The bricks that were used in the construction of the West Virginian Ge

Meaning is the key to unravel this passage.

The intent of the text is to bring out that the bricks were made in England and were used as ballasts in ships, before they were transported in bullock carts. Choice A perhaps brings out this intent well, relegating the transportation part to a secondary modifier role. On the other hand, E considers journeying in bullock carts as the main factor by according it the main verb while pushing the English manufacture and the ballast usage to a subordinate role.
2. Choice B is a run-on
3. The phrase ‘and journeying’ in C and D, renders these choices unparallel and fragments
4. Choices and D and E flout the relative- pronoun rule blatantly; it is difficult to imagine that a pronoun posited somewhere in the middle of a sentence can modify something in the beginning of the sentence, skipping several other eligible nouns on the way.

E. Wappocomo, which had been manufactured in England and used as ballast to stabilize ships loading tobacco in the James River, journeyed

Which modifies the noun "The bricks that were used" in the construction of the West Virginian Georgian mansion of ...
what follows after used is just a prepositional modifier. This is a perfect example of how sometimes we have to go back to the un-underlined part of the sentence to make sure the preceeding word before "which" is actually a noun.

I fell for the wrong answer trying to solve this too quickly.

Note 1: If a Which is used after a comma then the which modifies the noun just before it. that means the "noun" and the modifier "which" are separated only by a comma. So here which modifies wappocomo.
2: bricks are plural so verb must be plural
3: bicks might be manufactured in england but they can not be used as ballast to stabilize ships. So here we find distortion of meaning in option A. B has used present form of journey. it changes the meaning.
5: in option D, there is no verb for subject bricks
6: which modifies wappocomo and journeyed is used as a verd, which agrees with the subject bricks. So E is the correct answer.

Core sentence is The bricks ...... Journeyed. Everything else is modifier. So E is the answer.

in E
bricks that were, which had been
in this sentence both that clause and which clause are used. I do not know whether this pattern is wrong but I have never seen this pattern. anyone can explain more of this pattern.

The pattern is ok to use. As you must be aware "Which" is used to highlight non restrictive clause. Here in this case - option E provides extra information about bricks - first by using "THAT" - restrictive clause and second by using "Which" - non restrictive clause.

Hope this helps.

Hi chetan2u / daagh ,

I opted for A, which is wrong

Lets look on option 1 by 1.
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Option B-

As mentioned by daagh that its a run on sentence. I am not able to figure it how...

The bricks that were used in the construction of the West Virginian Georgian mansion of Wappocomo were manufactured in England and used as ballast to stabilize ships loading tobacco in the James River, journey in bullock carts over the Blue Ridge Mountains and Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians.

In the end I got stuck between A and B, but Choose A as we need to modify Bricks
Can you please tell 2 IC in this..?

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Option C and D are fragment.. DIRECT ELIMINATE

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Now Option E, which is the OA.

I eliminated it because "which" is modifying --> Wappocomo (which is not the intended meaning).

Whats wrong in my reasoning here...??

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As mentioned by other folks, neeraj609 A is a fragment...

The bricks that were used in the construction of the West Virginian Georgian mansion of Wappocomo were manufactured in England and used as ballast to stabilize ships loading tobacco in the James River, journeying in bullock carts over the Blue Ridge Mountains and Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians.

Were manufactured is the MAIN Verb here.

The only thing which makes A a fragment is, if we consider were manufactured as a part of modifier.
In that case it would be written as-->


The bricks that were used in the construction of the West Virginian Georgian mansion of Wappocomo and that were manufactured in England and used as ballast to stabilize ships loading tobacco in the James River.

Adding these two words makes this sentence a Fragment.

Correct me if I am wrong.?
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Why is A wrong and E is right ( Although WHICH in E modifying wrong noun).

Please assist.

Hi,

firstly, yes B is a run on sentence..
what does B read..
The bricks that were used in the construction of the West Virginian Georgian mansion of Wappocomo were manufactured in England and used as ballast to stabilize ships loading tobacco in the James River, journey in bullock carts over the Blue Ridge Mountains and Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians.

1)The bricks that were used in the construction of the West Virginian Georgian mansion of Wappocomo were manufactured in England and used as ballast to stabilize ships loading tobacco in the James River.
2) but "journey in bullock carts over the Blue Ridge Mountains and Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians." starts with a verb and does not have a subject. an "AND" as a conjunction would have made the sentence still ok grammatically..

i'll touch upon the two choices A and E, and try to list out the pros and cons..

A. The bricks that were used in the construction of the West Virginian Georgian mansion of Wappocomo were manufactured in England and used as ballast to stabilize ships loading tobacco in the James River, journeying in bullock carts over the Blue Ridge Mountains and Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians.
I would rate this better of the two, inspite of OA as E..
The first part/ clause is perfect and there is no ambiguity anywhere...
I will be slightly skeptical on the subordinate clause beggining with comma +verb- ing, as generally these clauses speak about result/action of the previous clause/main clause.
Here " journeying in bullock carts over the Blue Ridge Mountains and Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians." is not a result but another action related to the bricks..

E. The bricks that were used in the construction of the West Virginian Georgian mansion of Wappocomo, which had been manufactured in England and used as ballast to stabilize ships loading tobacco in the James River, journeyed in bullock carts over the Blue Ridge Mountains and Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians...
the sentences on one hand is grammatically correct if we remove the "which"part..
The bricks that were used in the construction of the West Virginian Georgian mansion of Wappocomo, which had been manufactured in England and used as ballast to stabilize ships loading tobacco in the James River, journeyed in bullock carts over the Blue Ridge Mountains and Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians...

But the problem lies with "which". It could easily refer to the mansion, a meaning not intended. bricks is separated too far with usage of other nouns and verb, so difficult to corelate the two..
Ofcourse the manufactured in " which had been manufactured" should logically be the bricks..

If not from OG, I would keep the Q aside in terms of its OA and take finer point on usage of "had been", journeyed etc in the sentence.

Hi chetan2u,

Thanks for your contribution..

Option B is
B Wappocomo were manufactured in England and used as ballast to stabilize ships loading tobacco in the James River, journey

Not
B Wappocomo and that were manufactured in England and used as ballast to stabilize ships loading tobacco in the James River, journey

I am still not able to recognize 2 different IC's with option B.
Can you please tell once again..??

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I added the word "and that" for option A.

According to me if A would be .

A Wappocomo and that were manufactured in England and used as ballast to stabilize ships loading tobacco in the James River, journeying----> Then it will a fregment.

But as of now I don't see it as fragment... I hope were manufactured is the MAIN verb in the sentence.

Please assist.

Hi,
the answer given by me was for the original B itself, 'and that' got added while I was copying from earlier post..

what does B read..
The bricks that were used in the construction of the West Virginian Georgian mansion of Wappocomo were manufactured in England and used as ballast to stabilize ships loading tobacco in the James River, journey in bullock carts over the Blue Ridge Mountains and Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians.

the two ICs are
1)The bricks that were used in the construction of the West Virginian Georgian mansion of Wappocomo were manufactured in England and used as ballast to stabilize ships loading tobacco in the James River.
2) journey in bullock carts over the Blue Ridge Mountains and Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians.

A point about 2)
2) "journey in bullock carts over the Blue Ridge Mountains and Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians." starts with a verb and does not have a subject. an "AND" as a conjunction would have made the sentence still ok grammatically..

Which refers to something that is immediately before it. In this case the use of "which" looks wrong. Can somebody please explain?

"Which" - is a relative pronoun modifier and relative pronoun modifiers act as Noun Modifiers. An important characteristic of Noun Modifiers is that Noun modifiers modify the noun close to the modifier. On this note, "Which" is considered modifying something that is immediately before it ("Which").

This undersanding is not always correct. Always in a sentence "Meaning or intent the sentence" is most IMPORTANT. In certain cases, "Which" can refer to slightly far way noun. (Many such examples are present in the Official Guide). Typically in such cases the structure is - Noun + Short information (prepositional phrase), "Which" - per the meaning of the sentence "Which" can refer to the slightly far away noun.

In this particular question (very specific case) , per the intent of the question "Which" is providing extra information regarding bricks. (as indicated in option E).

Always meaning first and grammar second.

Hope this helps.

Hi,

I would differ from you on this point..
"which" is ambiguous here, although the answer is the best possible available..
I have always seen GMAT testing it on grammer and not on 'intent'. I would request you to kindly share any OG examples, which you could have come across..
I have seen many testing it, just an example..

(D) The Erie Canal was seldom more than 40 feet wide or 12 feet deep and it ran 363 miles across the rugged wilderness of upstate New York, which connected the Hudson River at Albany to the Great Lakes at Buffalo, providing the port of New York City with a direct water link to the heartland of the North American continent...

this option is wrong and reason given is..
The paired concepts of width and depth should be joined by and, not or; this construction calls for two main clauses to be separated by a comma after deep; which is ambiguous

Clearly intent is the erie canal. it has to be a canal only that can connect a river and a lake, BUT OG claims it to be ambiguous..

OUR example is more doubtful on usage of which than the example above...

wow tough one..
so the bricks were used in the construction
the bricks were manufactured and used..
the bricks journeyed in bullock carts...


Wappocomo were manufactured in England and used as ballast to stabilize ships loading tobacco in the James River, journeying
ing modifier is illogical. bricks were manufactured and used by TRAVELLING? No. were manufactured and used -> and the result these bricks were travelling? no. so ing modifier is incorrect.

Wappocomo were manufactured in England and used as ballast to stabilize ships loading tobacco in the James River, journey
looks like after the coma, we have journey as a subject - but we do not have a verb..+the meaning is not clear.

Wappocomo, manufactured in England and used as ballast to stabilize ships loading tobacco in the James River and journeying
no active verb for the bricks.

Wappocomo, which had been manufactured in England and used as ballast to stabilize ships loading tobacco in the James River, and journeying
no active verb for the bricks

Wappocomo, which had been manufactured in England and used as ballast to stabilize ships loading tobacco in the James River, journeyed
only 1 verb for the bricks - journeyed.
which correctly modifies the bricks - everything that we have after that and up to the "which" is a looong noun modifier presented in a clause. we can ignore it, and see that which makes sense with the head of the noun phrase..

just a quick thought on your example with erie canal - we have S+V ...then which - which cannot jump OVER the verb, though it can easily jump over a long noun phrase and modify the head of the noun phrase.
in this question, we have S (long noun phrase) + which - which modifies the long noun phrase + Verb

it just happened so that I'm currently reviewing this topic on e-gmat..
this is what is explained in the course..

Hi mvictor,

You are correct on the VERB thing, but the example was given in response to


here meaning wise 'which' has to refer to canal, but still it is considered ambiguous...

In the Q about "the bricks that were..", why which cannot refer to MANSION..

As far as the learning from a source is considered, we should stick to the OG, as on many occassions many of them come up with very vague Qs and explanations..
look at one such Q from same source
https://gmatclub.com/forum/debatable-oas-and-qs-structures-by-gmat-institutes-214366.html

Why isn't this question deleted......or OA modified? This question has a blatant obvious error that will CONFUSE new people trying to learn the GMAT.
I'm not quite sure why extensive discussion is required...this question is just not a good question.

In this construction (heh): *construction of the West Virginian Georgian mansion of Wappocomo, which were manufactured in England*

", which" can only modify Wappocomo or mansion, even if we give it steroids, it may ( <1%) modify construction. But there isn't a drug in this world that can make it modify "bricks". "Bricks" is way way too FAR from ", which" and in GMAT, this is unacceptable.

Mods, can we please flag this question?