The principal has sought approval for her plan to grant promotions to

kapslock,

The sentence attempts to convey that:
1) the principal has sought approval for X
2) he has not met with opposition

All of the choices except D place the phrase "without meeting opposition" close to the second noun "seventh-grade students" and hence change the meaning..

It should be D.

This is a Kaplan question. The OA is D.

Here's the given explanation by Kaplan: The principal is doing two things: seeking approval for her plan, and no meeting with any opposition. These two things should be in gramatically similar form. Since "has sought" isn't underlined, you need to change "without meeting with" in (A) to "has no met with" in (D).

I'd say D.

A) reading without meeting with opposition (we need a break after reading. otherwise it implys students reading without meeting"
B) reading, having met with no opposition (needs conjunction)
C) reading, without the opposition of others this looks like a dangling modifer. We need a coordinating conjuntion to relate the 2, what has met with no opposition? opposition of others is wordy as well
D) reading, and has not met with opposition (Good, clear, conjunction)
E) reading without opposition (same as A, sounds like the students are reading without opposition)

A, E -- distorts the meaning of sentence


C The principal has sought X, without the oppostion of others ("without the oppostion of others" modifies the principal or X) -- ambiguous
Following statement fixes the C by changing the modifier's position.
The principal, without the oppostion of others, has sought X
Correct me if i am wrong.

B The principal has sought X, having met with no opposition ( Modifier problem similar to C )

D The principal has sought X, and has not met with opposition
D describes better. [has sought || has met ]


Good one.

hi,
intended meaning of the sentences:-
The principle has sought approval.....bla blah blah....and has not met opposition.

A,C,E are out as there is a change in meaning.....seems like "students are proficient in reading without meeting with opposition"..

B is also awkward...seems like incomplete...

but in D
The principle has sought approval .....// to has not met with opposition.
hence D


br//surya.v

I bet on D, but in my mind "comma' is not needed. Two verbs "has sought" and "has no met" are connected by AND. The comma has to be ommited.

I agree with Dmitriy. Below is my reasoning.

If comma is used before "And", the second statement requires a subject.

The principal has sought...., and HE has ....

Some experts comments will be helpful for this question.

"Comma" before "And" gives the much needed clarity to the construction. without comma "seventh grade students" is likely to to be confused as the subject of the verb "has". This will lead to a subject verb agreement error.

The principal has sought approval.. those seventh grade students... , and has ...

Use of comma suggests that the "seventh grade students" is not the subject of the verb "has" and so the verb would take the previous subject(principal).

He has gone market to buy only those apples red in color and has ...

Seems apples has... (Incorrect)


He has gone market to buy only those apples red in color, and has ...

Because of "comma" - apples cant be the subject and thus "he" would be the subject.

Hope this helps!

Dolly Sharma
Verbal Trainer
CrackVerbal

Yes. B might imply that the lack of opposition occurred BEFORE the principal sought approval.

Have a doubt regarding option d. comma + co-ordinating conjunction is used for connecting two independent clauses,but 'Has not met with opposition' is not an independent clause as subject is missing.

This is a matter of establishing if we should be looking for a subordinate or a coordinate clause.
The crucial problem with "B" is that it links the president "seeking for approval" with a subordinate clause. It would read like:

"The principal sought approval, since he [had?] met with no opposition". It's a rather iffy construct, at best. Pay attention that even the sequence of tenses is potentially ambiguous/doubtful. It should appear intuitive enough that the president is going to seek for approval first, and then possibly meet with some opposing party.

D, on the other hand reads like:
"The principal sought approval and has not met with opposition". Much clearer.

Furthermore, to cementify B's status as the best option, "and" is objectively more definitive in establishing that the action is taken by the principal.

It's a legitimately hard question for a non-native speaker, nevertheless. Hope it's clearer now for those who couldn't wrap their head around the issue.

[source: https://depts.washington.edu/wbt401/Gram ... subord.htm]

Expert, Please clear the OE here..

While solving the question, I perceived the meaning of this sentence as The principal want to promote students that are proficient in reading without any distraction (I know this really sounds awful)
With this, I selected choice c.

But even in OA - D, It sounds more awkward to get the meaning that - The principal HAS NOT MET WITH OPPOSITION???

It should be something as, The principal has not found any opposing views (for her plan)..

Construction rule:
Independent clause (comma+conjunction) Independent clause

Parallelism:
X and Y (no comma unless its a list that includes more than 2 items.)

Why is it D then?

Hey Shiv2016

Normally, yes - you use "comma+and" in a list when you have more than 2 items in the list. However, this rule can be sometimes overridden. This is normally when the second item is separated from the first item with a lot of information in between. In such a case, to clarify the meaning, you can use "comma+and" even in a list of two items. For instance, in this question, you have the two verb phrases "has sought" and "has not met" separated with a substantial amount of information in between.

The principal has sought approval for her plan to grant promotions to only those seventh-grade students proficient in reading without meeting with opposition.

a) reading without meeting with opposition
d) reading, and has not met with opposition

Hope this helps!

Cheers!

Your observation is correct - the comma seems to be an oversight.



Option C implies that the action that the principal sought approval was without opposition (i.e. the seeking by the principal was not opposed). However this meaning is wrong. The intended meaning is that the principal was not opposed, not that his seeking was not opposed.

Option D is alright- The principal has sought approval. He has not met with opposition.
"The principal has not found any opposing views (for her plan)" is not quite different from "The principal has not met with opposition (for her plan)".

Hey!

Please consider the following correct sentence taken from OG 15:

There are several ways to build solid walls using just
mud or clay,
but the most extensively used method
has been

to form the mud or clay into bricks, and

,after some preliminary air drying or sun drying,

[u]to lay them in the wall in mud mortar.

As you can see, the two parallel elements in the second clause have been joined by "comma+and". Meaning wise, both these parallel elements together describe the most extensively used method mentioned in the but clause. So, if one were to ask you what is the most extensively used method, your answer would be to do x and, post abc (modifier), to do y. So, even when a comma is not a must before the and joining two elements, it can be used.

Please bear in mind that the comma before the and is NOT part of the modifying phrase "after some preliminary air drying or sun drying". This modifying phrase has its own set of commas, which I have highlighted separately.

So, the bottom line is that you cannot consider an answer choice incorrect purely because it joins two elements in a list with "comma+ and" - the complexity of the sentence must be factored in. Adding a punctuation, such as the comma, is the writers prerogative if it aids in a better reading, and therefore, a better understanding of the sentence.

The GMAT is not very likely to give you two identical choices, both of which talk about two elements in a list, convey the same meaning, and are grammatically constructed in the exact same fashion - except that one has a comma before and , while the other does not.

Cheers!

Read the Original Sentence Carefully, Looking for Errors:

The principal is seeking approval for her plan, and she has not met with any opposition so far. The way this sentence is written, it says the students in question are able to read without meeting any opposition. Eliminate (A). Seek an answer choice that assigns both actions to the principal.

Scan and Group the Answer Choices:

Since "has sought" isn't underlined, look directly for another choice that either includes "has" or simply the past participle of the verb following "has" (since the helping verb doesn't have to be repeated). (B) uses "having met" and (D) uses "has met." None of the other choices uses the verb.

Eliminate Wrong Answer Choices:

Eliminate (C) and (E), which persist in saying the children haven't met with opposition. (B) uses "having met" instead of "has met," so this verb is not in the same tense and thus is not parallel with "has sought."

(D) is the only choice that includes "has," thereby creating the proper parallel structure.

TAKEAWAY: Make sure that each action in a sentence relates clearly to the person or thing performing that action