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Sub 505 (Easy)|   Comparisons|               
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The Parthenon was a church from 1204 until 1456, when Athens 26 Nov 2021, 09:21
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Thanks for replying MartyTargetTestPrep

But please see the below question and the reply of Gmat Ninja

Although the restaurant company has recently added many new restaurants across the country and its sales have increased dramatically, its sales at restaurants open for more than a year have declined.



Reply from Gmat Ninja - The terms in blue are all the subjects of their respective clauses. Whenever a pronoun is the subject of a clause - or a possessive modifier, as is the case here for the two "its" - the most logical place to look for an antecedent is the subject of the first clause, or "the restaurant company." This makes perfect sense. The company's overall sales have increased even though the company's sales at older restaurants have gone down.

Is the above statement wrong?
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The Parthenon was a church from 1204 until 1456, when Athens 26 Nov 2021, 09:43
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Thanks for replying MartyTargetTestPrep

But please see the below question and the reply of Gmat Ninja

Although the restaurant company has recently added many new restaurants across the country and its sales have increased dramatically, its sales at restaurants open for more than a year have declined.

Reply from Gmat Ninja - The terms in blue are all the subjects of their respective clauses. Whenever a pronoun is the subject of a clause - or a possessive modifier, as is the case here for the two "its" - the most logical place to look for an antecedent is the subject of the first clause, or "the restaurant company." This makes perfect sense. The company's overall sales have increased even though the company's sales at older restaurants have gone down.

Is the above statement wrong?
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It's not really wrong. It's useful information.

It does leave out one thing though. The pronoun that serves as the subject of a relative clause often does not most logically refer to the subject of the preceding clause. So, the pronouns that begin clauses such as "which elephants like ...," "that were found in caves in France ...," or "who invented the telegraph ..." are not in the same category as "its" in the above example.

Also, notice that he said "the most logical place to look." So, he wasn't saying that a pronoun that is the subject of a clause always refers to the subject of the preceding clause.
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The Parthenon was a church from 1204 until 1456, when Athens 26 Nov 2021, 09:45
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Thanks for replying MartyTargetTestPrep

But please see the below question and the reply of Gmat Ninja

Although the restaurant company has recently added many new restaurants across the country and its sales have increased dramatically, its sales at restaurants open for more than a year have declined.

Reply from Gmat Ninja - The terms in blue are all the subjects of their respective clauses. Whenever a pronoun is the subject of a clause - or a possessive modifier, as is the case here for the two "its" - the most logical place to look for an antecedent is the subject of the first clause, or "the restaurant company." This makes perfect sense. The company's overall sales have increased even though the company's sales at older restaurants have gone down.

Is the above statement wrong?
It's not really wrong. It's useful information.

It does leave out one thing though. The pronoun that serves as the subject of a relative clause often does not most logically refer to the subject of the preceding clause. So, the pronouns that begin clauses such as "which elephants like ...," "that were found in caves in France ...," or "who invented the telegraph ..." are not in the same category as "its" in the above example.

Also, notice that he said "the most logical place to look." So, he wasn't saying that a pronoun that is the subject of a clause always refers to the subject of the preceding clause.
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Thanks For clarifying this !!!
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The Parthenon was a church from 1204 until 1456, when Athens 26 Nov 2021, 12:56
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Hi Experts

GMATNinja VeritasKarishma EducationAisle ChrisLele mikemcgarry AjiteshArun egmat sayantanc2k RonPurewal DmitryFarber MagooshExpert avigutman EMPOWERgmatVerbal MartyTargetTestPrep ExpertsGlobal5 IanStewart
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This is the second time i am answering this question and still marked wrong option

In option a "who established a mosque in the building and used the Acropolis as a fortress" Is a clause right?

Somewhere I read if a pronoun starts the clause then Pronoun refers to the subject of the main clause(So subject would be either Athens or The Parthenon) Rejected A.
One more reason
when Athens was taken by General Mohammed the Conqueror, the Turkish sultan is first clause (Dependent clause)

, who established a mosque in the building and used the Acropolis as a fortress is second clause (dependent clause) . These are just connected by comma - So two dependent clause can be connected by comma?

Please answer all the above queries.

Thanks
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A relative pronoun almost always has to modify the closest noun of the right type to fit the relative pronoun. In this case that's "sultan" (from "the Turkish sultan"), and it's perfectly logical and correct for the modifier to describe the sultan, so A is right. It is important to memorize this rule, as its very strict and relatively straightforward application will solve a lot of problems. Don't overthink it!

The rule you read about pronouns starting clauses describes clauses that parallel, rather than merely modify other clauses.

The independent clause here is "The Parthenon was a church from 1204 until 1456";
"when Athens was taken by General Mohammed the Conqueror" (relative clause) modifies "1456";
"the Turkish sultan" (appositive phrase) modifies "General Mohammed the Conqueror";
"who established a mosque in the building and used the Acropolis as a fortress" (relative clause) modifies "the Turkish sultan"

...and there is absolutely nothing wrong with stacking modifiers within other modifiers in this manner.
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The Parthenon was a church from 1204 until 1456, when Athens 04 Apr 2022, 22:37
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The Parthenon was a church from 1204 until 1456, when Athens was taken by General Mohammed the Conqueror, the Turkish sultan, who established a mosque in the building and used the Acropolis as a fortress.

Analysis:

The Parthenon (subject) was (verb) a church from 1204 until 1456
- , when (when is used to talk about time - here it is talking about 1456 or period when P ceased to be a church)
(when also starts a sub-ordinate clause)
- Athens (Subject) was (Verb) taken by General Mohammed the Conqueror
- , the Turkish sultan, (non- essential modifier)
- who (modified the conqueror) established (past tense - verb) a mosque in the building
- and used (parallelism - established & used) the Acropolis as a fortress.

No issues. Hence, Option A
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The Parthenon was a church from 1204 until 1456, when Athens 06 Aug 2022, 07:33
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I would like to quote Aristotle's SC Grail:
"Since Like is a preposition and As is a conjunction, use Like only to compare nouns and As for all other".

Although we are comparing the Acropolis to a fortress, we should have used Like. But why does this rule doesn't apply here?

[Yes I know putting Like in place of As sounds a bit odd]
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The Parthenon was a church from 1204 until 1456, when Athens 07 Aug 2022, 06:34
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I would like to quote Aristotle's SC Grail:
"Since Like is a preposition and As is a conjunction, use Like only to compare nouns and As for all other".

Although we are comparing the Acropolis to a fortress, we should have used Like. But why does this rule doesn't apply here?

[Yes I know putting Like in place of As sounds a bit odd]
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What's going on is that the sentence does not compare the Acropolis with a fortress. Let's take a look at the correct version.

The Parthenon was a church from 1204 until 1456, when Athens was taken by General Mohammed the Conqueror, the Turkish sultan, who established a mosque in the building and used the Acropolis as a fortress.

Notice that "as" is used in a "used x as y" construction, to convey that General Mohammed "used the Acropolis as a fortress."

A "used x as y" construction does not express a comparison. Rather, it communicates what something was used as. To communicate that one thing served as or was used as another, we use "as" rather than "like."

Here's another example:

As superintendent of the school system, John Andrews achieved many laudable goals.

In that sentence, "as" is used for communicating that John Andrews served as superintendent.
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The Parthenon was a church from 1204 until 1456, when Athens 10 Aug 2023, 19:37
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