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Not exactly! The use of "And" sounds much better to me than the use of a preposition "with". "and" atleast keeps the segue.
I agree with Bunuel, I also chose B and later found out that it was wrong. I still can't understand why E is better than B.

I'm not sure why you quote Ajitesh when you write "Not exactly!" when Ajitesh is the only expert in the thread who you seem to agree with! And Ajitesh is right -- there's nothing inherently wrong with using "and" at the end of a list, and then following that list with another "and". If I write: I mainly eat potatoes, pasta, and rice, and I eat fish on holidays, that's a perfectly good sentence. The whole purpose of the "and" I highlight in red is to indicate that the list is about to end, so we know that a subsequent "and" (the one in blue) is a conjunction joining the list to a second idea.

So I disagree with the many expert posts in this thread, including the top post, that dismiss B because of some blanket objection to using "and" twice. In answer B, the second "and" clearly does not continue the list, but instead joins it to a new idea, so we aren't using "and" twice in the same list (which we can't do). It's not a problem, and I agree with Ajitesh about that (and as far as I can tell, with no other expert in this thread). The problem I see with B comes down to meaning. When we describe meat as "rare", we usually mean "almost uncooked". To be sure the sentence does not convey that unintended meaning, we need to avoid phrases like "rare meat" or "meat was rare", and replace it with "and rarely included meat" or, "with meat on rare occasions", or, as answer E awkwardly does, "with meat as a rarity", so it becomes clear that meat was a rare inclusion in the diet, and not that the meat itself was rare.
Well, I said "not exactly!" to AjiteshArun over his below statement:
Quote:
The diet was veg and meat was rare.
This sounds as if we giving the reader two separate facts.
I didn't know that by "rare", he meant "almost uncooked". The link that he had shared is dead so I didn't know what he meant. But after reading your explanation, now I understand what he actually meant. :P
Thanks for pointing that out. :) Now it's lucid. :)
so yea, now I take my "not exactly!" back! :P lol

PS: Feels pretty good knowing that I, Ajitesh and Bunuel were the only three on this site who could see this flaw. :P
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While the GMAT generally does not test punctuation, B can be eliminated because of a compelling punctuation issue.

OA: The diet of the ordinary Greek in classical times was largely vegetarian—vegetables, fresh cheese, oatmeal, and meal cakes, with meat as a rarity.
Here, the entire portion in green plays an adverbial role, expressing HOW the diet WAS LARGELY VEGETARIAN.

B: The diet of the ordinary Greek in classical times was largely vegetarian--vegetables, fresh cheese, oatmeal, and meal cakes, and meat was rare.
Here, the red portion is positioned between the two independent blue clauses connected by and.
As a result, the red portion serves as a PARENTHETICAL THOUGHT.
If a parenthetical thought is preceded by a dash, it must also be FOLLOWED by a dash, as follows:
John liked three flavors -- vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry -- and the local market sold all three.
In B, the red parenthetical thought is preceded by a dash but incorrectly followed by a COMMA.
Eliminate B.
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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????
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AbhishekDhanraJ72
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????
Not sure I get your question Abhishek.

Basically, if the list talks about more than 2 items then there should be an "and" before the last item.

Quad is a diplomatic network of four countries, which include India, Japan, Australia, and the United States.
- There are 4 items in the list and so, we place an "and" before the last item (United States).

It would be wrong to say:

Quad is a diplomatic network of four countries, which include India, Japan, and Australia, and the United States.
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AbhishekDhanraJ72
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????
Not sure I get your question Abhishek.

Basically, if the list talks about more than 2 items then there should be an "and" before the last item.

Quad is a diplomatic network of four countries, which include India, Japan, Australia, and the United States.
- There are 4 items in the list and so, we place an "and" before the last item (United States).

It would be wrong to say:

Quad is a diplomatic network of four countries, which include India, Japan, and Australia, and the United States.

You got my question. Thank you for clearing my doubt....
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TommyWallach
Hey All,

No one bothered to explain this one on here, so I figured I'd weigh in, since it's a quick one.

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

Obviously, this is a parallelism issue. Every list needs to have "and" at the end. You can't use "and" twice, unless the second to last item in the list is a compound. For example: "I like all kinds of sandwiches: reuben, turkey, pastrami, peanut butter and jelly, and veggie." But in that case, there are two nouns in that second to last entry (peanut butter and jelly). We don't have that here, so there's no justification for having two "and"s.

(A) and meat rarely
PROBLEM: No and allowed.

(B) and meat was rare
PROBLEM: Again.

(C) with meat as rare
PROBLEM: You can't just say "meat as rare". As sets up either a comparison ("meat as rare as an uncooked log.") or some type of prepositional phrase ("meat as metaphor for life...").

(D) meat a rarity
PROBLEM: We need some segue from the last item in the list.

(E) with meat as a rarity
ANSWER: We get the prepositional phrase. It's a bit odd, since it's modifying something that came a long time ago, but it's still the best choice.

Hope that helps!

-tommy

Hi TommyWallach,

In option B, can't the ",and" act like a conjunction for two independent sentences?
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The diet of the ordinary Greek in classical times was largely vegetarian—vegetables, fresh cheese, oatmeal, and meal cakes, and meat rarely.

In this question, we need a subtle addition of the mention of "meat" so that it can gel well with the noun/noun phrases, and prepositional phrase (which acts as adverbial here) does that beautifully. The independent clause in the end as with B, makes it feel as if "meat was rare" was added later on, and spoils the smooth flow of the sentence.

(A) and meat rarely - No. Adverb "rarely" can modify verb, adjective, and adverb but noun "meat."
(B) and meat was rare - No. Discussed above.
(C) with meat as rare - No. After as we need noun and not an adjective "rare."
(D) meat a rarity - No
(E) with meat as a rarity - Yes.
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