The absence from business and financial records of the nineteenth

The question can be nailed in less than one minute by meaning line of attack.

A) The absence from business and financial records of the nineteenth century - Normally we say absence of some data from records, but here absence from records distorts the meaning
B) repeats the error of A
C) D) E) - Meaning is correct
D) Out as absence is singular and .............century leave...leave is plural ---- SV error
Between C and E....either ....and......either goes with ...or...........C is elliminated
E is the correct answer.

-south city

Correct idiomatic usage of absence is - absence of

The last part of the sentence states they , so there must be a plural antecedent - In this case Women

The absence of statistics about women from business and financial records of the nineteenth century leaves us with no record of either what jobs women performed or how they ( Women ) survived economically.

(E) is correct grammatically and conveys the correct meaning of the sentence....

'and' or 'or' is a parallel marker.

'and how they survived' must be parallel to something in the underlined part.

A) from business and financial records of the nineteenth century of statistics about women leave us with no record of the jobs that were performed by women and . Not parallel
B) from business and financial records of statistics about women from the nineteenth century leave us with no records of what jobs women performed or. 'leave' must NOT be plural as 'absence of statistics' is singular
C) of statistics for women from business and financial records in the nineteenth century leaves us with no record of either the jobs that women were performing and of. either x and is a wrong idiom
D) of statistics on women from business and financial records of the nineteenth century leave us with no record of the jobs that women performed or of 'leave' must NOT be plural as in option B
E) of statistics about women from business and financial records of the nineteenth century leaves us with no record of either what jobs women performed or. Correct choice.

"Either" is used as a part of the paralllel structure "EITHER X OR Y".

The structure of option E is as follows:

The absence leaves us with no record of (EITHER X OR Y).

Here, X = what jobs women performed
Y = how they survived economically

Hello jabhatta@umail.iu.edu,


I would be glad to help you with this query.


There is no issue in the usage of the phrase of the nineteenth century because the business and financial records pertain to the nineteenth century.

Let's take a look at the original sentence: The absence from business and financial records of the nineteenth century of statistics about women leave us with no record of the jobs that were performed by women and how they survived economically.

The above-mentioned sentence says that the records pertain to the nineteenth century. It is not that the records were absent in the nineteenth century.


Hope this helps.
Thanks.
Shraddha

It looks like that there is no hair-splitting difference between 'on' and 'about'. At best, one may say one may use statistics 'on' something to make a temporary or casual reference while use statistics 'about' a deeper study.


However, this question is more about 1. whether we use a parallel clause on the right wing of the conjunction or/and to match a similar clause on the left in the underlined part 2. use an appropriate verb to match the singular 'absence'.

Sentence Analysis
The sentence says that the absence of statistics about women from some records leaves with no record of two things:

the jobs that the women performed
how the women survived economically
As you can see, I missed mentioning some details. However, when you trying to understand the gist of a sentence, you should try to skip the details just as I did: I compressed “business and financial records of the nineteenth century” into “some records”. Doing so, I believe, is very helpful since it allows you to cut through the details and focus on the essence of the sentence. Otherwise, I have seen many people getting lost in the details of the sentences and not able to figure out the main idea of the sentence.

Now, having understood the intended meaning of the sentence, we can look at the errors in the sentence.

“of statistics about women” should come right after “absence”. Why? Because it is much easier to read and understand “absence of statistics about women from business and financial records of the nineteenth century” than the given structure. The part “of the nineteenth century of statistics about women” in the original sentence is confusing and difficult to understand. Right?
The subject “absence” is singular while the verb “leave” is plural.
Lack of parallelism: The absence leaves us with no record of:
the jobs that were performed by women
and how they survived economically.
The above two elements need to be parallel since they constitute a list. Since the second element is in the non-underlined part, the first element should preferably be changed into a noun clause.

The simple way is to eliminate A, B and D for missing on the SV number agreement. C faults in using the wrong idiomatic 'either… and '. Therefore E.

The absence from business and financial records of the nineteenth century of statistics about women leave us with no record of the jobs that were performed by women and how they survived economically.


A) from business and financial records of the nineteenth century of statistics about women leave us with no record of the jobs that were performed by women and
B) from business and financial records of statistics about women from the nineteenth century leave us with no records of what jobs women performed or
C) of statistics for women from business and financial records in the nineteenth century leaves us with no record of either the jobs that women were performing and of
D) of statistics on women from business and financial records of the nineteenth century leave us with no record of the jobs that women performed or of
E) of statistics about women from business and financial records of the nineteenth century leaves us with no record of either what jobs women performed or[, color]

[color=#0000ff]Let's make life simple. The singular subject 'the absence' requires the singular leaves as the verb. Touch wood, you can hit three mangoes in one stone, A, B, and D or gone.
The correlative conjunction either…or needs an 'or' as in E and not 'and' as in C.
There is no need to bother whether it is for women, on women or about women or for that matter any other issue?
In GMAT, it is suicidal to waste time when one does not need to; he or she may pay for it dearly in the hall.

Hello Everyone!

Let's tackle this question, one issue at a time, and narrow it down to the correct answer quickly! To begin, here is the original sentence with any major differences between the options highlighted in orange:

The absence from business and financial records of the nineteenth century of statistics about women leave us with no record of the jobs that were performed by women and how they survived economically.

(A) from business and financial records of the nineteenth century of statistics about women leave us with no record of the jobs that were performed by women and
(B) from business and financial records of statistics about women from the nineteenth century leave us with no records of what jobs women performed or
(C) of statistics for women from business and financial records in the nineteenth century leaves us with no record of either the jobs that women were performing and of
(D) of statistics on women from business and financial records of the nineteenth century leave us with no record of the jobs that women performed or of
(E) of statistics about women from business and financial records of the nineteenth century leaves us with no record of either what jobs women performed or

After glancing over the options quickly, there are a few things we can focus on to narrow down our choices:

1. The absence from vs. The absence of
2. of / from / in the nineteenth century
3. about / for / on women
4. How each option ends (parallelism & idioms)

Let's start with #1 on our list: The absence from vs. The absence of. Whichever we choose, it will eliminate 2-3 options right away.

To figure out the best way to tackle this, we need to ask ourselves a very simple question:

WHAT is absent here?

If we look at the original sentence, we can clearly see what the term "absence" is referring to:

The absence from business and financial records of the nineteenth century of statistics about women leave us with no record of the jobs that were performed by women and how they survived economically.

It is thoroughly confusing to readers to separate the phrase "The absence" from what is actually absent - statistics about women. So let's take a look at each sentence and eliminate the ones that place absence and statistics too far apart:

(A) from business and financial records of the nineteenth century of statistics about women leave us with no record of the jobs that were performed by women and
(B) from business and financial records of statistics about women from the nineteenth century leave us with no records of what jobs women performed or
(C) of statistics for women from business and financial records in the nineteenth century leaves us with no record of either the jobs that women were performing and of
(D) of statistics on women from business and financial records of the nineteenth century leave us with no record of the jobs that women performed or of
(E) of statistics about women from business and financial records of the nineteenth century leaves us with no record of either what jobs women performed or

We can eliminate options A & B because they put the word "absence" too far away from what it's referring to - statistics.

Now that we have this question narrowed down to only 3 options, let's tackle #4 on our list: parallelism and idioms. We need to focus on making sure each sentence that uses a common idiom structure (both X and Y / either X or Y / by X and Y) does so correctly, and that both items are written using parallel wording. To make this easier, I've added in the second part of the phrase to make problems easier to spot:

(C) of statistics for women from business and financial records in the nineteenth century leaves us with no record of either the jobs that women were performing and of how they survived economically.

This is INCORRECT for two reasons:
1. Wrong idiom usage: either X and Y is incorrect...it should be either X or Y
2. X and Y are not parallel: the jobs that women were performing / how they survived economically

(D) of statistics on women from business and financial records of the nineteenth century leave us with no record of the jobs that women performed or of how they survived economically.

This is INCORRECT for two reasons:
1. The plural verb "leave" doesn't match the singular subject "absence."
2. The two items at the end aren't written using parallel structure. It should be "...with no record of X or Y," but it says "...with no record of X or of Y," which sounds clunky and confusing.

(E) of statistics about women from business and financial records of the nineteenth century leaves us with no record of either what jobs women performed or how they survived economically.

This is CORRECT! It places the word "absence" next to what's absent - statistics. It also uses the correct singular verb "leaves." The ending is also written using proper parallel structure and idiom structure with "either X or Y."


There you have it - option E is the correct choice!


Don't study for the GMAT. Train for it.

The prepositional phrase modifier of statistics… has been placed incorrectly
Logically, it should modify absence.
However, because of its placement, it tends to modify the preceding noun records.
For correct modification it should be placed close to absence.

Is there any parallelism error in this question?

akt715
Those are both fine. The GMAT likes to distract us with idioms up front so we don't notice the more important grammatical issues. Still, we can safely cut "statistics for women" in C. Statistics is for everyone!

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