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The cathedrals of the Middle Ages were community centers just as much

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ExpertsGlobal5

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06 Jan 2022, 05:20

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sahilvermani

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A comparison is ambiguous only if it allows for more than one LOGICAL interpretation

Hello GMATGuruNY Sir, if we look at this sentence:

Ranked as one of the most important of Europe’s young playwrights, Franz Xaver Kroetz has written forty plays; his works—translated into over thirty languages—are produced more often than any contemporary German dramatist.

This is a wrong sentence and the explanation provided is: A dramatist cannot be produced.

Since as per logical interpretation, a dramatist indeed cannot be produced (which is quite obvious), this should not have been provided as a reason to eliminate this answer choice.

Please help.

Hello sahilvermani,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, in the example you have given the only possible interpretation is that Kroetz's plays are produced more often than any contemporary dramatist is produced.

Here, the error is not that the sentence produces an ambiguous meaning; rather, it is that the meaning is outright incorrect and illogical.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
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06 Jan 2022, 05:22

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sahilvermani

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A comparison is ambiguous only if it allows for more than one LOGICAL interpretation

John ate more candy than Mary.
Grammatically, Mary can serve as a subject or as an object.
Mary = subject:
John ate more candy than Mary [ate candy].
Mary = object:
John ate more candy than [John ate] Mary.
While both sentences are grammatically possible, only the first makes sense semantically.
As a result, there is no ambiguity.
Cleary, how JOHN ATE CANDY is being compared to how MARY ATE CANDY.
Only the green interpretation is viable.

John ate more candy than cake.
Grammatically, cake can serve as a subject or as an object.
cake = subject:
John ate more candy than cake [ate candy].
cake = object:
John ate more candy than [John ate] cake.
While both sentences are grammatically possible, only the second makes sense semantically.
As a result, there is no ambiguity.
Cleary, how JOHN ATE CANDY is being compared to how JOHN ATE CAKE.
Only the green interpretation is viable.

John likes Mary more than Carol.
Grammatically, Carol can serve as a subject or as an object.
Carol = subject:
John likes Mary more than Carol [likes Mary].
Carol = object:
John likes Mary more than [John likes] Carol.
Here, both interpretations make sense.
Since it is not clear whether Carol is intended to serve as a subject or as an object, the sentence in red is ambiguous and thus is not viable.

Answer choice: His works are produced more often than any contemporary German dramatist.
Grammatically, any contemporary German dramatist must serve as a SUBJECT.
No other grammatical interpretation is possible.
As a result, the following comparison is implied:
His works are produced more often than any contemporary German dramatist [is produced].
This comparison is illogical, since a dramatist cannot be produced.
Here, the answer choice is not ambiguous; it is simply nonsensical.

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07 May 2022, 23:43

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GMATNinja

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GMATNinja, can you please help me understand choice D? I initially eliminated D&E because in "...as purely religious edifices, structures..." , "structures" seems to modify religious edifices instead of cathedrals. Is my understanding incorrect? Or is it not an absolute rule that a noun, noun has to modify the immediately proceeding noun, but instead it CAN modify the subject?

Not a rule. Consider a simple example:

"Tim

the kind of guy

It seems pretty clear here that "the kind of guy" is referring to "Tim," rather than an unnamed "scoundrel." After all, the entire sentence is about Tim! How would it make any sense to begin this sentence by talking about a specific person and then changing course to make a generalization about scoundrels? And how can any generalization be a "kind of guy?" There's no rule in play here, but context and logic make the modifier's function obvious.

Similar deal in (D):

Quote:

The cathedrals of the Middle Ages were as much community centers as purely religious edifices, structures that represented a city’s commitment to a public realm.

Again, the entire sentence is about the subject, "the cathedrals of the Middle Ages." It makes far more sense for "structures" to refer to these specific cathedrals than to refer to "religious edifices" in general. Otherwise the writer is making one statement about cathedrals and then a second unrelated statement about unnamed religious edifices. If that were really the intent, why not just write a new sentence altogether, or include a conjunction to indicate that the focus of the sentence had changed?

The takeaway: the best way to think about noun modifiers is simply to ask yourself whether the modifier in question is reasonably close to a noun it might logically describe. If it is, don't treat the construction as an error.

I hope that clears things up! Also, you get 10 (mythical) bonus points if you're a GMAT Club member who actually knows who Juan Toscano-Anderson is.

GMATNinja

I have a question.

I understand that Pronoun ambiguity is not an absolute rule to eliminate a choice.

According to your another post in this question, "they" that could refer to "cathedrals" or to "community centers."
In (D), I think the word "structures" does the same thing. We interpret that "structures" logically refers to "The cathedrals of the Middle Ages" why "they don't

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08 May 2022, 05:06

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Tanchat

GMATNinja

C6R391

Not a rule. Consider a simple example:

"Tim

the kind of guy

Quote:

The cathedrals of the Middle Ages were as much community centers as purely religious edifices, structures that represented a city’s commitment to a public realm.

Hello Tanchat,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, the pronoun "they" actually does follow the same logical pattern that the noun "structures" does; pronoun ambiguity is simply not an issue in this question.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
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22 Jul 2022, 13:54

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Isn't (D) ambiguous?

Cathedrals were as much community centers as purely religious edifices could be:
1) Cathedrals were as much community centers as purely religious edifices were,
2) Cathedrals were as much community centers as they were purely religious edifices

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23 Jul 2022, 09:14

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gmatimothy

As noted in my earlier post, a comparison may be considered ambiguous only if it allows for more than one LOGICAL interpretation.

PURELY religious = used ONLY for religious purposes
Interpretation 1 implies the folowing:
Cathedrals were as much community centers as purely religious edifices were community centers.
Since the usage of purely conveys that the edifices in red were used ONLY FOR RELIGiOUS PURPOSES, it is not possible that they were also COMMUNiTY CENTERS.
This interpretation is illogical and thus can be discarded.

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29 Aug 2022, 16:10

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Tanchat

I have a question.

I understand that Pronoun ambiguity is not an absolute rule to eliminate a choice.

According to your another post in this question, "they" that could refer to "cathedrals" or to "community centers."
In (D), I think the word "structures" does the same thing. We interpret that "structures" logically refers to "The cathedrals of the Middle Ages" why "they don't

Sorry for the delay in responding!

Sentence correction is all about comparing your options. If you're down to (D) and (E), then you can't use "structures" as a decision point, since it appears in both answer choices.

(E) has an extra pronoun ("they") that could technically refer to one of two plural nouns. Is it pretty obvious what the pronoun should refer to? Sure... and that's why it's definitely not a dealbreaker.

But omitting the pronoun in (D) makes the meaning slightly clearer, and that gives us a tiny vote in favor of (D) over (E) (as discussed in this post, in case you missed it).

I hope that helps a bit!

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04 Oct 2022, 09:04

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Dear experts,

Apologize for a silly question.

I have seen we use "as much as" when we want to compare amount of A to amount of B.
What does "as much as" mean here?

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08 Jan 2023, 10:35

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Tanchat

Dear experts,

Apologize for a silly question.

I have seen we use "as much as" when we want to compare amount of A to amount of B.
What does "as much as" mean here?

Not silly at all! Here we're essentially comparing the degree to which the cathedrals were used as those two things: 1) community centers and 2) purely religious edifices.

That's a difficult thing to quantify, but you could compare the two with some stats (e.g. # of visitors per week for each purpose, or total hours spent in the buildings for each function or whatever).

In this case, the level of use for each function was roughly the same, so we can say that the cathedrals were as much (thing 1) as (thing 2).

I hope that helps!

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EMPOWERgmatVerbal

Hello Everyone!

Let's tackle this question, one thing at a time, and narrow down our options quickly so we know how to answer questions like this when they pop up on the GMAT! To begin, let's take a quick look at the question and highlight any major differences between the options in orange:

The cathedrals of the Middle Ages were community centers just as much as they were purely religious edifices; and they were structures that represented a city’s commitment to a public realm, the opposite of being a private one.

(A) community centers just as much as they were purely religious edifices; and they were structures that represented a city’s commitment to a public realm, the opposite of being a private one
(B) community centers as much as purely religious edifices; they were structures representing a city’s commitment to a public realm, as opposed to private
(C) community centers as well as purely religious edifices; they were structures that represented a city’s commitment to a public realm, not private ones
(D) as much community centers as purely religious edifices, structures that represented a city’s commitment to a public realm, as opposed to a private one
(E) as much community centers as they were purely religious edifices, structures representing a city’s commitment to a public realm, opposite of a private one

After a quick glance over our options, there are a few things we can focus on to narrow down our choices:

1. as much as / as well as (Idioms & Comparisons)
2. ; and they were / ; they were / , structures (Punctuation)
3. that represented / representing (Verb Usage)
4. the opposite of / as opposed to / not / opposite of (Idioms & Comparisons)

Since 2 items on the list have to do with Idioms/Comparisons, let's start there. This may seem unorthodox, but let's tackle #4 on our list first. Make sure that both items being compared are equal and that the idiom structure used is correct:

(A) structures that represented a city’s commitment to a public realm, the opposite of being a private one = NOT PARALLEL ("being" needs to be in both or in neither)
(B) structures representing a city’s commitment to a public realm, as opposed to private = NOT PARALLEL (comparing a realm to private)
(C) structures that represented a city’s commitment to a public realm, not private ones = NOT PARALLEL (comparing a singular "realm" to plural "ones")
(D) structures that represented a city’s commitment to a public realm, as opposed to a private one = PARALLEL
(E) structures representing a city’s commitment to a public realm, opposite of a private one = PARALLEL

We can eliminate options A, B, & C because the comparison of public & private realms wasn't parallel. Now that we have it narrowed down to 2 options, let's focus on the other items on the list to see if we can find any other problems:

(D) as much community centers as purely religious edifices, structures that represented a city’s commitment to a public realm, as opposed to a private one

This is CORRECT! Both comparisons (public realm/private one & community centers/religious edifices) are parallel in kind.

(E) as much community centers as they were purely religious edifices, structures representing a city’s commitment to a public realm, opposite of a private one

This is INCORRECT because the two items being compared here - community centers & they were purely religious edifices - are not parallel. They would both need the phrase "they were" to be parallel (or take it out of both).

There you have it - option D is the correct choice! By focusing on the main grammar issue we see more than once in the sentence, we could eliminate options quickly and get to the correct one even quicker!

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

Question: In Option D, isn't the modifier "structures that represented a city's commitment to a public realm, the opposite of being a private one" modifying religious edifices as opposed to the cathedrals? Wouldn't a semicolon be required to modify cathedrals?

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NehaKalani

Hello NehaKalani,

Hope you are doing well. I will be glad to help you with this one.

The modifier in the correct answer choice D, the modifier "structures that represent..." is a Noun + Noun Modifier in which "structures" is the Noun and "that represent..." is the Noun Modifier. Together, this Noun + Noun Modifier can modify any noun in the preceding clause. In fact, this modifier can also modify the preceding clause. The modification depends on the context of the sentence.

In Choice D, this Noun + Noun Modifier correctly modifies the subject in the preceding clause "The cathedrals". Now, using a semicolon before this modifier will make this choice ungrammatical. Why? Because a semicolon joins two independent clauses. In Choice D, the part before the comma is an independent clause. This clause has an SV pair and presents a complete action. However, the noun "structures" does not have a verb. Yes, we have a dependent clause - "that represented a...". There is no independent clause that can be connected to the preceding independent clause by a semicolon. Therefore, the use of teh comma is correct in this choice.

For everything that you need to know about Noun + Noun Modifiers, please read our very famous article by the same name: https://gmatclub.com/forum/noun-noun-modifiers-the-most-versatile-modifier-137292.html

Hope this helps.

Thanks.
Shraddha

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Analysis of Option D and Option E

This question is same as "I love bio more than chemistry"---->>>Although we can write it gramatically in two correct ways but meaning wise only one interpretation is correct i.e. "I love bio more than I do(love) chem"...The other interpretation i.e. "I love bio more than chem does" is illogical . Now in this question in option D and E we have ---->> Option D--->>The cathedrals of the Middle Ages were as much community centers as purely religious edifices.------->>>> Option E --->>> The cathedrals of the Middle Ages were as much community centers as they were purely religious edifices...-------------->>>>> Now option E although removes ambiguity but its not required. Option D does not removes ambiguity bcoz only one interpretation gives the correct meaning .