The thirteen original British colonies in North America, some formed

Question

The thirteen original British colonies in North America,  some formed as commercial ventures, others as religious havens, each had a written charter  that set forth its form of government and the rights of the colonists.

(A) some formed as commercial ventures, others as religious havens, each had a written charter

(B) some being formed as a commercial ventures, others as religious havens, all of which had written charters

(C) some that as commercial ventures, others as religious havens, all had written charters

(D) with some being formed as a commercial venture, others as religious havens, all had written charters

(E) with some formed as commercial ventures, while others as religious havens, each had a written charter

VeritasPrepBrian · Accepted Answer

Really good question, and it sets up one of my favorite Sentence Correction "hacks." Note that the pronoun "its" is fixed outside the underline:

...that set forth  its  form of government...

You're stuck with that singular "its" (it's not underlined so you can't change it), and that should signal that you need the individual/singular "each" and not the collective "all." Something like "the colonies all had charters that established its form of government" is just a huge numerical agreement error.

The bigger lesson (and I swear I learned this from years of doing Sentence Correction "upside down" as a tutor looking across a library or Starbucks table at the problem a student was doing) is that if you see a pronoun fixed outside the underline, there's a very very good chance it controls a singular/plural decision elsewhere in the problem. That was always one of my "cheats" as a tutor...I'd be reading an Official Guide problem upside down and as soon as I scanned and saw a familiar "its" or "they" or any other pronoun, I *knew* I had a singular/plural decision point to work with. So that's still something I always look for. Pronoun outside the underline --> use that as a tool to 1) search for an agreement error somewhere in the problem, and 2) establish whether you need singular or plural.

kinjiGC · Answer

The thirteen original British colonies in North America,  some formed as commercial ventures, others as religious havens, each had a written charter  that set forth its form of government and the rights of the colonists.

if we look at the non-underline sentence fragment "that set forth  its  form of government and the rights of  the  colonists" -> the sentence is describing "each" colony one at a time.

A) some formed as commercial ventures, others as religious havens, each had a written charter
B) some being formed as a commercial ventures, others as religious havens,  all  of which had written charters ->  Because of the above issue 
C) some that as commercial ventures, others as religious havens,  all  had written charters ->  Because of the above issue 
D) with some being formed as a commercial venture, others as religious havens,  all  had written charters ->  Because of the above issue 
E) with some formed as commercial ventures, while others as religious havens, each had a written charter

now with can be used as adverbial phrase (most of the time) and sometimes, with is used to modify the subject.
Here with can be used to modify the subject - Colonies.
Now in option E)  with  some  formed  as commercial ventures, while others as religious havens, each had a written charter
"with" used to modify the colonies 
"formed" is also used to modify the colonies.
The correct option E)  could be  -> "with some as commercial ventures, while others as religious havens, each had a written charter"
Now with is modifying the subject -> colonies.

Hence A) is correct.

Hunt · Answer

IMO A.....
A) some formed as commercial ventures, others as religious havens, each had a written charter----Clear & consise
B)  some being  formed as a commercial ventures, others as religious havens, all of which had written charters
C)  some that as  commercial ventures, others as religious havens, all had written charters
D)  with some being  formed as a commercial venture, others as religious havens, all had written charters
E)  with some  formed as commercial ventures, while others as religious havens, each had a written charter----changes the meaning with some formed as--with is not needed here.

bsv180985 · Answer

I went this way: 
each had a written charter  that set forth its form of government and the rights of the colonists.

We should use each instead of all. "All" is used when discussed about common issues. Here colonies had unique charter - so, go with "each"

B,C,D - out

E.  with  some formed as commercial ventures, while others as religious havens, each had a written charter

With is absolutely redundant. colonies ... some formed as

We leave with A.

mandyrhtdm · Answer

Correct me if i am wrong but a comma can be used only for two reasons
1.) separate a non essential modifier
2.) separate different items of a similar list
3.) used with subordinator words to joi a main clause with a sub ordinate clause , ot with cojunctions to join two main clauses.

Now here If we dont use with and while then the sentance is like 
Some colonies, modifier, modifier, have something.
If we use with and while
it becomes Main clause-Subordinator(some are ...-Subrodinator- ... other ), have charter.

Can two modifiers follow the subject with just a comma ? or by way of idiomatic usage that entine sentence Some x other Y becomes a single modifier.

crashVcrush · Answer

The thirteen  original British colonies in North America,   some formed as commercial ventures, others as religious havens, each had a written charter  that set forth its form of government and the rights of the colonists.

The stem now reduces to : The 13 colonies ................................ ( EACH/ALL)............... had charter/s............ THAT set forth ITS form of Govt..........AND........Y

B : all of which = Eliminated

ITS in the non-underlined portion signifies that the referrent is clearly each individual colony

Thus C / D = ALL = Eliminated

Left with A n E :

A : The 13 colonies , ......... some formed as X, others formed as Y

E : The 13 colonies , .......WITH some formed as X, WHILE others formed as Y

E : Does addition of With / While makes any sense or helps us in getting a clearer view of the intent = Guess NO = Eliminated

Left with A , my take.

Rgds SKM

Skywalker18 · Answer

The thirteen original British colonies in North America,  some formed as commercial ventures, others as religious havens, each had a written charter  that set forth its form of government and the rights of the colonists.

(A) some formed as commercial ventures, others as religious havens, each had a written charter - Correct

(B) some being formed as a commercial ventures, others as religious havens, all of which had written charters - Usage of being formed

(C) some that as commercial ventures, others as religious havens, all had written charters - same issue as B

(D) with some being formed as a commercial venture, others as religious havens, all had written charters - usage of being formed;

"The colonies each had a charter." That correctly implies: 13 colonies, 13 charters. 
"The colonies all had a charter." That incorrectly implies: 13 colonies, 1 grand charter for everyone.

(E) with some formed as commercial ventures, while others as religious havens, each had a written charter - "with" wrongly suggests that "some" refers not to the colonies themselves but to something that the colonies came with. to suggest that you're referring to the colonies themselves (which you are), you need modifiers of the type used in the correct answer (a).

* "while" MUST be used with a clause or __ing phrase. it can't be used with a construction that doesn't contain any sort of verb form (such as this one, which is just noun + prepositional phrase).

I found the above explanations in BTG and Manhattan GMAT forum.

1.  Can we reject option B on the basis that there is no main verb in the sentence because all of which is a relative clause?
 
2.  Also, is there any difference between "all had written charters" and "each had a written charter". I understand that "all had a written charter" means different - all of them together had a charter.
 
3. Please let me know any other way to eliminate options in this question.

AjiteshArun  ,  GMATNinja  ,  MagooshExpert  ,  GMATGuruNY  ,  VeritasKarishma  ,  ChiranjeevSingh  ,  VeritasPrepBrian  ,  MartyMurray  ,  daagh  ,  ccooley  , other experts - please enlighten

daagh · Answer

Skywalker

I do not think all of which starts a relative clause in B. All is the noun and 'of which' is just a prepositional modifier, and the whole phrase makes a noun phrase. It is an IC.

All had written charters, and each had a charter will mean the same.

Manas1212 · Answer

Hi  GMATNinja ,

Could you please help with this question ? I am unable to find any verb for the subject "British Colonies"

EducationAisle · Answer

Hi Manas,  had  the simple past tense verb.

Manas1212 · Answer

The thirteen original British colonies in North America (Subject) Should not this have a verb too ? I know this would make the sentence a comma splice error but I am not able to understand how a modfier(each) can take the verb of the main subject leaving the British Colonies with out a verb ?
, some formed as commercial ventures, others as religious havens, Modifiers
each(Subject) had(verb) a written charter that set forth its form of government and the rights of the colonists.

Please help

EducationAisle · Answer

Yes Manas, this is indeed the subject (and  had  is the  verb  for this subject).

The structure is like this:

They each had a plan .

This is equivalent to:

Each of them had a plan .

On the other hand, if the sentence was just:

They had a plan .

This could mean that they  jointly  (rather than  individually ) had a plan.

So, in the sentence under consideration,  each  has just been introduced to emphasize the  individual  nature of each of the British colonies.

kshitijgarg · Answer

Hi  GMATNinja 
what's "its(in the non underlined portion)" is referring to ?

Thanks a lot for your help.
Regards, 
Kshitij

GMATNinja · Answer

Take another look at (A):

"The thirteen original British colonies in North America, some formed as commercial ventures, others as religious havens,  each  had a written charter that set forth  its  form of government..."

We know that "its" must have a singular antecedent, so now we want to scan backwards until we encounter a singular that noun could function logically in place of "its." The first noun we see is "charter," but it wouldn't make any sense to refer to the  charter's  form for government. A charter can describe a form of government, but it doesn't have one itself. The next singular noun is "each," referring to one of the 13 colonies. Perfectly logical to refer to "each  colony's  form of government," so we've got our antecedent. Huzzah!

Takeaways: first, we never want to eliminate an answer choice prematurely because of an ambiguous pronoun. (More on that in  this video .) Moreover, "its" isn't underlined, so even if we think there's a problem with the construction, we don't have the option of fixing it! Better to focus on the concrete errors we can actually address.

I hope that helps!

kshitijgarg · Answer

Thanks a lot  GMATNinja  for replying to my post.

i have one more doubt is this sentence. i thought about this question in the following manner : 
each had a written charter  that  set forth its form of government..."
Now here if "That" refers to the "Charter", the how can the verb "set" be right(shouldn't it be "charter that sets forth its "). so i saw the  "that set"  in the non underlined portion and i thought it has to be "charters" 
and in the 3 option that has charters i couldn't find the antecedent for it's in those options.

please point out what is That (following the charter) is referring to? and if that is pointing to charter then how can "that set" be correct?

Thanks a lot for your help. 
I have been following your videos (all 3 series on gmatclub) and they are awesome.

Regards,
Kshitij

GMATNinja · Answer

Thank you for the kind words, Kshitij! Glad to hear that the videos are helping.

"Set" can be either singular or plural depending on the tense. For example:

"When Tim  sets  the table, he often gives every place-setting multiple spoons but no knife or fork, a situation that makes it very difficult for his guests to eat steak."

Here, the verb "sets" is present tense and singular, since the subject is Tim. So far so good. But consider another example:

"Yesterday, Tim  set  the table..."

Now, "set" is still singular, because Tim again is the subject, but "set" is an action that took place in the past, so this sentence is also correct.

In the OA, we're talking about charters that existed in the past, so we can use "set" as a singular, past-tense verb, with "each" as the subject.

I hope that helps!

Hoozan · Answer

GMATNinja   EducationAisle  isn't there an SV error in this sentence? what role is "the thirteen original British colonies in North America" playing in the sentence??

The thirteen original British colonies in North America, (Subject??) 
some formed as commercial ventures, others as religious havens,  (additional information on British Colonies) 
each  (Subject)  
had a written charter  (Verb) 
that set forth  (relative clause modifying "charter") 
its form of government  (it's - refers to "each") (element 1 of parallelism)  
and  (parallelism marker) 
the rights of the colonists.  (element 2 of parallelism)

If I say

E.g " Dave and his friends ,  who   are  20 years old,  each   has  a drivers license" -- doesn't "Dave and his friends" need a verb?

EducationAisle · Answer

Believe the verb should be  have  (and not  has ) because of the plural "Dave and his friends".

Hoozan · Answer

I know that "have" should go for the subject mentioned above. My doubt was  shouldn't we need a verb in the first place?  In this example  as well as the official question above  both need a verb right? If YES then why doesn't "British colonies" have a verb? Please could you go through the sentence structure that I detailed out above.

Based on my analysis, there is an SV error in the OA. Where am I going wrong?

The thirteen original British colonies in North America, some formed

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GMAT Sentence Correction (SC - EA only) Questions

The thirteen original British colonies in North America, some formed

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