Since digital recording offers essentially perfect reproduction - on c

Question

Since digital recording offers essentially perfect reproduction    -    on compact discs, digital audiotapes, or digital videodiscs    -     audiophiles can accumulate vast collections of  music, transferring them from one format to another, copying it, and digitally altering it with little effort and not damaging  the sound quality.

A. music, transferring them from one format to another, copying it, and digitally altering it with little effort and not damaging 
B. music, transferring it from one format to another, copying it, and digitally altering it with little effort and no damage to 
C. music, transferring them from one format to another, copy them, and digitally alter them with little effort and no damage to 
D. music and transfer it from one format to another, copy it, and then digitally altering it with little effort and not damaging 
E. music and transfer it from one format to another, copying it, and digitally alter it with little effort and no damage to

Source: GMAT Prep Question Pack 1
OA: B

My Primary purpose of posting this question is to discuss the usage of dash(-) here in this question as far as I know it can be used as semicolon and also as a comma.

msk0657 · Answer

Hi,

See this if the below information is useful :

The semicolon (;) connects two closely related statements. Each statement must be able to stand alone as an independent sentence.

Since digital recording offers essentially perfect reproduction    -    on compact discs, digital audiotapes -  In this we have the list and list can't stand alone if we use semi-colon.

Dash is preferred over comma when we a list of items. You should use dashes to separate an appositive from an item in a list. Since we are identifying the list of reproducing items and then we need to dash to identify such list.

Suppose if we use comma then the meaning changes.

Since digital recording offers essentially perfect reproduction    ,    on compact discs, digital audiotapes.

Let me explain this:  NON ESSENTIAL modifiers are set off by the comma preceding it and essential modifiers are not .

Then the sentence should be like this  Since digital recording offers essentially perfect reproduction on compact discs, digital audiotapes . Here we presenting some information on the something. Then it has to be essential information.

mikemcgarry · Answer

Dear crunchboss , I'm happy to respond. :-)

I'm on vacation in NJ for a week and a half, so my responses might be a be slower during this time. I see that msk0657 already provided some useful information. First of all, I would say that the GMAT SC doesn't primarily test punctuation, so all of this is a little more than you need to know. You absolutely need to know what msk0657 said about semicolons: two independent clauses on each side. The dash (technically, the em-dash) has a few uses. One is this "double dash" construction, used to set off from the main flow of the sentence either a list of examples or some other parenthetical phrase. It's not identical to commas: we would have to put in more words to indicate the presence of a list of examples. Since digital recording offers essentially perfect reproduction, for example on compact discs, digital audiotapes, or digital videodiscs, audiophiles can . . . This is a considerably clunkier sentence, far less smooth. Changing from this version to the dashes is a huge improvement. The "double dash" can also be used for any kind of parenthetical comment. New York City--home of my favorite baseball team --is still the largest city in the United States. There, the parenthetical comment adds detail that is not essential to the central message of the statement. A single dash is closest in nature to a colon. Either a dash or a colon could be used, for example, to give an explanation of some fact in the sentence. An athletic and dashing figure in his youth, Henry VIII became quite corpulent in his old age--a jousting accident had left him unable to ride or exercise. Now, some more details, details that you really don't need to know for the GMAT. Technically, there are three separate punctuation marks: 1) the hyphen 2) the en-dash 3) the em-dash The rich plaintext format of GMAT Club allows us to write only the first. Any word processing program would allow you to write all three. The hyphen is used to connect words: follow-up questions, performance-based standards , etc. The en-dash , a little longer than a hyphen, is used in a range of dates, for example (1685 - 1750) . The en-dash is quite similar to the mathematical subtraction/negative sign; many people use them interchangeably, although the punctuation purists would insist on a difference. In plaintext, we use a hyphen for an en-dash. The em-dash , called simply the "dash," is the punctuation mark about which you are asking in this question. In plaintext, this is NOT represented by a hyphen: it is represented by a double-hyphen. Also, there is never a space before or after this piece of punctuation. Thus, when you typed this sentence, you made two mistakes: ... perfect reproduction - on compact discs ... 1) For the em-dash, we need two hyphens, not one 2) There should be no space before or after the em-dash. This is the correct version: ... perfect reproduction--on compact discs ... Does all this make sense? Mike :-)

alokspa · Answer

I got how others are wrong
A & C have them in it
D & E have 3 ands
But Still not sure about B. Can anyone explain?

mikemcgarry · Answer

Dear alokspa I'm happy to respond. :-)

Here's version (B), the OA: Since digital recording offers essentially perfect reproduction--on compact discs, digital audiotapes, or digital videodiscs--audiophiles can accumulate vast collections of music, transferring it from one format to another, copying it, and digitally altering it with little effort and no damage to the sound quality. My friend, again I will point out, " still not sure about B. Can anyone explain? " is not a high quality question. An excellent question gives evidence of extensive reflection and deep commitment. A poor question takes almost no time or effort to produce: low investment, low reward. My friend, I want to see you commit to the highest you can achieve. I want to see you commit to excellence . It's important to practice this in every aspect of your studying, in every aspect of your life, because how you do anything is how you do everything. What exactly do you understand about (B) and what exactly do you not understand about (B)? For your own sake, for the sake of your own understand, be as explicitly clear as possible. Does all this make sense? Mike :-)

Raffio · Answer

Mike- I also chose B, so maybe I can elaborate, as I'm still having a hard time understanding the correct answer. It's pretty straightforward, but I thought the subject was "vast collections of music", which I believe is plural. My understanding is that a subject cannot be a part of a prepositional phrase. Could you explain why this is different in this case? Is it because vast collections is different than music or that these are two separate things? If the sentence was written like "...audiophiles can accumulate a vast collection of music", I would have picked B.

Thanks for your help.

Thanks for your help.

mikemcgarry · Answer

Dear Raffio , I'm happy to respond.

Here's version (B), the OA: Since digital recording offers essentially perfect reproduction--on compact discs, digital audiotapes, or digital videodiscs--audiophiles can accumulate vast collections of music, transferring it from one format to another, copying it, and digitally altering it with little effort and no damage to the sound quality . First, let's be clear about a few things. 1) The rule that " a subject cannot be a part of a prepositional phrase " needs to be qualified: " the subject of a clause cannot be the object of a prepositional phrase in that same clause ." Keep in mind that the GMAT SC loves to nest phrases & clauses , so that the object of a preposition in one clause might be equivalent to the subject of another clause: I took a photo of a friend who lost a bet to me . The first part, the green part, is the independent clause, and in this clause, the word 'friend" is the object of a preposition. The second part, in purple, is a dependent clause, a noun-modifying clause, (technically, a relative clause), and the subject of this is the relative pronoun " who ," which is equivalent to " friend ." 2) The only full verb in this sentence, the main verb of the sentence is " can accumulate ," and the subject of this verb, the main subject of the sentence, is " audiophiles ." 3) My friend, I think you are confusing the subject-verb relationship with the antecedent-pronoun relationship . I believe you are asking about the singular pronouns " it "--why are these pronouns singular? What is the antecedent of these pronouns? Pronouns don't have " subjects "--they have " antecedents ." 4) While there are some restrictions on where a subject can or can't be, the antecedent of a pronoun can be a noun playing any noun role in the sentence--it can be a subject, a direct object, or the object of a preposition. Now, we can look at this particular SC problem. The pronouns " it " refer to the antecedent " music ." Here's why. The parallel participles " transferring . . . copying . . . altering " act as verb-modifiers, or adverbial phrases , so the Modifier Touch Rule is 100% irrelevant to these. This is a rare case in which the grammar doesn't gives us any clues and we must rely on meaning to discern the correct antecedent. What is it that users " transfer . . . copy . . . and digitally alter "? Users do this to music , not to collections of music. Therefore, the antecedent is a singular noun, and the pronoun must be singular. On the GMAT SC, you never can ignore meaning. The whole point of language is to convey meaning, and the GMAT SC is always focused on this. Does this answer your question? Mike

Raffio · Answer

Mike - thank you for the detailed walk through. This was very helpful, as you nailed the source of my confusion (#3) with a clear and efficient explanation. Thank you for your time, your speedy response, and for all of your explanations on this website! One last question, will you take the test for me? Jokes.

Best regards,
Raffi

Since digital recording offers essentially perfect reproduction - on c

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