy with the suffering of others, and self-kindness, a recognition of your own suffering and a commitment to solving the problem.

(A) away or repressing them, common humanity, or empathy with the suffering of others,
(B) away, or repression of them, and common humanity, or empathy with the suffering of others,
(C) away, or repressing them, common humanity, empathy with the suffering of others;
(D) away or repressing them; common humanity, an empathy with the suffering of others;
(E) away or repress them; common humanity, to empathize with the suffering of others


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Self-compassion is made up of mindfulness, the ability to manage thoug 02 May 2019, 14:39
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Hello Everyone!

While this may look like an incredibly complicated question to answer, we think you can tackle it pretty quickly if you can identify what type of question it is: a LIST question! To begin, let's take a quick scan over the options and highlight any major differences in orange:

Self-compassion is made up of mindfulness, the ability to manage thoughts and emotions without being carried away or repressing them, common humanity, or empathy with the suffering of others, and self-kindness, a recognition of your own suffering and a commitment to solving the problem.

A. away or repressing them, common humanity, or empathy with the suffering of others,
B. away, or repression of them, and common humanity, or empathy with the suffering of others,
C. away, or repressing them, common humanity, empathy with the suffering of others;
D. away or repressing them; common humanity, an empathy with the suffering of others;
E. away or repress them; common humanity, to empathize with the suffering of others

After a quick scan, there are a few key differences we can focus on here:

1. repressing / repression of / repress (Parallelism)
2. , common / , and common / ; common (Punctuation & Lists)
3. , or empathy / , empathy / , an empathy / , to empathize (Parallelism & Punctuation)
4. others, / others; / others (Punctuation & Lists)

There is a lot here, so let's focus on #1 on our list: Parallelism. This should be a pretty easy way to eliminate a couple wrong choices quickly. To figure out what the word repressing/repression/repress is paired with, we need to look to the non-underlined portion of the sentence:

Self-compassion is made up of mindfulness, the ability to manage thoughts and emotions without being carried away or repressing them, common humanity, or empathy with the suffering of others, and self-kindness, a recognition of your own suffering and a commitment to solving the problem.

We need to keep "being carried away" the way it is because it's not underlined, and eliminate the options that don't use parallel structure:

A. away or repressing them, common humanity, or empathy with the suffering of others,
B. away, or repression of them, and common humanity, or empathy with the suffering of others,
C. away, or repressing them, common humanity, empathy with the suffering of others;
D. away or repressing them; common humanity, an empathy with the suffering of others;
E. away or repress them; common humanity, to empathize with the suffering of others

We can eliminate options B & E because they don't use an -ing word to make them parallel to "being carried away."

Now that we have things narrowed down a bit, let's focus on the fact that this is a LIST question. If we look carefully, we see that this isn't just any old list - it's a COMPOUND LIST:

Self-compassion is made up of mindfulness, the ability to manage thoughts and emotions without being carried away or repressing them, common humanity, or empathy with the suffering of others, and self-kindness, a recognition of your own suffering and a commitment to solving the problem.

A compound list is a type of list where each item includes commas within it, which makes figuring out which items go together incredibly difficult. For compound sentences, you should separate each item with a semicolon (;), rather than just a comma. That way, it's clearer to readers what goes with what.

Let's see which options handle this correctly, and eliminate those that don't:

A. away or repressing them, common humanity, or empathy with the suffering of others,
This is INCORRECT because there should be a semicolon separating each item instead of just a comma. For this sentence, there needs to be semicolons before "common" and after "others" to properly break up the list.

C. away, or repressing them, common humanity, empathy with the suffering of others;
This is INCORRECT because it doesn't separate mindfulness from common humanity with a semicolon like it needs to. It does separate common humanity from self-kindness, but that's not enough to make this correct.

D. away or repressing them; common humanity, an empathy with the suffering of others;
This is CORRECT! It uses semicolons to properly separate each item, allowing the commas inside each item to distinguish that they are defining each term and are not more list items.

There you have it - option D is the correct choice! It uses parallel structure and proper punctuation for a compound list.


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Self-compassion is made up of mindfulness, the ability to manage thoug 26 Apr 2019, 04:52
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Bunuel
Self-compassion is made up of mindfulness, the ability to manage thoughts and emotions without being carried away or repressing them, common humanity, or empathy with the suffering of others, and self-kindness, a recognition of your own suffering and a commitment to solving the problem.

A. away or repressing them, common humanity, or empathy with the suffering of others,
B. away, or repression of them, and common humanity, or empathy with the suffering of others,
C. away, or repressing them, common humanity, empathy with the suffering of others;
D. away or repressing them; common humanity, an empathy with the suffering of others;
E. away or repress them; common humanity, to empathize with the suffering of others


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There are two uses of semi-colon
1. Used to connect to related Independent clauses. This is the most commonly used
IC; IC
2. Used to connect parallel items, when a comma is already used as part of a list(to make the sentence clearer).
To understand the usage: see this https://writing.wisc.edu/handbook/gramm ... emicolons/

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Self-compassion is made up of mindfulness, the ability to manage thoug Updated on: 09 Jul 2019, 20:51
Originally posted by daagh on 26 Apr 2019, 04:50.
Last edited by daagh on 09 Jul 2019, 20:51, edited 1 time in total.
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Bunuel
Self-compassion is made up of mindfulness, the ability to manage thoughts and emotions without being carried away or repressing them, common humanity, or empathy with the suffering of others, and self-kindness, a recognition of your own suffering and a commitment to solving the problem.

A. away or repressing them, common humanity, or empathy with the suffering of others,
B. away, or repression of them, and common humanity, or empathy with the suffering of others,
C. away, or repressing them, common humanity, empathy with the suffering of others;
D. away or repressing them; common humanity, an empathy with the suffering of others;
E. away or repress them; common humanity, to empathize with the suffering of others


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An adept understanding of the structural construction of sentences can help in solving this seemingly jumble of modifiers, list parallelism, and punctuations. This problem is about a list of three nouns namely mindfulness, humanity, and self-kindness followed by their respective modifiers.

The algorithm for doing this problem may start with:

1. 'without being carried away' in the non-underlined part indicates that the second arm of that phrase should have another 'ing' form after the conjunction 'or'. We can safely remove B and E on this count.

2. There is no need to put a comma before 'or' in C since it might give a wrong feeling that what follows 'or' could be another item in the list. In addition, a comma is not required when only two items are involved in a given list.

3. Between A and D: In A, "empathy with the suffering of others" is just a modifier and we do not join a modifier with its modifyee by a conjunction, but only by a comma.

Therefore, D is the answer.
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Self-compassion is made up of mindfulness, the ability to manage thoug 16 Jun 2019, 12:37
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kshitijgarg
Hi GMATNinja,
In option D, Modifiers of a parallel are connected with semicolon. is it the right construction?
i haven't seen this before. My understanding was modifiers in the parallel structure are connected with a comma and the last item with comma+and (,and).

Regards,
Kshitij Garg
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There are two ways we can use a semicolon. First, we can use it to separate independent clauses. That's the usage we see most often.

But we can also use semi-colons to separate elements in a list when there are commas within those elements. For example:

    "During his exotic vacation in the tri-state area, Mike visited tourist hotspots such as Trenton, New Jersey; Rochester, New York; and Hamden, Connecticut."

Notice that if I'd separated the cities with commas, it would have been very difficult for the reader to tell when one element ended and the next began.

Same usage here. Here's the relevant portion of (D):

Quote:
"...mindfulness, the ability to manage thoughts and emotions without being carried away or repressing them; common humanity, an empathy with the suffering of others; and self-kindness, a recognition of your own suffering;..."
Show more
Notice there are three elements in this list and that each element contains a comma setting off a modifier within it:

    (1) mindfulness, the ability to manage thoughts and emotions without being carried away or repressing them
    (2) common humanity, an empathy with the suffering of others
    (3) and self-kindness, a recognition of your own suffering

Again, if we separated the elements with commas, it would be very difficult to tell where one ended and the next began.

A similar official example can be found here, and an excessive rant about GMAT punctuation can be found in this video.

I hope that helps!
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Self-compassion is made up of mindfulness, the ability to manage thoug 31 Jul 2022, 00:54
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Dear Friends,

Here is a detailed explanation to this question-
Bunuel
Self-compassion is made up of mindfulness, the ability to manage thoughts and emotions without being carried away or repressing them, common humanity, or empathy with the suffering of others, and self-kindness, a recognition of your own suffering and a commitment to solving the problem.

(A) away or repressing them, common humanity, or empathy with the suffering of others,
(B) away, or repression of them, and common humanity, or empathy with the suffering of others,
(C) away, or repressing them, common humanity, empathy with the suffering of others;
(D) away or repressing them; common humanity, an empathy with the suffering of others;
(E) away or repress them; common humanity, to empathize with the suffering of others


SC24751.01
OG2020 NEW QUESTION
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Meaning is crucial to solving this problem:
Understanding the intended meaning is key to solving this question; the intended meaning of the crucial part of this sentence is that mindfulness is the ability to manage thoughts and emotions without being carried away or repressing them, and common humanity is an empathy with the suffering of others.

Concepts tested here: Meaning + Modifiers + Parallelism + Grammatical Construction + Awkwardness/Redundancy

• Any elements linked by conjunction (“or” in this case) must be parallel.
• Semicolons are used to join the elements of a compound list – a list whose individual elements also contain commas.
• If a list contains only two elements, they must be joined by a conjunction; the "comma + and construction" (oxford comma) is used for the last element in a list of three or more elements.
• In a “noun + comma + phrase” construction, the phrase must correctly modify the noun; this is one of the most frequently tested concepts on GMAT sentence correction.

A: This answer choice incorrectly uses commas to join the elements of a compound list; remember, semicolons are used to join the elements of a compound list – a list whose individual elements also contain commas. Further, Option A uses the needlessly wordy phrase “or empathy with the suffering of others”, leading to awkwardness and redundancy; this usage is redundant, as “or” can be deleted without a loss of clarity.

B: This answer choice fails to maintain parallelism between “being carried away” and “repression of them”; remember, any elements linked by conjunction (“or” in this case) must be parallel. Further, Option B incorrectly uses the “comma + conjunction (“or” in this case)” construction to join two elements in a list - “being evasive” and "repression" of them”; remember, if a list has only two elements, they must be joined with a conjunction. Further, Option B incorrectly uses the “comma + conjunction (“and” in this case)” construction to link the first and second elements in a list of three elements – “mindfulness…common humanity...and self-kindness”; remember, the "comma + and construction" (oxford comma) is used for the last element in a list of three or more elements, and commas are used to join the other elements. Additionally, Option B incorrectly uses commas to join the elements of a compound list; remember, semicolons are used to join the elements of a compound list – a list whose individual elements also contain commas. Besides, Option B uses the needlessly wordy phrase “or empathy with the suffering of others”, leading to awkwardness and redundancy; this usage is redundant, as “or” can be deleted without a loss of clarity.

C: This answer choice incorrectly uses the “comma + conjunction (“or” in this case)” construction to join two elements in a list - “being carried away” and “repressing them”; remember, if a list has only two elements, they must be joined with a conjunction. Further, Option C incorrectly uses a comma to join two elements in a compound list; remember, semicolons are used to join the elements of a compound list – a list whose individual elements also contain commas.

D: Correct. This answer choice uses the phrase “repressing them”, conveying the intended meaning – that mindfulness is the ability to manage thoughts and emotions without being carried away or repressing them. Moreover, Option D correctly modifies “common humanity” with the appositive phrase “an empathy with the suffering of others”, conveying the intended meaning – that common humanity is an empathy with the suffering of others. Further, Option D correctly uses semicolons to join the elements of a compound list - a list whose individual elements also contain commas. Additionally, Option D correctly uses conjunction (“or” in this case) to join two elements in a list - “being carried away” and “repressing them”, maintaining parallelism between the elements linked by the conjunction. Moreover, Option D correctly uses a comma to link the first and second elements in a list of three elements – “mindfulness…common humanity...and self-kindness”. Besides, Option D is free of awkwardness or redundancy.

E: This answer choice incorrectly modifies “common humanity” with the infinitive verb form (“to + base form of verb” – “to + empathize” in this sentence), leading to an incoherent meaning; the intended meaning is that common humanity is an empathy with the suffering of others; remember, in a “noun + comma + phrase” construction, the phrase must correctly modify the noun. Moreover, Option E further alters the meaning of the sentence through the phrase “repress them”; the construction of this phrase produces an incoherent meaning; the intended meaning is that mindfulness is the ability to manage thoughts and emotions without being carried away or repressing them.

Hence, D is the best answer choice.

To understand the concept of "Phrase Comma Subject" and "Subject Comma Phrase" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~1 minute):



To understand the use of punctuations on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~10 minutes):



All the best!
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Self-compassion is made up of mindfulness, the ability to manage thoug 26 Apr 2019, 04:51
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Bunuel
Self-compassion is made up of mindfulness, the ability to manage thoughts and emotions without being carried away or repressing them, common humanity, or empathy with the suffering of others, and self-kindness, a recognition of your own suffering and a commitment to solving the problem.

A. away or repressing them, common humanity, or empathy with the suffering of others,
B. away, or repression of them, and common humanity, or empathy with the suffering of others,
C. away, or repressing them, common humanity, empathy with the suffering of others;
D. away or repressing them; common humanity, an empathy with the suffering of others;
E. away or repress them; common humanity, to empathize with the suffering of others


SC24751.01
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To answer this question, we require to find parallel items,

The parallel items are
mindfulness, ...A
common humanity...B
self-kindness...C

Also, the phrases, x, y and z after each of the parallel items are noun modifier describing about that item,,,
so the correct way is

Self-compassion is made up of A, x.....; B, y.... ; and C, z....
away or repressing them are parallel to each other and require or in between.

D
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Self-compassion is made up of mindfulness, the ability to manage thoug 04 Jun 2019, 19:35
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Hi GMATNinja,
In option D, Modifiers of a parallel are connected with semicolon. is it the right construction?
i haven't seen this before. My understanding was modifiers in the parallel structure are connected with a comma and the last item with comma+and (,and).

Regards,
Kshitij Garg
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Self-compassion is made up of mindfulness, the ability to manage thoug 05 Jul 2019, 09:06
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EMPOWERgmatVerbal
Hello Everyone!

While this may look like an incredibly complicated question to answer, we think you can tackle it pretty quickly if you can identify what type of question it is: a LIST question! To begin, let's take a quick scan over the options and highlight any major differences in orange:

Self-compassion is made up of mindfulness, the ability to manage thoughts and emotions without being carried away or repressing them, common humanity, or empathy with the suffering of others, and self-kindness, a recognition of your own suffering and a commitment to solving the problem.

A. away or repressing them, common humanity, or empathy with the suffering of others,
B. away, or repression of them, and common humanity, or empathy with the suffering of others,
C. away, or repressing them, common humanity, empathy with the suffering of others;
D. away or repressing them; common humanity, an empathy with the suffering of others;
E. away or repress them; common humanity, to empathize with the suffering of others

After a quick scan, there are a few key differences we can focus on here:

1. repressing / repression of / repress (Parallelism)
2. , common / , and common / ; common (Punctuation & Lists)
3. , or empathy / , empathy / , an empathy / , to empathize (Parallelism & Punctuation)
4. others, / others; / others (Punctuation & Lists)

There is a lot here, so let's focus on #1 on our list: Parallelism. This should be a pretty easy way to eliminate a couple wrong choices quickly. To figure out what the word repressing/repression/repress is paired with, we need to look to the non-underlined portion of the sentence:

Self-compassion is made up of mindfulness, the ability to manage thoughts and emotions without being carried away or repressing them, common humanity, or empathy with the suffering of others, and self-kindness, a recognition of your own suffering and a commitment to solving the problem.

We need to keep "being carried away" the way it is because it's not underlined, and eliminate the options that don't use parallel structure:

A. away or repressing them, common humanity, or empathy with the suffering of others,
B. away, or repression of them, and common humanity, or empathy with the suffering of others,
C. away, or repressing them, common humanity, empathy with the suffering of others;
D. away or repressing them; common humanity, an empathy with the suffering of others;
E. away or repress them; common humanity, to empathize with the suffering of others

We can eliminate options B & E because they don't use an -ing word to make them parallel to "being carried away."

Now that we have things narrowed down a bit, let's focus on the fact that this is a LIST question. If we look carefully, we see that this isn't just any old list - it's a COMPOUND LIST:

Self-compassion is made up of mindfulness, the ability to manage thoughts and emotions without being carried away or repressing them, common humanity, or empathy with the suffering of others, and self-kindness, a recognition of your own suffering and a commitment to solving the problem.

A compound list is a type of list where each item includes commas within it, which makes figuring out which items go together incredibly difficult. For compound sentences, you should separate each item with a semicolon (;), rather than just a comma. That way, it's clearer to readers what goes with what.

Let's see which options handle this correctly, and eliminate those that don't:

A. away or repressing them, common humanity, or empathy with the suffering of others,
This is INCORRECT because there should be a semicolon separating each item instead of just a comma. For this sentence, there needs to be semicolons before "common" and after "others" to properly break up the list.

C. away, or repressing them, common humanity, empathy with the suffering of others;
This is INCORRECT because it doesn't separate mindfulness from common humanity with a semicolon like it needs to. It does separate common humanity from self-kindness, but that's not enough to make this correct.

D. away or repressing them; common humanity, an empathy with the suffering of others;
This is CORRECT! It uses semicolons to properly separate each item, allowing the commas inside each item to distinguish that they are defining each term and are not more list items.

There you have it - option D is the correct choice! It uses parallel structure and proper punctuation for a compound list.


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How can one spot if something is a compound list or a normal list? Such as in this example?
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Self-compassion is made up of mindfulness, the ability to manage thoug 08 Jul 2019, 14:10
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EMPOWERgmatVerbal
Hello Everyone!

While this may look like an incredibly complicated question to answer, we think you can tackle it pretty quickly if you can identify what type of question it is: a LIST question! To begin, let's take a quick scan over the options and highlight any major differences in orange:

Self-compassion is made up of mindfulness, the ability to manage thoughts and emotions without being carried away or repressing them, common humanity, or empathy with the suffering of others, and self-kindness, a recognition of your own suffering and a commitment to solving the problem.

A. away or repressing them, common humanity, or empathy with the suffering of others,
B. away, or repression of them, and common humanity, or empathy with the suffering of others,
C. away, or repressing them, common humanity, empathy with the suffering of others;
D. away or repressing them; common humanity, an empathy with the suffering of others;
E. away or repress them; common humanity, to empathize with the suffering of others

After a quick scan, there are a few key differences we can focus on here:

1. repressing / repression of / repress (Parallelism)
2. , common / , and common / ; common (Punctuation & Lists)
3. , or empathy / , empathy / , an empathy / , to empathize (Parallelism & Punctuation)
4. others, / others; / others (Punctuation & Lists)

There is a lot here, so let's focus on #1 on our list: Parallelism. This should be a pretty easy way to eliminate a couple wrong choices quickly. To figure out what the word repressing/repression/repress is paired with, we need to look to the non-underlined portion of the sentence:

Self-compassion is made up of mindfulness, the ability to manage thoughts and emotions without being carried away or repressing them, common humanity, or empathy with the suffering of others, and self-kindness, a recognition of your own suffering and a commitment to solving the problem.

We need to keep "being carried away" the way it is because it's not underlined, and eliminate the options that don't use parallel structure:

A. away or repressing them, common humanity, or empathy with the suffering of others,
B. away, or repression of them, and common humanity, or empathy with the suffering of others,
C. away, or repressing them, common humanity, empathy with the suffering of others;
D. away or repressing them; common humanity, an empathy with the suffering of others;
E. away or repress them; common humanity, to empathize with the suffering of others

We can eliminate options B & E because they don't use an -ing word to make them parallel to "being carried away."

Now that we have things narrowed down a bit, let's focus on the fact that this is a LIST question. If we look carefully, we see that this isn't just any old list - it's a COMPOUND LIST:

Self-compassion is made up of mindfulness, the ability to manage thoughts and emotions without being carried away or repressing them, common humanity, or empathy with the suffering of others, and self-kindness, a recognition of your own suffering and a commitment to solving the problem.

A compound list is a type of list where each item includes commas within it, which makes figuring out which items go together incredibly difficult. For compound sentences, you should separate each item with a semicolon (;), rather than just a comma. That way, it's clearer to readers what goes with what.

Let's see which options handle this correctly, and eliminate those that don't:

A. away or repressing them, common humanity, or empathy with the suffering of others,
This is INCORRECT because there should be a semicolon separating each item instead of just a comma. For this sentence, there needs to be semicolons before "common" and after "others" to properly break up the list.

C. away, or repressing them, common humanity, empathy with the suffering of others;
This is INCORRECT because it doesn't separate mindfulness from common humanity with a semicolon like it needs to. It does separate common humanity from self-kindness, but that's not enough to make this correct.

D. away or repressing them; common humanity, an empathy with the suffering of others;
This is CORRECT! It uses semicolons to properly separate each item, allowing the commas inside each item to distinguish that they are defining each term and are not more list items.

There you have it - option D is the correct choice! It uses parallel structure and proper punctuation for a compound list.


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How can one spot if something is a compound list or a normal list? Such as in this example?
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Hello jamalabdullah100!

Here is an easy way to figure out if you're dealing with a simple list or a compound list:

Simple List = each item in the list is simply written and doesn't contain any punctuation --> each item is separated by a comma
Compound List = each item in the list is complex and contains a comma or other punctuation --> each item is separated by a semicolon

For simple lists, each item doesn't contain any punctuation, so separating them with commas is clear enough:

I went to the grocery store to buy marshmallows, chocolate bars, and graham crackers to make s'mores.

For compound lists, each item contains some kind of punctuation. Separating each item with a comma would be confusing, so using a semicolon is a clearer way of telling readers what items go where:

Over the past 10 years, I have lived in Phoenix, AZ; Detroit, MI; Seattle, WA; and Miami, FL.

Each item in the list above is a city and state. Separating them with commas would be confusing - it would say you've lived in Phoenix AND Arizona, instead of saying you've lived in Phoenix, Arizona. Using semicolons makes it clear that you're listing cities and states together.

When we look at the correct option, we can clearly determine what each of the items is:

Self-compassion is made up of mindfulness, the ability to manage thoughts and emotions without being carried away or repressing them; common humanity, an empathy with the suffering of others; and self-kindness, a recognition of your own suffering and a commitment to solving the problem.

If we don't separate each item with a semicolon, we might accidentally assume that "mindfulness" and "the ability to manage thoughts and emotions without being carried away or repressing them" are two different things. Instead, we can clearly see that those two items go together (a term + its definition), and that all the other items in the list are set up the same way.

So remember - if each item in the list contains its own punctuation, it's a compound list. If each item doesn't contain its own punctuation, it's a simple list!

I hope that helps!
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Self-compassion is made up of mindfulness, the ability to manage thoug 23 Jul 2019, 10:19
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Hello Everyone!

While this may look like an incredibly complicated question to answer, we think you can tackle it pretty quickly if you can identify what type of question it is: a LIST question! To begin, let's take a quick scan over the options and highlight any major differences in orange:

Self-compassion is made up of mindfulness, the ability to manage thoughts and emotions without being carried away or repressing them, common humanity, or empathy with the suffering of others, and self-kindness, a recognition of your own suffering and a commitment to solving the problem.

A. away or repressing them, common humanity, or empathy with the suffering of others,
B. away, or repression of them, and common humanity, or empathy with the suffering of others,
C. away, or repressing them, common humanity, empathy with the suffering of others;
D. away or repressing them; common humanity, an empathy with the suffering of others;
E. away or repress them; common humanity, to empathize with the suffering of others

After a quick scan, there are a few key differences we can focus on here:

1. repressing / repression of / repress (Parallelism)
2. , common / , and common / ; common (Punctuation & Lists)
3. , or empathy / , empathy / , an empathy / , to empathize (Parallelism & Punctuation)
4. others, / others; / others (Punctuation & Lists)

There is a lot here, so let's focus on #1 on our list: Parallelism. This should be a pretty easy way to eliminate a couple wrong choices quickly. To figure out what the word repressing/repression/repress is paired with, we need to look to the non-underlined portion of the sentence:

Self-compassion is made up of mindfulness, the ability to manage thoughts and emotions without being carried away or repressing them, common humanity, or empathy with the suffering of others, and self-kindness, a recognition of your own suffering and a commitment to solving the problem.

We need to keep "being carried away" the way it is because it's not underlined, and eliminate the options that don't use parallel structure:

A. away or repressing them, common humanity, or empathy with the suffering of others,
B. away, or repression of them, and common humanity, or empathy with the suffering of others,
C. away, or repressing them, common humanity, empathy with the suffering of others;
D. away or repressing them; common humanity, an empathy with the suffering of others;
E. away or repress them; common humanity, to empathize with the suffering of others

We can eliminate options B & E because they don't use an -ing word to make them parallel to "being carried away."

Now that we have things narrowed down a bit, let's focus on the fact that this is a LIST question. If we look carefully, we see that this isn't just any old list - it's a COMPOUND LIST:

Self-compassion is made up of mindfulness, the ability to manage thoughts and emotions without being carried away or repressing them, common humanity, or empathy with the suffering of others, and self-kindness, a recognition of your own suffering and a commitment to solving the problem.

A compound list is a type of list where each item includes commas within it, which makes figuring out which items go together incredibly difficult. For compound sentences, you should separate each item with a semicolon (;), rather than just a comma. That way, it's clearer to readers what goes with what.

Let's see which options handle this correctly, and eliminate those that don't:

A. away or repressing them, common humanity, or empathy with the suffering of others,
This is INCORRECT because there should be a semicolon separating each item instead of just a comma. For this sentence, there needs to be semicolons before "common" and after "others" to properly break up the list.

C. away, or repressing them, common humanity, empathy with the suffering of others;
This is INCORRECT because it doesn't separate mindfulness from common humanity with a semicolon like it needs to. It does separate common humanity from self-kindness, but that's not enough to make this correct.

D. away or repressing them; common humanity, an empathy with the suffering of others;
This is CORRECT! It uses semicolons to properly separate each item, allowing the commas inside each item to distinguish that they are defining each term and are not more list items.

There you have it - option D is the correct choice! It uses parallel structure and proper punctuation for a compound list.


Don't study for the GMAT. Train for it.
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Hi - can you please explain the ruole around this - We can eliminate options B & E because they don't use an -ing word to make them parallel to "being carried away."
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Self-compassion is made up of mindfulness, the ability to manage thoug 10 Aug 2019, 08:35
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Hi - can you please explain the ruole around this - We can eliminate options B & E because they don't use an -ing word to make them parallel to "being carried away."
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Anytime you encounter a parallel marker, such as "or," "and," or "but," the marker will be used to connect similar forms. For example:

    "When Tim gave dog food to his daughter for a snack, Maria couldn't tell if he was being a jerk or showing signs of extreme sleep deprivation."

In this case, because we have VERB-ing after the parallel marker "or," it's likely that we'll see VERB-ing earlier in the sentence to pair with the later instance, so "being" is parallel to "showing." Both VERB-ing words serve as adjectives describing poor Tim.

Now, keep in mind that parallelism isn't about simply seeking out elements that look the same. I can enjoy swimming and tennis. Here, "swimming" and "tennis," though they don't look alike, are both nouns, and so can be logically parallel to one another. So that's the real test: is the parallel marker connecting two elements that are playing the same role in the sentence?

In (B), we have the following: "the ability to manage thoughts and emotions without being carried away, or repression." In this case, "being" is functioning like an adverb, describing the action "to manage." "Repression," on the other hand, is functioning as a noun, and so cannot be parallel to an adverb. (B) is out.

Now take a look at (E): "the ability to manage thoughts and emotions without being carried away or repress them." Again, "being" is functioning as an adverb, not now "repress" is functioning as a verb. Not parallel, so (E) is out.

In the OA, we have "the ability to manage thoughts and emotions without being carried or repressing them..." Now "being" and "repressing" are both offering context for how "to manage thoughts." The forms are logically parallel, so this works.

I hope that helps!
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Self-compassion is made up of mindfulness, the ability to manage thoug 25 Sep 2019, 22:44
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Self-compassion is made up of mindfulness, the ability to manage thoughts and emotions without being carried away or repressing them, common humanity, or empathy with the suffering of others, and self-kindness, a recognition of your own suffering and a commitment to solving the problem.

An initial look suggests that the sentence consists of few things - how many - that needs to be checked. First non-underlined part has 'mindfulness' with an explanation(usage of the ability suggests it is an explanation of mindfulness) then the underlined part has 'common humanity' and 'empathy with the suffering of others' may be two things because of usage of 'or' and finally the non-underlined part in the end 'self-kindness' again explained(usage of 'a recognition' after 'self-kindness' suggests it's an explanation).
So, two non-underlined parts has similar structure suggesting that its a list where parallelism must exist with similar structure in the underlined part. Hence the original sentence is wrong though 'being' and 'repressing' part is fine.

(A) away or repressing them, common humanity, or empathy with the suffering of others, - WRONG. As discussed above.
(B) away, or repression of them, and common humanity, or empathy with the suffering of others, - WRONG. 'being' in the non-underlined part is not parallel to noun 'repression of' as it's a modifier. Also using 'or' here repeats the same error of option 'A'
(C) away, or repressing them, common humanity, empathy with the suffering of others; - WRONG. Though in this option the underlined part comes close to non-underlined part structure-wise, 'common ... others' looks like two things one a noun and other a clause. But this doesn't make sense on parallelism front, not-to-mention that semicolon also suggests that the part 'common ... others' does not fit in the first part of sentence.
(D) away or repressing them; common humanity, an empathy with the suffering of others; - CORRECT. 'Being' and 'repressing' are parallel. In 'common ... others' using 'an empathy', a noun + noun modifier, suggests it is explaining common humanity. Two semicolons properly list down three things in the list with all of them having similar structure.
(E) away or repress them; common humanity, to empathize with the suffering of others - WRONG. Three things are wrong here. First, 'Being' and 'repress' are not parallel. Second, 'common ... others' and rest of the sentence does not make sense as IC. Third, no element is parallel.

Answer (D).

Experts, am i correct in saying that the three things listed are explained using noun + noun modifiers??
Otherwise, are my explanation correct.?

Thanks.!!
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Self-compassion is made up of mindfulness, the ability to manage thoug 26 Sep 2019, 00:10
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lnm87
Self-compassion is made up of mindfulness, the ability to manage thoughts and emotions without being carried away or repressing them, common humanity, or empathy with the suffering of others, and self-kindness, a recognition of your own suffering and a commitment to solving the problem.

An initial look suggests that the sentence consists of few things - how many - that needs to be checked. First non-underlined part has 'mindfulness' with an explanation(usage of the ability suggests it is an explanation of mindfulness) then the underlined part has 'common humanity' and 'empathy with the suffering of others' may be two things because of usage of 'or' and finally the non-underlined part in the end 'self-kindness' again explained(usage of 'a recognition' after 'self-kindness' suggests it's an explanation).
So, two non-underlined parts has similar structure suggesting that its a list where parallelism must exist with similar structure in the underlined part. Hence the original sentence is wrong though 'being' and 'repressing' part is fine.

(A) away or repressing them, common humanity, or empathy with the suffering of others, - WRONG. As discussed above.
(B) away, or repression of them, and common humanity, or empathy with the suffering of others, - WRONG. 'being carried away' in the non-underlined part is not parallel to noun 'repression of' as it's a modifier. Also using 'or' here repeats the same error of option 'A'
(C) away, or repressing them, common humanity, empathy with the suffering of others; - WRONG. Though in this option the underlined part comes close to non-underlined part structure-wise, 'common ... others' looks like two things one a noun and other a clause. But this doesn't make sense on parallelism front, not-to-mention that semicolon also suggests that the part 'common ... others' does not fit in the first part of sentence. C needs a semicolon before common humanity.
(D) away or repressing them; common humanity, an empathy with the suffering of others; - CORRECT. 'Being carried away' and 'repressing' are parallel. In 'common ... others' using 'an empathy', a noun + noun modifier, suggests it is explaining common humanity. Two semicolons properly list down three things in the list with all of them having similar structure.
(E) away or repress them; common humanity, to empathize with the suffering of others - WRONG. Three things are wrong here. First, 'Being carried away' and 'repress' are not parallel. Second, 'common ... others' and rest of the sentence does not make sense as IC. Third, no element is parallel.

Answer (D).

Experts, am i correct in saying that the three things listed are explained using noun + noun modifiers??
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lnm87 , you are correct. The prose in this answer is a bit hard to follow, but the analysis is very good.
Quote:
Otherwise, are my explanation correct.?
Show more
Yes.
I added one detail: being carried away is an ___ING phrase—a verbal noun. Repression is also a noun but repression is not a verbal noun. They are not parallel for that reason.
See here.

Nice work.
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Self-compassion is made up of mindfulness, the ability to manage thoug 26 Sep 2019, 00:49
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generis
you are correct. The prose in this answer is a bit hard to follow, but the analysis is very good.
Quote:
Otherwise, are my explanation correct.?
Yes.
I added one detail: being carried away is an ___ING phrase—a verbal noun. Repression is also a noun but repression is not a verbal noun. They are not parallel for that reason.
See here.

Nice work.
Show more

Its encouraging to see your reply. :)

After attempting the question offline I checked it here. Was not that confident during marking the answer since it took me more than 4 minutes. But loved the solution from EMPOWERgmatVerbal
EMPOWERgmatVerbal

A compound list is a type of list where each item includes commas within it, which makes figuring out which items go together incredibly difficult. For compound sentences, you should separate each item with a semicolon (;), rather than just a comma. That way, it's clearer to readers what goes with what.
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is the best part.

"TAKEAWAY"..
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Self-compassion is made up of mindfulness, the ability to manage thoug 26 Sep 2019, 15:39
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lnm87
generis
you are correct. The prose in this answer is a bit hard to follow, but the analysis is very good.
Quote:
Otherwise, are my explanation correct.?
Yes.
I added one detail: being carried away is an ___ING phrase—a verbal noun. Repression is also a noun but repression is not a verbal noun. They are not parallel for that reason.
See here.

Nice work.

Its encouraging to see your reply. :)

After attempting the question offline I checked it here. Was not that confident during marking the answer since it took me more than 4 minutes. But loved the solution from EMPOWERgmatVerbal
EMPOWERgmatVerbal

A compound list is a type of list where each item includes commas within it, which makes figuring out which items go together incredibly difficult. For compound sentences, you should separate each item with a semicolon (;), rather than just a comma. That way, it's clearer to readers what goes with what.
is the best part.

"TAKEAWAY"..
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Hello lnm87

So glad to hear that our explanation helped you answer one of the prep questions! Keep a lookout for more explanations from us on new questions in the forum in the coming weeks!

Don't study for the GMAT. Train for it.
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Self-compassion is made up of mindfulness, the ability to manage thoug 02 Aug 2020, 14:05
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Experts, generis GMATNinja daagh EMPOWERgmatVerbal


I was thrown-off by 'an empathy'. Shouldn't it be just 'empathy' ? As we say 'kindness'. We don't say 'a kindness'. Doesn't 'an empathy' signify one particular empathy ?

And also, as per Ron and many other instructors (when it suits them) rules related to commas even comma + FANBOYS is not a deal breaker.

Thanks in advance.
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Self-compassion is made up of mindfulness, the ability to manage thoug 04 Aug 2020, 13:11
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altairahmad
Experts, generis GMATNinja daagh EMPOWERgmatVerbal


I was thrown-off by 'an empathy'. Shouldn't it be just 'empathy' ? As we say 'kindness'. We don't say 'a kindness'. Doesn't 'an empathy' signify one particular empathy ?

And also, as per Ron and many other instructors (when it suits them) rules related to commas even comma + FANBOYS is not a deal breaker.

Thanks in advance.
Show more

Thanks for the question altairahmad!

It sounds like the others have done a great job of explaining things already, but we did want to add one last thing: it IS possible to say "a kindness" in English and have it be grammatically correct. We don't use it very often, mainly because it's an old-fashioned way of speaking or writing. Saying "a kindness" or "an empathy" means to commit a specific act of kindness or empathy, rather than just being kind or empathetic in general. Whenever you see "a kindness" or "an empathy," it is typically followed up by a quick description of what that specific kind of kindness or empathy entails - much like the sentence we're dealing with here!

I hope that helps! As long as you were able to focus on the grammatical issues here (mainly parallelism and punctuation of compound lists), you should have arrived at the correct answer without needing to worry about this. :)

As always, feel free to tag us at EMPOWERgmatVerbal if you have any other questions!
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Self-compassion is made up of mindfulness, the ability to manage thoug 06 Aug 2020, 05:31
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altairahmad
Experts, generis GMATNinja daagh EMPOWERgmatVerbal


I was thrown-off by 'an empathy'. Shouldn't it be just 'empathy' ? As we say 'kindness'. We don't say 'a kindness'. Doesn't 'an empathy' signify one particular empathy ?

And also, as per Ron and many other instructors (when it suits them) rules related to commas even comma + FANBOYS is not a deal breaker.

Thanks in advance.

Thanks for the question altairahmad!

It sounds like the others have done a great job of explaining things already, but we did want to add one last thing: it IS possible to say "a kindness" in English and have it be grammatically correct. We don't use it very often, mainly because it's an old-fashioned way of speaking or writing. Saying "a kindness" or "an empathy" means to commit a specific act of kindness or empathy, rather than just being kind or empathetic in general. Whenever you see "a kindness" or "an empathy," it is typically followed up by a quick description of what that specific kind of kindness or empathy entails - much like the sentence we're dealing with here!

I hope that helps! As long as you were able to focus on the grammatical issues here (mainly parallelism and punctuation of compound lists), you should have arrived at the correct answer without needing to worry about this. :)

As always, feel free to tag us at EMPOWERgmatVerbal if you have any other questions!
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Although i have understood the gist of sentence, can you help me understand what 'empathy' is in A, B and C. How it is affecting each of the options?
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Self-compassion is made up of mindfulness, the ability to manage thoug 07 Aug 2020, 15:05
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altairahmad
Experts, generis GMATNinja daagh EMPOWERgmatVerbal


I was thrown-off by 'an empathy'. Shouldn't it be just 'empathy' ? As we say 'kindness'. We don't say 'a kindness'. Doesn't 'an empathy' signify one particular empathy ?

And also, as per Ron and many other instructors (when it suits them) rules related to commas even comma + FANBOYS is not a deal breaker.

Thanks in advance.

Thanks for the question altairahmad!

It sounds like the others have done a great job of explaining things already, but we did want to add one last thing: it IS possible to say "a kindness" in English and have it be grammatically correct. We don't use it very often, mainly because it's an old-fashioned way of speaking or writing. Saying "a kindness" or "an empathy" means to commit a specific act of kindness or empathy, rather than just being kind or empathetic in general. Whenever you see "a kindness" or "an empathy," it is typically followed up by a quick description of what that specific kind of kindness or empathy entails - much like the sentence we're dealing with here!

I hope that helps! As long as you were able to focus on the grammatical issues here (mainly parallelism and punctuation of compound lists), you should have arrived at the correct answer without needing to worry about this. :)

As always, feel free to tag us at EMPOWERgmatVerbal if you have any other questions!
EMPOWERgmatVerbal
Although i have understood the gist of sentence, can you help me understand what 'empathy' is in A, B and C. How it is affecting each of the options?
Show more

Thanks for the question unraveled!

To be honest, the purpose of "empathy" in each of those options is to distract you from the real problems: parallelism and punctuation. There is nothing wrong with how they are written - any of them would be fine to use, as long as they are punctuated correctly. That's why we didn't cover it in our own explanation.

When you get to more advanced GMAT questions, they sometimes add in things to distract you. In this case, all 5 options worded that phrase differently to throw you off. This is why we have you focus so much on finding clear differences or either/or splits. If you can deal with the either/or splits and simple concepts first, then you'll likely not even need to address the "empathy" phrasing because you've already found the correct choice.

We hope that helped clear things up. As always, if you have any other questions, tag us at EMPOWERgmatVerbal, and we'll be happy to help! :) :thumbsup:
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