The original Ancient Greek gymnasiums were incredibly

Question

The original Ancient Greek gymnasiums were incredibly advanced and had more in common with our modern universities than with our local fitness clubs, holding lectures and discussions on philosophy, literature, and music, and offering free public libraries, long before teachers such as Plato and Aristotle had begun their work.

A) had more in common with our modern universities than with our local fitness clubs, holding lectures and discussions on philosophy, literature, and music, and offering free public libraries, long before teachers such as Plato and Aristotle had begun their work

B) held lectures, discussed philosophy, literature, and music, and offered free public libraries long before teachers such as Plato and Aristotle began their work, having more in common with our modern universities than our local fitness clubs

C) had more in common with our modern universities than with our local fitness clubs, holding lectures and discussions on philosophy, literature, and music, and offering libraries free to the public, long before teachers such as Plato and Aristotle began their work

D) have more in common with our modern universities than our local fitness clubs; they held lectures and discussions on philosophy, literature, and music, and offered libraries free to the public, long before teachers such as Plato and Aristotle had begun their work

E) were more like our modern universities than our local fitness clubs, holding lectures and discussions on philosophy, literature, and music as well as offering free public libraries, long before teachers such as Plato or Aristotle had begun their work

Nightmare007 · Answer

is it E?? for parallelism.

Target gmat against the odds.

broall · Answer

A)had more in common with our modern universities than with our local fitness clubs, holding lectures and discussions on philosophy, literature, and music, and offering  free public  libraries, long before teachers such as Plato and Aristotle had begun their work
 trick here. "free public" is redundant

B)held lectures, discussed philosophy, literature, and music, and offered  free public  libraries long before teachers such as Plato and Aristotle began their work, having more in common with our modern universities than our local fitness clubs
 The same as A

C)had more in common with our modern universities than with our local fitness clubs, holding lectures and discussions on philosophy, literature, and music, and offering libraries free to the public, long before teachers such as Plato and Aristotle began their work
 The correct answer.

D) have  more in common with our modern universities than our local fitness clubs;  they  held lectures and discussions on philosophy, literature, and music, and offered libraries free to the public, long before teachers such as Plato and Aristotle had begun their work
 "have" is wrong here. "they" is amgibuous.

E)were more like our modern universities than our local fitness clubs, holding lectures and discussions on philosophy, literature, and music  as well as  offering  free public  libraries, long before teachers such as Plato or Aristotle  had  begun their work
 "as well as" is incorrect here as in the same category as "music". "had" is incorrect here since the fact that "long before teachers such as Plato and Aristotle had begun their work" needs to happen after the previous fact.

TheRzS · Answer

Hi e-GMAT,

Your help will be much appreciated.

To my understanding this portion in C is a  participial modifier :  “..holding lectures and discussions on philosophy, literature, and music, and offering libraries free to the public, long before teachers such as Plato and Aristotle began their work”

Is it allowed to  parallel   “holding” with “offering”  by  joining them with an “and”  to modify the same subject “Greek gymnasiums”?

Thanks and Regards
RzS

sleepynut · Answer

Let me add my view :-)

Please find my reasoning below.

rahimk7 · Answer

Had begun is wrong

Correct Answer choice C)

Correct comparison used .

Lucy Phuong · Answer

Hi, I am not e-GMAT but just wanna share my view. Should you have any comment, I'm glad to know.

I will call the portion you mentioned "V-ing modifier after comma" (don't bother to remember this name). In (C), this type of modifier is used to describe preceding clause "The original Ancient Greek gymnasiums were incredibly advanced and had more in common with our modern universities than with our local fitness clubs". In brief, the modifier describes how the gymnasiums were advanced and have more in common with modern universities..

Analyzing the sentence, we can see that the meanings of "holding..." and of "offering..." have equal importance in describing the preceding clause. Therefore, the usage of "and" is correct here.

egmat · Answer

Hello TheRzS , Thank you for your query. :-)

In answer choice C, both holding... and offering... are comma + verb-ing modifiers that modify the preceding action had more in common . These two action modifiers describes how the ancient Greek gymnasiums were more like our modern universities. Since both these modifiers have the same function in the sentence, that is, they modify the same entity, they do make a parallel list. The usage of comma + verb-ing modifiers has been discussed in great details with ample examples in our SC course. In fact, this concept features in our Free Trial course material. You can review this concept by simply registering at e-gmat.com free of cost. Hope this helps. :-)

Thanks. Shraddha

MadaraU · Answer

Hello there,
I think participial phrase "holding lectures and discussions on philosophy, literature, and music, and offering libraries free to the public, long before teachers such as Plato and Aristotle began their work" is just modifying subject of the sentence "The original Ancient Greek gymnasiums" rather than modifying an action.
"https://gmatclub.com/forum/this-lesson-covers-a-portion-of-gmat-pill-s-sc-framework-154137.html"

I could be wrong though, Can someone please shed some light on this matter, much appreciated!!

chesstitans · Answer

here is an official explanation:
in C, This choice corrects the only error from the original sentence by changing the past perfect tense into the simple past tense.
in B, The comma + verb-ing modifier “having” incorrectly refers to the preceding clause “teachers… began their work.” The teachers did not have anything in common with modern universities; the Ancient Greek gymnasiums did.

itisSheldon · Answer

egmat   GMATNinja   mikemcgarry 
The original Ancient Greek gymnasiums were incredibly advanced and had more in common with our modern universities than with our local fitness clubs, holding lectures and discussions on philosophy, literature, and music, and offering libraries free to the public, long before teachers such as Plato and Aristotle began their work.
 
In this sentence how are we framing timelines for "incredibly advanced" (Simple past)  and "more in common with our modern universities than with our local fitness clubs" (Past perfect) .
What can't we take both the events are happening in the same timeline. 
 
Help me with (, and) sentences. 
To my understanding, sentences like this(, and) should be followed by an independent clause.

anjanita · Answer

The correct answer choice is C. Here is my 2 cents

Error Analysis
The use of the past perfect tense "had begun" is incorrect since it has been used for a later event. The advanced Ancient Greek gymnasiums existed before Plato and others began their work.

Answer Choices
A.had more in common with our modern universities than with our local fitness clubs, holding lectures and discussions on philosophy, literature, and music, and offering free public libraries, long before teachers such as Plato and Aristotle had begun their work
Incorrect:
"had begun" is not correct...mentioned it in the error analysis.

B.held lectures, discussed philosophy, literature, and music, and offered free public libraries long before teachers such as Plato and Aristotle began their work, having more in common with our modern universities than our local fitness clubs
Incorrect:
The comma + verb-ing modifier "having" incorrectly refers to the preceding clause "teachers... began their work." The teachers did not have anything in common with modern universities; the Ancient Greek gymnasiums did.

C.had more in common with our modern universities than with our local fitness clubs, holding lectures and discussions on philosophy, literature, and music, and offering libraries free to the public, long before teachers such as Plato and Aristotle began their work
Correct:
This choice corrects the only error from the original sentence by changing the past perfect tense into the simple past tense.

D.have more in common with our modern universities than our local fitness clubs; they held lectures and discussions on philosophy, literature, and music, and offered libraries free to the public, long before teachers such as Plato and Aristotle had begun their work
Incorrect:
1) The simple present tense "have" is incorrectly used to present a fact from the past.
2) Removing "with" before "our local fitness clubs", this choice presents an ambiguous comparison. The two possible comparisons here are:
The gymnasiums had more in common with the modern universities than they had with local fitness clubs
Or the gymnasiums had more in common with the modern universities than the local fitness clubs had in common with the modern universities.
3) "They" is ambiguous 
4) This choice has the same verb tense error as in choice A.

E.were more like our modern universities than our local fitness clubs, holding lectures and discussions on philosophy, literature, and music as well as offering free public libraries, long before teachers such as Plato or Aristotle had begun their work

Incorrect:
1) This choice has the same comparison error as in choice D.
2) It also has the same verb tense error as in choice A.

anish777 · Answer

Hi egmat
the other options except A and C are eliminated because we are comparing "with the modern universities" to "local fitness clubs". A is eliminated because there is already a mention of the timeline by adding "long before" and hence, there is no need for the past participle "had begun". We are left with option C. is this analysis of mine correct ?

The original Ancient Greek gymnasiums were incredibly

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GMAT Sentence Correction (SC - EA only) Questions

The original Ancient Greek gymnasiums were incredibly

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