The diet of the ordinary Greek in classical times was largely vegetari

c,d,e on what bases did we eliminate these?

The diet ... was largely vegetarian—vegetables, fresh cheese, oatmeal, and meal cakes, ...

If The list talks about more than 2 items then after second items there should be and. Why not here like vegetables, fresh cheese, AND oatmeal, and meal cakes. Why AND is missing after fresh cheese? Experts????

there is no need for any explanation after Tommy`s, doing it just for myself


E

there are three points in a row. before the last one we can see the conjunction "and". So all options with another "and" are out.
rarity is much better than rare when you are trying to describe a noun.

The diet of the ordinary Greek in classical times was largely vegetarian—vegetables, fresh cheese, oatmeal, and meal cakes, and meat rarely.

(A) and meat rarely -- hold
(B) and meat was rare -- sound as if meat was scarce,eliminate
(C) with meat as rare -- sounds like an open-end comparison as rare..,eliminate
(D) meat a rarity -- just weird,a stand alone after comma but not in the list
(E) with meat as a rarity -- with rarely meat may be better to my ear.As a rarity sounds as if meat=rarity ?!

The diet of the ordinary Greek in classical times was largely vegetarian—vegetables, fresh cheese, oatmeal, and meal cakes, and meat rarely.

(A) and meat rarely
(B) and meat was rare
(C) with meat as rare
(D) meat a rarity
(E) with meat as a rarity

Dear gmatexam439,

Good day to you, my friend! I'm happy to respond.

This is another truly brilliant SC problem from the official GMAT. Like many more difficult questions, this one is designed to frustrate simply mechanical thinking. Language is not mathematics, and patterns in language that usually apply often can change in exceptional circumstances for logical or rhetorical purposes. If you are too attached to a tight literal understanding of the rules, you will be befuddled by one hard SC questions after another.

It's perfectly true one use of the em-dash is to set off a list of examples. It's perfectly true that, under ordinary condition, a list is just a collection of nouns in parallel, so the last element would be a noun. That's often the case, but not always. Sometimes, logic requires that we add some kind of comment at the end of a list--its source, its reputed veracity, or a notable exception.
Some religions recounts cases of humans who did not undergo physical death--Enoch and Elijah, according to the Hebrew Bible.
Some political parties claim objective qualities for their views--fair and balanced, as FOX News purports.
This is the way the preposition "with meat as a rarity" is used--an exception that clarifies the nature of the list.

Does this make sense?
Mike

AjiteshArun could you throw some light on why c is incorrect?

e seems like a better option than c, but what really is wrong with c ??

also, i think there should not be a comma before the first and .. it should be "and meal cakes" instead if " , and meal cakes" .. am i right???

kindly help !!

Regards,
Adit

Hello

Good day to you!

Please throw some light on my below doubt.

In the given sentence, "The diet of the ordinary Greek in classical times was largely vegetarian—vegetables, fresh cheese, oatmeal, and meal cakes, and meat rarely", I understand that we have a "—" that is used to provide the list of items. Since there is no second "—" in the sentence it means that all the items mentioned after "—" are part of the list. So shouldn't we use a noun after the last "and" (highlighted) because all the items are a noun.

Why is the usage of prepositional phrase — with meat as a rarity — correct here?

Please elucidate.

Regards

The Official Guide for GMAT Review, 10th Edition, 2003

Practice Question
Question No.: SC 104
Page: 668

The diet of the ordinary Greek in classical times was largely vegetarian—vegetables, fresh cheese, oatmeal, and meal cakes, and meat rarely.

(A) and meat rarely
(B) and meat was rare
(C) with meat as rare
(D) meat a rarity
(E) with meat as a rarity

I went through the thread and read the posts that say that two ands cannot be used together. I can now see where you are coming from on this.

I don't agree with those posts. The comma is not a problem, and two ands should be fine, in the sense that they are possible in those positions.

The first option ends up saying:
The diet of the ordinary Greek in classical times was (1) largely vegetarian... and (2) meat rarely.
Here the second item in the list does link to the diet (the diet was X and Y), but the structure it leads to is unidiomatic (the diet was meat rarely).

The second option ends up saying:
(1) The diet of the ordinary Greek in classical times was largely vegetarian... and (2) meat was rare.
Here the second item in the list is not clearly linked to the first, because it is a separate clause. That makes it sound as if the second item in the list is not continuing the thought introduced by the first.

The diet was veg and meat was rare.

This sounds as if we giving the reader two separate facts.

The diet of the ordinary Greek in classical times was largely vegetarian—vegetables, fresh cheese, oatmeal, and meal cakes, and meat rarely.

(A) and meat rarely
(B) and meat was rare
(C) with meat as rare
(D) meat a rarity
(E) with meat as a rarity

Request Expert Reply:
Hi honorable experts,
MartyTargetTestPrep, GMATNinja, GMATGuruNY, AjiteshArun, VeritasPrepHailey, BrightOutlookJenn,
What role does the highlighted part play? Is it modifier or anything else? If it is modifier, which one is modified by it?
I'm passing hard time to comprehend it!
Thanks_-

Look at the non underlined part first:

The diet ... was largely vegetarian—vegetables, fresh cheese, oatmeal, and meal cakes, ...

The list talks about what all constituted the vegetarian aspect: A, B, C and D.
The list is complete. So options (A) and (B) which seem to add meat to the list too by putting an "and" before it are incorrect.

As an aside, the sentence mentions that on rare occasions, meat was also served. This is done with the help of a prepositional modifier.

"with meat as a rarity"

"as" used with a noun gives you the role or purpose of the noun.

e.g. They appointed Kelly as the manager.

Then you need a noun "rarity", not "rare" (which is an adjective). Hence (C) is incorrect.

We do use adjectives with "as" in comparisons - "the meat was as rare as ..."

Option (D) gives "meat a rarity" joined with a comma. You can join a noun with a comma to give an appositive (rename the noun appearing before). Here, that is not taking place so (D) is not correct.

Answer (E)