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


OG 2017 New Question
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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

'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.
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"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
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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 - "leave" does not go agree with "absence".. we need "leaves"
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" does not go agree with "absence".. we need "leaves"
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 - "for women" is incorrect.. "either" needs "or"
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" does not go agree with "absence".. we need "leaves"
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, "leaves" agree with "absence" + "either" .. "or" + "what jobs" fits in well with "how they"
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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
Of course there are other meaning based issues due to misplaced modifier phrases, but the most apparent issue is the subject verb number agreement ..
“The absence” – singular should have singular verb “leaves” and NOT “leave”

B. from business and financial records of statistics about women from the nineteenth century leave us
with no record of what jobs women performed or
Same as A

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
Parallelism error ..
Either X or Y .. (X and Y are NOT parallel here)
X = the jobs that ..
Y = of how they …

D. of statistics on women from business and financial records in the nineteenth century leave us with
no record of the jobs that women performed or of
Subject Verb number agreement error as A

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 option
Parallelism error of option C is corrected here with both X and Y parallel now ..
Subject Verb agrees in number..
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I understand why E is the OA. My question is around the usage of "statistics about vs on". Can someone please explain if statistics about is correct (in case we have to make a choice btw on vs about)?

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

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.
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