The thirteen original British colonies in North America, some formed

The thirteen original Britishcolonies 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

I went this way:
each had a written charter[/u] 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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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!

Your analysis is mostly correct.
In 'that set forth its form of government and the rights of the colonists', THAT refers to WRITTEN CHARTER. The charter set out the details of government and colonist rights.


Firstly, let's look at meaning and clarity. The WITH and WHILE serve no purpose. The original sentence is clear and crisp. The additional words do not improve the sentence in any way. In fact, I think they make the sentence less easy to understand.

Secondly, let's look at grammar.

WITH should be used as a preposition; that means it should be followed by a noun. In (E), WITH is followed by a statement (so it is used as a conjunction). Such usage is not standard.

WHILE, on the other hand, should be used as a conjunction. So it should be followed by a statement. In (E), WHILE is followed by 'others as religious havens', which is not a statement. This usage is non-standard too.

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Dave and his friends each have a drivers license.
- Subject is Dave and his friends, verb is have.

The thirteen original British colonies in North America each had a written charter that set forth its form of government and the rights of the colonists.
- Subject is The thirteen original British colonies, verb is had.

If your question is as to what role is each playing in the above sentences, I don't know the exact grammatical term for this kind of usage (or if there is one at all). each is just used for emphasis here.

So the following is the learning

(1) If Each/Every is used as a subject, the verb is always singular

(2) If Each/Every comes after the subject then the verb depends on the subject placed before Each/Every.

Now that you mention it, I do remember reading about thus rule.

So one question EducationAisle. In the above official question, the main subject is The thirteen original British colonies in North America and this one is a plural subject right?

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The and/while is "implied" there Sanskaar. Let's take an example:

There are numerous users on GMATClub, some already familiar with GMAT, others not so much.

This is equivalent to:

There are numerous users on GMATClub, some already familiar with GMAT (and/while) others not so much.

The way it works is:

(i) They each have a car.

(ii) Each of them has a car.

The sentence under consideration mirrors case (i) above ("each" follows the subject "Dave and his friends").

So, "Dave and his friends" continues to be the subject and hence, the correct verb is "have".

Hi

Kindly describe the correct usage of "with". Why is E with "with" wrong? Can we write the original sentence with "with" in a right way?

Thanks

"With" can be used to communicate that one thing is "with" another.

It can also be used to communicate cause and effect, as it is in the following example:

With the repairs complete, the machine worked fine.

Here's the (E) version of the sentence in this question:

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

We see that there are not two things that are "with" each other.

Also, no cause and effect are presented.

So, there's no reason to use "with" in this sentence, and there's no way to correctly use "with" in this sentence.

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

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.

Hi GMATNinja,

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