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

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

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

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?

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.

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

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?

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?

Hello thereisaFire,

I will be glad to help you with this one.



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




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.




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.





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.



This choice repeats the errors of Choice D.


Hope this helps.
Thanks.
Shraddha

@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