Selling several hundred thousand copies in six months, the publication of "Maple Leaf Rag" in 1899 was an instant hit, helping to establish Scott Joplin as the preeminent ragtime composer. (A) Selling several hundred thousand copies in six months, the publication of "Maple Leaf Rag" in 1899 was an instant hit, helping to establish Scott Joplin as the preeminent ragtime composer. (B) The publication in 1899 of "Maple Leaf Rag" was an instant hit: in six months they sold several hundred thousand copies and it helped establish Scott Joplin as the preeminent ragtime composer. (C) Helping to establish Scott Joplin as the preeminent ragtime composer was the publication of"Maple Leaf Rag" in 1899, which was an instant hit: it sold several hundred thousand copies in six months. (D) "Maple Leaf Rag" was an instant hit: it helped establish Scott Joplin as the preeminent ragtime composer, published in 1899 and selling several hundred thousand copies in six months. (E) Published in 1899, "Maple Leaf Rag" was an instant hit, selling several hundred thousand copies in six months: it helped establish Scott Joplin as the preeminent ragtime composer.

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Selling several hundred thousand copies in six months, the publication

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mehtasahil56

other than modifiers i also feel that there is a tense error in the above sentence.
whenever period of time is mentioned it should be in simple past tense while in the above question we can directly eliminate answer choices A and D as they use 'helping' while other answer choices uses 'it helped'. Thus answer choices left are B,C,E where B can very easily be eliminated because of its formation and between c and e, e is correctly placed and formed.

Hello mehtasahil56,

We hope this finds you well.

To provide a bit of clarity here, the present participle ("verb+ing" - "helping" in this case) can be used to refer to actions that are continuous in nature in any time period, particularly if it is part of the "comma + present participle" construction.

As such, in Option A, "helping" correctly plays the role of a modifier; it acts upon the clause "the publication of "Maple Leaf Rag" in 1899 was an instant hit" to convey the cause-effect relationship between the song being a hit and it helping establish Scott Joplin as the preeminent ragtime composer.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
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01 Jul 2023, 03:43

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MartyTargetTestPrep AndrewN egmat Can you please explain why option d) is wrong. Published is modifying what here??How to figure that out what published is modifying here?

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