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555-605 Level|   Modifiers|   Modifiers|   Parallelism|                                 
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The nineteenth-century chemist Humphry Davy presented the results of 26 Oct 2021, 00:00
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Hello everyone,

I understood why option A is correct, but i had really hard time eliminating option E.

My reasoning is that in option E, whole underlined phrase is a ADVERBIAL MODIFIER and modifying the earlier clause. it is making sense to say Humphry Davy presented a critique and Humphry Davy envisioned something.

And also if see parallelism, the action words critiquing and envisioning are gerunds ( represent action ) and performing same role of modifier.

please enlighten where i am making mistake in my reasoning.
Thanks in advance.

GMATNinja sayantanc2k generis AjiteshArun VeritasKarishma
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The nineteenth-century chemist Humphry Davy presented the results of 26 Oct 2021, 10:24
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kadamhari825
Hello everyone,

I understood why option A is correct, but i had really hard time eliminating option E.

My reasoning is that in option E, whole underlined phrase is a ADVERBIAL MODIFIER and modifying the earlier clause. it is making sense to say Humphry Davy presented a critique and Humphry Davy envisioned something.

And also if see parallelism, the action words critiquing and envisioning are gerunds ( represent action ) and performing same role of modifier.

please enlighten where i am making mistake in my reasoning.
Thanks in advance.

GMATNinja sayantanc2k generis AjiteshArun VeritasKarishma
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Hi kadamhari825,

Critiquing in option E isn't a gerund (it's a present participle). The rest of what you said is correct though: critiquing is adverbial, and his own envisioning is a gerund. We can read E like this:

1. {He did something}, critiquing all the X as well as his own Y.

E tells us that he critiqued his own envisioning, which isn't the intended meaning.
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The nineteenth-century chemist Humphry Davy presented the results of 26 Oct 2021, 22:33
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kadamhari825
Hello everyone,

I understood why option A is correct, but i had really hard time eliminating option E.

My reasoning is that in option E, whole underlined phrase is a ADVERBIAL MODIFIER and modifying the earlier clause. it is making sense to say Humphry Davy presented a critique and Humphry Davy envisioned something.

And also if see parallelism, the action words critiquing and envisioning are gerunds ( represent action ) and performing same role of modifier.

please enlighten where i am making mistake in my reasoning.
Thanks in advance.

GMATNinja sayantanc2k generis AjiteshArun VeritasKarishma
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As per parallelism, both below would be acceptable:

- HD presented his results in his essay, a critique of all chemistry as well as a vision of a new Chemistry..
(His essays were a critique and a vision). Option (A) matches this.

- HD presented his results in his essay, critiquing all chemistry as well as envisioning a new Chemistry...
(He critiqued and envisioned)

Other options mix and match the two. Also, "His envisioning" is a trainwreck compared with "his vision" or "a vision". The pure noun form "vision" is far more suitable that the gerund "envisioning".

(B) a critique of all chemistry following Robert Boyle and also his envisioning of a

noun + gerund

(C) a critique of all chemistry after Robert Boyle and envisioning as well

noun + participle

(D) critiquing all chemistry from Robert Boyle forward and also a vision of

participle + noun

(E) critiquing all the chemistry done since Robert Boyle as well as his own envisioning of

Participle + gerund
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The nineteenth-century chemist Humphry Davy presented the results of 28 Oct 2021, 07:24
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Thanks a lot sayantanc2k VeritasKarishma

But even after going through following article few times, i could not differentiate between gerunds and present participle. it feels like both critiquing and his own envisioning present participles ( action nouns) to me. Is there any way to know which is participle and which is gerunds?

ARTICLE-https://gmatclub.com/forum/gerund-vs-present-participle-125289.html

Thanks and regards
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The nineteenth-century chemist Humphry Davy presented the results of 28 Oct 2021, 20:49
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kadamhari825
Thanks a lot sayantanc2k VeritasKarishma

But even after going through following article few times, i could not differentiate between gerunds and present participle. it feels like both critiquing and his own envisioning present participles ( action nouns) to me. Is there any way to know which is participle and which is gerunds?

ARTICLE-https://gmatclub.com/forum/gerund-vs-present-participle-125289.html

Thanks and regards
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Gerunds play the role of a noun and you can replace them with a noun. One indication of a noun present in many cases is the use of an article (a/an/the), but not always.

Try to replace the -ing with a noun and see if it makes sense.
"... as well as his own envisioning of ..." will make sense if we write "... as well as his own vision of ..."
envisioning is a gerund here.

But notice this:
"HD presented his results in his essay, critiquing all chemistry as well as ..." - Here "critiquing" is a participle i.e. acting as a modifier. If we replace with a noun, it doesn't work.
HD presented his results in his essay, critique all chemistry as well as ...


Read up some more on the two and practice some exercises online.
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The nineteenth-century chemist Humphry Davy presented the results of 17 Jun 2022, 06:18
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Errors:

1. "as well as" and "and" are Parallelism Markers.
In option A... "a critique... as well as a vision of ..." both are parallel. No issue..

In option B... "a critique of ... and also his envisioning of ..." one is Noun and later one is complex gerund. SO both can not be parallel. Also "a critique of..." modify "essay on heat and light". therefore "his envisioning of a new chemistry" should also modify "essay on heat and light".

Essay on heat and light was a critique of all chemistry following Robert doyle.
Essay on heat and light was his envisioning of a new chemistry that davy hoped to find.

In option C... "a critique of ... and envisioning as well..." Not parallel at all. "envisioning as well" is present participle phrase and should be parallel with something like that. but nothing before and seems to be parallel with this.

In Option D... "critiquing all chemistry...." is a present participle phrase, which can modify the previous clause.

Davy presented the results...., critiquing all chemistry from Robert forward.
Davy presented the results....., critiquing also a vision of new chemistry that Davy hoped to find.

2nd one does not make any sense to me.

In option E.... similar to D....

Davy presented the results...., critiquing all chemistry done since Robert
Davy presented the results...., critiquing his own envisioning of new chemistry that Davy hoped to find.
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The nineteenth-century chemist Humphry Davy presented the results of 26 Jun 2022, 03:36
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envisioning, as a pure noun, dose not exist in english. envisioning as a gerund, which acquire some features of noun and of verb exists.

"envisioning " in "envisioning of" works as a pure noun. this word dose not exist in english. , as a gerund, "envisioning" can go with direct object . a pure noun must go with " of +noun" .
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The nineteenth-century chemist Humphry Davy presented the results of 21 Aug 2022, 08:41
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Hello experts,
Although I know why other options are wrong, I am still having issues with A.
First of all, as well as is not a parallelism marker.
SO, how can "as well as" do the job for a parallelism marker (conjunction)?
meaning, how can a critique and a vision can be made parallel by using as well as?

Some, experts say, as well as is just a modifier, in that case, as well as is modifying Robert Boyle which is nonsensical. (a critique since robert boyle as well as a vision) a critique since a vision??- thats bad.

hence I rejected it.

1. may be as well as is never a modifier. If yes, then its not following the rule of noun modifier here.

2. So can we use "as well as" just like conjunctions? or Is there anything I'm missing? please guide, Thanks. :please:
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The nineteenth-century chemist Humphry Davy presented the results of 22 Aug 2022, 07:08
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Hello experts,
Although I know why other options are wrong, I am still having issues with A.
First of all, as well as is not a parallelism marker.
SO, how can "as well as" do the job for a parallelism marker (conjunction)?
meaning, how can a critique and a vision can be made parallel by using as well as?
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"X as well as Y" doesn't have to obey totally rigid strictures of parallelism because "X as well as Y" is what might better be called a "not-quite-parallel structure".
Its fundamental meaning requires X and Y to be comparable—so, in other words, the 'X' and the 'Y' should still be constructions that COULD theoretically be put in parallel (like all properly comparable things)—but sets them up in context with unequal standing / priority levels.
Specifically, "X as well as Y" means... "X and Y", but specifically in contexts where "Y" is something that's already known/typical/expected/standard/etc whereas "X" is something NEW/UNEXPECTED/SURPRISING/UNANTICIPATED/etc.[/b]

So, e.g., Annette, a dating coach, helps her clients achieve better self-awareness as well as matching them with potential partners.
Here, Annette is a professional dating coach, so Y = "matching [clients] with potential partners" is the basic job description that anybody would expect her to do. But X = helping clients develop better self-awareness is something above and beyond her basic job description.
Do you see why this sentence would be markedly WORSE if we just wrote it with "and"? It wouldn't become false, and it wouldn't strictly become wrong, but "X and Y" would be much less appropriate here because of the differing expectation levels for the X and the Y.


Having said all that—If you CAN make the two parts in "X as well as Y" parallel, you certainly should! Thus the structure of A is ideal.
(The sentence about Annette, above, has imperfect parallelism—there's a verb on the left side, but an __ing form on the right side. If THIS kind of thing ends up being CORRECT, you should NOT see any better parallel matching in any of the WRONG answers.)

Pl let me know if all of this makes sense!
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The nineteenth-century chemist Humphry Davy presented the results of 03 Sep 2022, 13:19
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EMPOWERgmatVerbal
Hello Everyone!

Let's tackle this question, one issue at a time, and narrow it down to the correct choice! First, let's take a quick look at the original question and highlight the major differences between the options in orange:

The nineteenth-century chemist Humphry Davy presented the results of his early experiments in his "Essay on Heat and Light", a critique of all chemistry since Robert Boyle as well as a vision of a new chemistry that Davy hoped to found.

(A) a critique of all chemistry since Robert Boyle as well as a vision of a
(B) a critique of all chemistry following Robert Boyle and also his envisioning of a
(C) a critique of all chemistry after Robert Boyle and envisioning as well
(D) critiquing all chemistry from Robert Boyle forward and also a vision of
(E) critiquing all the chemistry done since Robert Boyle as well as his own envisioning of

After a quick glance over the options, we can clearly see there are a few places we can focus on:

1. "a critique of" vs. "critiquing"
2. since / following / after / from Robert Boyle...
3. as well as... / and also... / and...

Let's start with #1 on our list: "a critique of" versus "critiquing." This will eliminate either 2 or 3 options, so it's a great place to start!

If we look carefully, we can see that the underlined portion of this sentence is part of a modifier that's giving us more information on "Essay on Heat and Light." What is it? A critique of chemistry that existed after Robert Boyle. Using -ing modifiers only works when we're modifying people, so the "critiquing" options aren't correct. Since we're modifying an object, we should use the phrase "a critique of" to convey that the modifier is referring to the essay, and not the person who wrote it. Let's see how each option breaks down:

(A) a critique of all chemistry since Robert Boyle as well as a vision of a
(B) a critique of all chemistry following Robert Boyle and also his envisioning of a
(C) a critique of all chemistry after Robert Boyle and envisioning as well
(D) critiquing all chemistry from Robert Boyle forward and also a vision of
(E) critiquing all the chemistry done since Robert Boyle as well as his own envisioning of

We can eliminate options D & E because they use "critiquing," which is mean to modify people, not objects!

Since so many people in the comments got hung up on the since/following/after concept, let's skip it and move to #3 on our list for now, which deals with parallelism!

The underlined modifier indicates that "Essay on Heat and Light" accomplishes two things:

1. Critiques the field of chemistry after Robert Boyle wrote about it
2. Creates a vision of a new chemistry Davy hopes to find

These two items must be written using parallel structure, so let's take a closer look at each option to figure out which ones use parallel structure and rule out those that don't. To make it easier to spot, I've added the ending to each option. Here's how they break down:

(A) a critique of all chemistry since Robert Boyle as well as a vision of a new chemistry that Davy hoped to found. --> PARALLEL
(B) a critique of all chemistry following Robert Boyle and also his envisioning of a new chemistry that Davy hoped to found. --> NOT PARALLEL
(C) a critique of all chemistry after Robert Boyle and envisioning as well new chemistry that Davy hoped to found. --> NOT PARALLEL

There you have it - option A is the correct choice because it uses parallel structure and phrases the modifier clearly!

(*One final note: If you are concerned that the sentence should say "...that Davy hoped to find" instead of "...that Davy hoped to found," I agree with you! I think this was a typo created by the person who originally posted this, so disregard that error and focus on the rest of the post!)


Don't study for the GMAT. Train for it.
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DmitryFarber
Since I see that you were active on this discussion, I would be so appreciative to learn your thoughts on the following... is the point mentioned above about -ing modifiers only being able to modify people correct?

Furthermore, on your view, why exactly is E incorrect? Would you need "while" as a connector instead of "as well as" to clearly convey that Davy did NOT critique his own vision? Thank you for your time.
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The nineteenth-century chemist Humphry Davy presented the results of 03 Sep 2022, 22:13
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Well, he doesn't say that his advice applies to all -ing modifiers, but it still doesn't make sense to limit "critiquing" in this way. It's not modifying a person or an object! It's an adverbial modifiers, so it modifies the preceding clause, which describes how Davy put his results into an essay. That's all fine.

However, D and E instantly fail because they aren't parallel. First, D. If you say "critiquing and also . . . ," you need another adverbial modifier--probably another -ing--not a noun. "Vision" is a noun, so D is out. E is a bit less clear. What is "as well as" joining? The best shot is still to interpret it like D. "Envisioning" is an -ing, so that's better, right? No, we have "his envisioning," so in this case "envisioning" is working as a noun, so E is no more parallel than D. One of the troubles with English is that we use -ing for so many different purposes!
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The nineteenth-century chemist Humphry Davy presented the results of 04 Sep 2022, 05:39
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woohoo921

Well, he doesn't say that his advice applies to all -ing modifiers, but it still doesn't make sense to limit "critiquing" in this way. It's not modifying a person or an object! It's an adverbial modifiers, so it modifies the preceding clause, which describes how Davy put his results into an essay. That's all fine.

However, D and E instantly fail because they aren't parallel. First, D. If you say "critiquing and also . . . ," you need another adverbial modifier--probably another -ing--not a noun. "Vision" is a noun, so D is out. E is a bit less clear. What is "as well as" joining? The best shot is still to interpret it like D. "Envisioning" is an -ing, so that's better, right? No, we have "his envisioning," so in this case "envisioning" is working as a noun, so E is no more parallel than D. One of the troubles with English is that we use -ing for so many different purposes!
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To clarify, why is "his envisioning" a noun? Is it a "thing"? Thank you again for this very helpful and quick reply. You rock!
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The nineteenth-century chemist Humphry Davy presented the results of 04 Sep 2022, 06:02
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woohoo921

Well, he doesn't say that his advice applies to all -ing modifiers, but it still doesn't make sense to limit "critiquing" in this way. It's not modifying a person or an object! It's an adverbial modifiers, so it modifies the preceding clause, which describes how Davy put his results into an essay. That's all fine.

However, D and E instantly fail because they aren't parallel. First, D. If you say "critiquing and also . . . ," you need another adverbial modifier--probably another -ing--not a noun. "Vision" is a noun, so D is out. E is a bit less clear. What is "as well as" joining? The best shot is still to interpret it like D. "Envisioning" is an -ing, so that's better, right? No, we have "his envisioning," so in this case "envisioning" is working as a noun, so E is no more parallel than D. One of the troubles with English is that we use -ing for so many different purposes!

To clarify, why is "his envisioning" a noun? Is it a "thing"? Thank you again for this very helpful and quick reply. You rock!
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Hello woohoo921,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, here "envisioning" is a gerund - a present participle ("verb+ing") that acts as a noun.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
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The nineteenth-century chemist Humphry Davy presented the results of 04 Sep 2022, 06:09
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woohoo921

Well, he doesn't say that his advice applies to all -ing modifiers, but it still doesn't make sense to limit "critiquing" in this way. It's not modifying a person or an object! It's an adverbial modifiers, so it modifies the preceding clause, which describes how Davy put his results into an essay. That's all fine.

However, D and E instantly fail because they aren't parallel. First, D. If you say "critiquing and also . . . ," you need another adverbial modifier--probably another -ing--not a noun. "Vision" is a noun, so D is out. E is a bit less clear. What is "as well as" joining? The best shot is still to interpret it like D. "Envisioning" is an -ing, so that's better, right? No, we have "his envisioning," so in this case "envisioning" is working as a noun, so E is no more parallel than D. One of the troubles with English is that we use -ing for so many different purposes!

To clarify, why is "his envisioning" a noun? Is it a "thing"? Thank you again for this very helpful and quick reply. You rock!

Hello woohoo921,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, here "envisioning" is a gerund - a present participle ("verb+ing") that acts as a noun.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
Experts' Global team
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But is it a gerund because of the "his own" before it... creating a noun phrase? If it was just "as well as envisioning a new chemistry" wouldn't that be a verb?
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The nineteenth-century chemist Humphry Davy presented the results of 05 Sep 2022, 05:47
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But is it a gerund because of the "his own" before it... creating a noun phrase? If it was just "as well as envisioning a new chemistry" wouldn't that be a verb?
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Hello woohoo921,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, yes; in this case, the presence of the possessive pronoun phrase "his own" makes "envisioning" a gerund; if a present participle is ever preceded by a possessive noun or pronoun or an article, it is definitely a gerund.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
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The nineteenth-century chemist Humphry Davy presented the results of 27 Dec 2022, 01:50
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EMPOWERgmatVerbal
Hello Everyone!

Let's tackle this question, one issue at a time, and narrow it down to the correct choice! First, let's take a quick look at the original question and highlight the major differences between the options in orange:

The nineteenth-century chemist Humphry Davy presented the results of his early experiments in his "Essay on Heat and Light", a critique of all chemistry since Robert Boyle as well as a vision of a new chemistry that Davy hoped to found.

(A) a critique of all chemistry since Robert Boyle as well as a vision of a
(B) a critique of all chemistry following Robert Boyle and also his envisioning of a
(C) a critique of all chemistry after Robert Boyle and envisioning as well
(D) critiquing all chemistry from Robert Boyle forward and also a vision of
(E) critiquing all the chemistry done since Robert Boyle as well as his own envisioning of

After a quick glance over the options, we can clearly see there are a few places we can focus on:

1. "a critique of" vs. "critiquing"
2. since / following / after / from Robert Boyle...
3. as well as... / and also... / and...

Let's start with #1 on our list: "a critique of" versus "critiquing." This will eliminate either 2 or 3 options, so it's a great place to start!

If we look carefully, we can see that the underlined portion of this sentence is part of a modifier that's giving us more information on "Essay on Heat and Light." What is it? A critique of chemistry that existed after Robert Boyle. Using -ing modifiers only works when we're modifying people, so the "critiquing" options aren't correct. Since we're modifying an object, we should use the phrase "a critique of" to convey that the modifier is referring to the essay, and not the person who wrote it. Let's see how each option breaks down:

(A) a critique of all chemistry since Robert Boyle as well as a vision of a
(B) a critique of all chemistry following Robert Boyle and also his envisioning of a
(C) a critique of all chemistry after Robert Boyle and envisioning as well
(D) critiquing all chemistry from Robert Boyle forward and also a vision of
(E) critiquing all the chemistry done since Robert Boyle as well as his own envisioning of

We can eliminate options D & E because they use "critiquing," which is mean to modify people, not objects!

Since so many people in the comments got hung up on the since/following/after concept, let's skip it and move to #3 on our list for now, which deals with parallelism!

The underlined modifier indicates that "Essay on Heat and Light" accomplishes two things:

1. Critiques the field of chemistry after Robert Boyle wrote about it
2. Creates a vision of a new chemistry Davy hopes to find

These two items must be written using parallel structure, so let's take a closer look at each option to figure out which ones use parallel structure and rule out those that don't. To make it easier to spot, I've added the ending to each option. Here's how they break down:

(A) a critique of all chemistry since Robert Boyle as well as a vision of a new chemistry that Davy hoped to found. --> PARALLEL
(B) a critique of all chemistry following Robert Boyle and also his envisioning of a new chemistry that Davy hoped to found. --> NOT PARALLEL
(C) a critique of all chemistry after Robert Boyle and envisioning as well new chemistry that Davy hoped to found. --> NOT PARALLEL

There you have it - option A is the correct choice because it uses parallel structure and phrases the modifier clearly!

(*One final note: If you are concerned that the sentence should say "...that Davy hoped to find" instead of "...that Davy hoped to found," I agree with you! I think this was a typo created by the person who originally posted this, so disregard that error and focus on the rest of the post!)


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is that correct that a comma-ing modifier always modifies people?
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The nineteenth-century chemist Humphry Davy presented the results of 27 Dec 2022, 05:42
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Schachfreizeit
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Hello Everyone!

Let's tackle this question, one issue at a time, and narrow it down to the correct choice! First, let's take a quick look at the original question and highlight the major differences between the options in orange:

The nineteenth-century chemist Humphry Davy presented the results of his early experiments in his "Essay on Heat and Light", a critique of all chemistry since Robert Boyle as well as a vision of a new chemistry that Davy hoped to found.

(A) a critique of all chemistry since Robert Boyle as well as a vision of a
(B) a critique of all chemistry following Robert Boyle and also his envisioning of a
(C) a critique of all chemistry after Robert Boyle and envisioning as well
(D) critiquing all chemistry from Robert Boyle forward and also a vision of
(E) critiquing all the chemistry done since Robert Boyle as well as his own envisioning of

After a quick glance over the options, we can clearly see there are a few places we can focus on:

1. "a critique of" vs. "critiquing"
2. since / following / after / from Robert Boyle...
3. as well as... / and also... / and...

Let's start with #1 on our list: "a critique of" versus "critiquing." This will eliminate either 2 or 3 options, so it's a great place to start!

If we look carefully, we can see that the underlined portion of this sentence is part of a modifier that's giving us more information on "Essay on Heat and Light." What is it? A critique of chemistry that existed after Robert Boyle. Using -ing modifiers only works when we're modifying people, so the "critiquing" options aren't correct. Since we're modifying an object, we should use the phrase "a critique of" to convey that the modifier is referring to the essay, and not the person who wrote it. Let's see how each option breaks down:

(A) a critique of all chemistry since Robert Boyle as well as a vision of a
(B) a critique of all chemistry following Robert Boyle and also his envisioning of a
(C) a critique of all chemistry after Robert Boyle and envisioning as well
(D) critiquing all chemistry from Robert Boyle forward and also a vision of
(E) critiquing all the chemistry done since Robert Boyle as well as his own envisioning of

We can eliminate options D & E because they use "critiquing," which is mean to modify people, not objects!

Since so many people in the comments got hung up on the since/following/after concept, let's skip it and move to #3 on our list for now, which deals with parallelism!

The underlined modifier indicates that "Essay on Heat and Light" accomplishes two things:

1. Critiques the field of chemistry after Robert Boyle wrote about it
2. Creates a vision of a new chemistry Davy hopes to find

These two items must be written using parallel structure, so let's take a closer look at each option to figure out which ones use parallel structure and rule out those that don't. To make it easier to spot, I've added the ending to each option. Here's how they break down:

(A) a critique of all chemistry since Robert Boyle as well as a vision of a new chemistry that Davy hoped to found. --> PARALLEL
(B) a critique of all chemistry following Robert Boyle and also his envisioning of a new chemistry that Davy hoped to found. --> NOT PARALLEL
(C) a critique of all chemistry after Robert Boyle and envisioning as well new chemistry that Davy hoped to found. --> NOT PARALLEL

There you have it - option A is the correct choice because it uses parallel structure and phrases the modifier clearly!

(*One final note: If you are concerned that the sentence should say "...that Davy hoped to find" instead of "...that Davy hoped to found," I agree with you! I think this was a typo created by the person who originally posted this, so disregard that error and focus on the rest of the post!)


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


is that correct that a comma-ing modifier always modifies people?
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Hello Schachfreizeit,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, no; if the "comma + present participle ("verb+ing")" construction modifies a clause, it denotes that the subject of the clause, whether a person or inanimate object, took the action conveyed through the participle.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
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The nineteenth-century chemist Humphry Davy presented the results of 05 Feb 2023, 00:00
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@ronpuruwel @jonshukruat AndrewN egmat shraddha in D and E what is the logiical issue in 'critiquing' modifyingpreceding the clause?

It makes perfect sense to say that finding were presented in the form of /by critiquing la bla and envisioning bla bla GMATNinja


egmat
thereisaFire



I would like to know whether my approach is right.


Please help me eliminate the incorrect choices with the right reasons.

Thanks in advance

Hello thereisaFire,

I will be glad to help you with this one. :-)

Quote:

Option A: A critique and a vision both refer to the essay and follow parallelism. Hence correct

Yes, your reason to select this choice is correct indeed.


Quote:
Option B: critique ...following Robert Boyle, and here critique is the essay. It's illogical to say that critique followed someone. Plus "and" and "also" both are present causing redundancy.

In this choice, the word "following" has been used to mean "after". For example, the decade following 2010. So, your analysis of "following" is not correct here. I personally never reject an answer choice for the usage of "and also". This choice is incorrect because the two supposedly parallel elements can be written in identical structure as we see in Choice A. Moreover, we must use the regular noun form of the verb rather than the verb-ing noun form of the verb. So, "his envisioning of..." is not good expression here.


Quote:
Option C: a critique ...after Robert, leads to meaning error. And the "critique ....envisioning" shows as if critique is doing the action of envisioning. Hence wrong.

You are correct about the meaning distortion issue here. However, "envisioning..." does not connect as a modifier with "a critique". These two entities are connected by "and". It means that they are meant to be parallel, but structurally they are not.



Quote:
Option D: Redundancy error (and & also).


Once again, the supposedly parallel elements are not structurally parallel. In addition, I do say that the use of the comma + verb-ing action modifier "critiquing..." is incorrect because the modifier is meant to modify the preceding noun, NOT the preceding action. The use of the action modifier in place of a noun modifier distorts the meaning.


Quote:
Option E: Meaning change: "as well as his own envisioning". As per this choice, it seems his refers to Davy, whereas the original statements just mentions a general term "vision".

This choice repeats the errors of Choice D.


Hope this helps. :-)
Thanks.
Shraddha
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The nineteenth-century chemist Humphry Davy presented the results of 05 Feb 2023, 04:00
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Elite097
@ronpuruwel @jonshukruat AndrewN egmat shraddha in D and E what is the logiical issue in 'critiquing' modifyingpreceding the clause?

It makes perfect sense to say that finding were presented in the form of /by critiquing la bla and envisioning bla bla GMATNinja


egmat
thereisaFire



I would like to know whether my approach is right.


Please help me eliminate the incorrect choices with the right reasons.

Thanks in advance

Hello thereisaFire,

I will be glad to help you with this one. :-)

Quote:

Option A: A critique and a vision both refer to the essay and follow parallelism. Hence correct

Yes, your reason to select this choice is correct indeed.


Quote:
Option B: critique ...following Robert Boyle, and here critique is the essay. It's illogical to say that critique followed someone. Plus "and" and "also" both are present causing redundancy.

In this choice, the word "following" has been used to mean "after". For example, the decade following 2010. So, your analysis of "following" is not correct here. I personally never reject an answer choice for the usage of "and also". This choice is incorrect because the two supposedly parallel elements can be written in identical structure as we see in Choice A. Moreover, we must use the regular noun form of the verb rather than the verb-ing noun form of the verb. So, "his envisioning of..." is not good expression here.


Quote:
Option C: a critique ...after Robert, leads to meaning error. And the "critique ....envisioning" shows as if critique is doing the action of envisioning. Hence wrong.

You are correct about the meaning distortion issue here. However, "envisioning..." does not connect as a modifier with "a critique". These two entities are connected by "and". It means that they are meant to be parallel, but structurally they are not.



Quote:
Option D: Redundancy error (and & also).


Once again, the supposedly parallel elements are not structurally parallel. In addition, I do say that the use of the comma + verb-ing action modifier "critiquing..." is incorrect because the modifier is meant to modify the preceding noun, NOT the preceding action. The use of the action modifier in place of a noun modifier distorts the meaning.


Quote:
Option E: Meaning change: "as well as his own envisioning". As per this choice, it seems his refers to Davy, whereas the original statements just mentions a general term "vision".

This choice repeats the errors of Choice D.


Hope this helps. :-)
Thanks.
Shraddha
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Hello Elite097,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, take a close look at the structure of the phrases "critiquing all chemistry from Robert Boyle forward and also a vision of" and "critiquing all the chemistry done since Robert Boyle as well as his own envisioning"; in both cases "critiquing" acts upon two elements linked by a conjunction ("a vision" and "his own envisioning"), incorrectly implying that Humphry Davy also critiqued his own vision of a new chemistry.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
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The nineteenth-century chemist Humphry Davy presented the results of 23 Apr 2023, 03:54
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Can someone please explain how is " hoped to found" correct ? Is it not wrong usage of verb tense?
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