The 19-year-old pianist and composer performed his most recent work al

Hello thangvietnam!

Thank you for your question. Let's look at option D with the non-underlined portion added in:

The 19-year-old pianist and composer performed his most recent work all over Europe, Asia, and North America last year, winning prestigious awards in both London and Tokyo for his achievement at such a young age, and he hopes to continue composing now that he has returned to Chicago.

We need the word "he" because the phrase (highlighted in blue) starts with a comma + and. That indicates that whatever comes after the coordinating conjunction "and" MUST be an independent clause! We need to repeat the subject to make this an independent clause, but instead of repeating the entire subject (The 19-year-old pianist and composer), we can just substitute the pronoun "he."

I hope this helps! Let me know if you have any follow-up questions!

Hi Experts! GMATNinja egmat

Can you please explain what is the modifier "winning...." modifying here? As per my understanding, it is modifying the verb in the clause starting with "The 19-year-old pianist and composer.......". However, I don't understand the meaning of the sentence.

I can see why you are confused, saichandrateja. It would not make sense to say that the -ing phrase is modifying performed. How could such an action win anything? No, it is the very subject you identified in quotes, the 19-year-old pianist and composer, as a person, who is capable of winning prestigious awards. Keep in mind that a participle has broad applicability, so you have to lean on context to guide you to an accurate interpretation. Here, a single line stands out as sensible. (If such were not the case, then you would need to reevaluate the phrase or seek other—clearer—options.)

You may find this thread useful. I particularly enjoy the to-the-point response by mikemcgarry.

I hope that helps. Good luck with your studies.

- Andrew

Hi Andrew!

Thanks for your response. Following the thread mentioned by you, I found an intense debate on the usage of "-ing verbal modifiers". I am puzzled and surprised because that thread didn't lead to a conclusion about right usage, at least as per GMAT. It would be beneficial if egmat, GMATNinja or experts can shed some light on this.

-Sai Chandra Teja

Hi Sai, present participial phrases are intricate constructs. What they modify and how they behave, depends on quite a few factors, including their position in the sentence (at the beginning or at the end of a sentence) and even by the presence or absence of a comma.

p.s. Our book EducationAisle Sentence Correction Nirvana discusses participial phrases, their application and examples in significant detail. If you or someone is interested, PM me your email-id; I can mail the corresponding section.

Between B and D, I chose B as my answer because of parallelism between "writing" and "hoping".

Can someone please explain where did I go wrong ?

Hi AP6931, basically B is saying:

The 19-year-old pianist and composer performed his most recent work all over Europe, Asia, and North America last year, hoping to continue composing now that he has returned to Chicago.

hoping to continue composing.. is (what's called as) a present participial phrase. A Present participial phrase needs to have some relation with the previous clause (The 19-year-old pianist and composer.....North America last year).

However, in this case, there is no correlation. In other words, the fact that the 19-year-old pianist and composer performed all over the world, has no correlation with his hope to continue composing.

Since these are two independent fact, we should articulate the sentence as:

The 19-year-old pianist and composer performed......, and he hopes to continue composing.....

Another example of an incorrect usage of present participial phrase:

Peter was born in Africa, graduating from Europe.

Again, the fact that Peter is/was graduating from Europe, has no correlation with Peter being born in Africa. Hence, the usage of present participial phrase (graduating from....) is incorrect. Since these are two independent fact, we should articulate the sentence as:

Peter was born in Africa, and graduated from Europe.

An easy way to eliminate B:

Notice B states:

...winning prestigious awards both in London and Tokyo...

This is incorrect from a parallelism perspective. We can either say:

...winning prestigious awards in both London and Tokyo...

Or

...winning prestigious awards both in London and in Tokyo...

p.s. Our book EducationAisle Sentence Correction Nirvana discusses correlation issue in present participial prhases, its application and examples in significant detail. If you or someone is interested, PM me your email-id; I can mail the corresponding section.

EMPOWERgmatVerbal DmitryFarber
Can you please explain if there is parallelism involved here in "performed his " "and he hopes". I chose B because I thought that D is eliminating the parallelism? Please help

Thanks for the question samir1999929!

No, there is no parallelism between "performed his" and "he hopes." They are two events that happen at different times (performed=past / hopes = future), and therefore they don't need to be parallel.

We hope that helps! Feel free to tag us at EMPOWERgmatVerbal if you have any other questions!

both London as well as Tokyo

This construction is weird and redundant.

Option A and E are out.

at so young an age is idiomatically incorrect .

Option C is gone

Both in London and Tokyo , is idiomatically incorrect , also parallelism error - Both London and Tokyo is correct.

Option D is correct

egmat can you pls tell why is "he is hoping " incorrect

A. winning prestigious awards in both London as well as Tokyo for his achievement at so young an age, and he is hoping

B. winning prestigious awards both in London and Tokyo for his achievement at such a young age, and hoping

C. having won prestigious awards both in London and Tokyo for his achievement at so young an age, hoping

D. winning prestigious awards in both London and Tokyo for his achievement at such a young age, and he hopes

E. having won prestigious awards both in London as well as Tokyo for his achievement at so young an age, and he hopes