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605-655 Level|   Modifiers|   Parallelism|                                 
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Thelonious Monk, who was a jazz pianist and composer, produced a body 22 Apr 2020, 03:43
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lakshya14
Isn't (D), also showing that there are 2 subjects "Jazz pianist" and "Thelonious Monk"?
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Hello, lakshya14. In (D), jazz pianist is no more a subject than composer. Both are being used as adjectives in a restrictive appositive phrase, as in, The one and only jazz pianist and composer known as Thelonious Monk... The only option that does not employ such an appositive phrase is (A), which opts for a who clause to convey the same information.

If you have further questions, feel free to ask.

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Thelonious Monk, who was a jazz pianist and composer, produced a body 28 May 2020, 04:35
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daagh
The problem in A is the unnecessary intrusion of the word ‘both’; you can not say, 'a body of work" and then ‘both’ ‘‘Both’ has no plural referent.

In B and E, ‘both’ is misleading because there are no two traditions. There is only one tradition, i.e. the stride piano tradition.
In C there are two subjects to the main clause namely, Thelonious Monk and he. The second subject ‘he’ is redundant.
D is the correct choice with a proper contrasting and coordinating conjunction 'yet' that joins the two arms of this compound sentence and with the nosey word ‘both’ having been dropped
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Dear daagh,

Thank you for your explanation, i just have one query for D

Why dont we have a 'comma' in D before "Thelonious Monk"

IMO correct construction should be

A jazz pianist and composer, Thelonious Monk

and not

Jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk
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Thelonious Monk, who was a jazz pianist and composer, produced a body 28 May 2020, 23:58
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RAHUL_GMAT This is a fairly common construction used to tell the reader who a person is. Our point is not that he did these specific things just because he is a jazz composer. Rather, the author is just adding some context for those unfortunate people who haven't had the pleasure of learning about Thelonious Monk yet. In similar fashion, we might say "Hollywood legend Tom Hanks" or "former UK prime minister Theresa May."
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Thelonious Monk, who was a jazz pianist and composer, produced a body 28 Jul 2020, 07:02
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But in option C,D and E, without a comma between "Jazz pianist and composer" and "Thelonious Monk", doesn't it sound like Jazz Pianist and Mr. Monk are two different people performing this action. I mean if "Jazz pianist and composer" has to modify "Thelonious Monk", there should be a comma between them.
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Thelonious Monk, who was a jazz pianist and composer, produced a body 28 Jul 2020, 19:18
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ankitcbr
But in option C,D and E, without a comma between "Jazz pianist and composer" and "Thelonious Monk", doesn't it sound like Jazz Pianist and Mr. Monk are two different people performing this action. I mean if "Jazz pianist and composer" has to modify "Thelonious Monk", there should be a comma between them.
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Hi ankitcbr,

We definitely do not want a comma there (this post, this post, and this post).

Think about something like President Emmanuel Macron. We wouldn't use a comma there (President, Emmanuel Macron).
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Thelonious Monk, who was a jazz pianist and composer, produced a body 26 Sep 2020, 13:06
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daagh
The problem in A is the unnecessary intrusion of the word ‘both’; you can not say, 'a body of work" and then ‘both’ ‘‘Both’ has no plural referent.

In B and E, ‘both’ is misleading because there are no two traditions. There is only one tradition, i.e. the stride piano tradition.
In C there are two subjects to the main clause namely, Thelonious Monk and he. The second subject ‘he’ is redundant.
D is the correct choice with a proper contrasting and coordinating conjunction 'yet' that joins the two arms of this compound sentence and with the nosey word ‘both’ having been dropped
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daagh
May I know why do you think 'Thelonious Monk' and 'he' is redundant in choice C? Appreciating your help.
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Thelonious Monk, who was a jazz pianist and composer, produced a body 28 Sep 2020, 15:46
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Look at what happens to our sentence core if we strip out the modifiers, especially the long one after the subject ("who produced . . . Ellington"). What do we have left? "Monk, yet he stood apart from the repertory." We've got the subject twice in a row before we see a verb. That doesn't work! If we want to say "yet he stood apart," we need to see a verb for "Monk" first, and that's what D does: "Monk produced a body of work, yet he stood apart."
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Thelonious Monk, who was a jazz pianist and composer, produced a body 28 Sep 2020, 15:59
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But the definition of "redundant" is something different, isn't it? Thanks...
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Look at what happens to our sentence core if we strip out the modifiers, especially the long one after the subject ("who produced . . . Ellington"). What do we have left? "Monk, yet he stood apart from the repertory." We've got the subject twice in a row before we see a verb. That doesn't work! If we want to say "yet he stood apart," we need to see a verb for "Monk" first, and that's what D does: "Monk produced a body of work, yet he stood apart."
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Thelonious Monk, who was a jazz pianist and composer, produced a body 29 Sep 2020, 10:35
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Redundant isn't the word I would use here, but we *do* have two subjects with only one verb, so I suppose we could call "he" redundant. However, the "yet" creates the expectation that we are joining two clauses, so I'd say it's more appropriate to view this choice as missing a verb for the first noun. There are other questions where the presence of two nouns in a row can seem truly redundant, such as the "heirloom tomatoes" question: https://gmatclub.com/forum/heirloom-tom ... 75868.html
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Thelonious Monk, who was a jazz pianist and composer, produced a body 24 Nov 2020, 11:30
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And in this case, we don’t have those parallel elements: “…both rooted… and Duke Ellington…” Nope: “rooted” is an adjective in this situation, and “Duke Ellington” definitely is not. So we can eliminate (A).
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Why GMATNinja sir mentioned that rooted in an adjective in this situation . i thought rooted is a verb-ed modifier to verb "work". So verb-ed modifier can be said adjective? Does it mean?

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Thelonious Monk, who was a jazz pianist and composer, produced a body 24 Nov 2020, 21:20
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Why GMATNinja sir mentioned that rooted in an adjective in this situation . i thought rooted is a verb-ed modifier to verb "work". So verb-ed modifier can be said adjective? Does it mean?

arunCrackVerbal AjiteshArun
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Hi imSKR,

"Verb-ed modifier" is not a very accurate way to refer to what rooted is, and GMATNinja is correct in saying that it is (a past participle acting as) an adjective. In other words, past participles can play multiple roles, and this one is working as an adjective for the noun body of work.
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Thelonious Monk, who was a jazz pianist and composer, produced a body 06 Mar 2021, 08:32
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GMATNinja
This is one of my favorites, just because I see a lot of errors on it – but it’s actually really straightforward, and is easy to solve if you follow a couple of simple rules. And that doesn’t happen as often as we’d like on GMAT SC, unfortunately.

Quote:
A. Thelonious Monk, who was a jazz pianist and composer, produced a body of work both rooted
OK, the thing that should jump out at us is the word “both.” In this case, “both” is paired with the word “and” – and this is a very strict parallelism “trigger”. The word “both” and the word “and” must be followed by two parallel elements.

And in this case, we don’t have those parallel elements: “…both rooted… and Duke Ellington…” Nope: “rooted” is an adjective in this situation, and “Duke Ellington” definitely is not. So we can eliminate (A).

(And for anybody who was paying extremely close attention in our YouTube webinar on parallelism and meaning: when I mentioned “special parallel triggers”, this both/and construction is one of the most important examples I had in mind.)

Quote:
B. Thelonious Monk, the jazz pianist and composer, produced a body of work that was rooted both
I’m OK with the use of “that” here: “that was rooted” just modifies the “body of work.” You could probably argue that the words “that was” aren’t strictly necessary, but they also aren’t doing any harm at all.

The more important thing is the parallelism again: “…both in the stride-piano tradition… and Duke Ellington…”

Nope, that’s definitely not parallel, either. (B) is out.

Quote:
C. Jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk, who produced a body of work rooted
Hm, no more “both”! That’s cool. Now the parallelism isn’t a problem at all: Willie (The Lion) Smith and Duke Ellington are parallel to each other in the non-underlined portion.

But now there’s a more subtle problem: this thing isn’t a legitimate sentence anymore, because the presumed subject of the sentence (“Jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk”) never actually “performs” a main verb. I think we can agree that the part beginning with “who” is just modifying Thelonious Monk, so let’s strip that out for just a moment to see what we have: “Jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk,… yet in many ways he stood apart from the mainstream jazz repertory.”

Huh? That makes no sense. Basically, the sentence is structured as a noun, followed by a modifier, followed by a dependent clause. That’s not a sentence. So (C) is out.

Quote:
D. Jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk produced a body of work that was rooted
As in (C), we don’t have any parallelism issues here, since “both” has been removed. But unlike (C), (D) is actually a real sentence, since it starts with a nice, independent clause: “…Thelonious Monk produced a body of work…”

So let’s keep (D).

Quote:
E. Jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk produced a body of work rooted both
And we’re right back to the same parallelism problem as in (B): “…both in the stride-piano tradition… and Duke Ellington…” That’s just plain wrong, and we’re left with (D) as the correct answer.
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Hi GMATNinja,

If we rewrite the correct option as below (removing "that was"), then is it still correct? If yey, then why?

(D) Jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk produced a body of work rooted

If anyone can clarify, that would be great!
Thanks!
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Thelonious Monk, who was a jazz pianist and composer, produced a body 06 Mar 2021, 16:36
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Adambhau
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This is one of my favorites, just because I see a lot of errors on it – but it’s actually really straightforward, and is easy to solve if you follow a couple of simple rules. And that doesn’t happen as often as we’d like on GMAT SC, unfortunately.

Quote:
A. Thelonious Monk, who was a jazz pianist and composer, produced a body of work both rooted
OK, the thing that should jump out at us is the word “both.” In this case, “both” is paired with the word “and” – and this is a very strict parallelism “trigger”. The word “both” and the word “and” must be followed by two parallel elements.

And in this case, we don’t have those parallel elements: “…both rooted… and Duke Ellington…” Nope: “rooted” is an adjective in this situation, and “Duke Ellington” definitely is not. So we can eliminate (A).

(And for anybody who was paying extremely close attention in our YouTube webinar on parallelism and meaning: when I mentioned “special parallel triggers”, this both/and construction is one of the most important examples I had in mind.)

Quote:
B. Thelonious Monk, the jazz pianist and composer, produced a body of work that was rooted both
I’m OK with the use of “that” here: “that was rooted” just modifies the “body of work.” You could probably argue that the words “that was” aren’t strictly necessary, but they also aren’t doing any harm at all.

The more important thing is the parallelism again: “…both in the stride-piano tradition… and Duke Ellington…”

Nope, that’s definitely not parallel, either. (B) is out.

Quote:
C. Jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk, who produced a body of work rooted
Hm, no more “both”! That’s cool. Now the parallelism isn’t a problem at all: Willie (The Lion) Smith and Duke Ellington are parallel to each other in the non-underlined portion.

But now there’s a more subtle problem: this thing isn’t a legitimate sentence anymore, because the presumed subject of the sentence (“Jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk”) never actually “performs” a main verb. I think we can agree that the part beginning with “who” is just modifying Thelonious Monk, so let’s strip that out for just a moment to see what we have: “Jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk,… yet in many ways he stood apart from the mainstream jazz repertory.”

Huh? That makes no sense. Basically, the sentence is structured as a noun, followed by a modifier, followed by a dependent clause. That’s not a sentence. So (C) is out.

Quote:
D. Jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk produced a body of work that was rooted
As in (C), we don’t have any parallelism issues here, since “both” has been removed. But unlike (C), (D) is actually a real sentence, since it starts with a nice, independent clause: “…Thelonious Monk produced a body of work…”

So let’s keep (D).

Quote:
E. Jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk produced a body of work rooted both
And we’re right back to the same parallelism problem as in (B): “…both in the stride-piano tradition… and Duke Ellington…” That’s just plain wrong, and we’re left with (D) as the correct answer.


Hi GMATNinja,

If we rewrite the correct option as below (removing "that was"), then is it still correct? If yey, then why?

(D) Jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk produced a body of work rooted

If anyone can clarify, that would be great!
Thanks!
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I don't think there would be any issue removing that was because rooted would be considered as modfying body of work.
Even GmatNinja also highlighted about this in his explanation of B option:
Quote:
I’m OK with the use of “that” here: “that was rooted” just modifies the “body of work.” You could probably argue that the words “that was” aren’t strictly necessary, but they also aren’t doing any harm at all.
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Hope it is clear
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Thelonious Monk, who was a jazz pianist and composer, produced a body 20 Jan 2022, 04:39
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Is there no problem using "the" in front of jazz pianist?

I thought it should be "a jazz pianist" rather than "the jazz pianist"
Can someone explain me the difference between 'a' and 'the' in this context?

B. Thelonious Monk, the jazz pianist and composer, produced a body of work that was rooted both

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Thelonious Monk, who was a jazz pianist and composer, produced a body 20 Jan 2022, 05:22
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celan
Is there no problem using "the" in front of jazz pianist?

I thought it should be "a jazz pianist" rather than "the jazz pianist"
Can someone explain me the difference between 'a' and 'the' in this context?

B. Thelonious Monk, the jazz pianist and composer, produced a body of work that was rooted both

GMATNinja
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Hello celan,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, in this context, the use of "the" differs from the use of "a" only in that "the" provides an added sense of emphasis, without altering the meaning.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
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Thelonious Monk, who was a jazz pianist and composer, produced a body Updated on: 20 Jan 2022, 20:22
Originally posted by mcelroytutoring on 20 Jan 2022, 16:26.
Last edited by mcelroytutoring on 20 Jan 2022, 20:22, edited 1 time in total.
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celan
Is there no problem using "the" in front of jazz pianist?

I thought it should be "a jazz pianist" rather than "the jazz pianist"
Can someone explain me the difference between 'a' and 'the' in this context?

B. Thelonious Monk, the jazz pianist and composer, produced a body of work that was rooted both

GMATNinja
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Hi celan,

With regard to your question concerning the word "the" vs. the word "an" when introducing a subject:

The word "the" suggests that the subject is well-known, and the word "a/an" would suggest the opposite.

For example: "Lionel Messi, the soccer star who..." sounds much more natural than "Lionel Messi, a soccer star who..." because everybody knows Messi.

The opposite is also true for unknown subjects. "My boss, a great singer..." sounds better than "My boss, the great singer..." because your boss is most likely not a famous vocalist.
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Thelonious Monk, who was a jazz pianist and composer, produced a body 23 Jan 2022, 00:07
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Thelonious Monk, who was a jazz pianist and composer, produced a body of work both rooted in the stride-piano tradition of Willie (The Lion) Smith and Duke Ellington, yet in many ways he stood apart from the mainstream jazz repertory.
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(A) Thelonious Monk, who was a jazz pianist and composer, produced a body of work both rooted
the parallelism isn't maintained after the trigger both/and therefore out

(B) Thelonious Monk, the jazz pianist and composer, produced a body of work that was rooted both
'that' usage is fine, since the modification is happening to body of work make sense however the major issue is with the parallelism therefore out

(C) Jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk, who produced a body of work rooted
This is one hell of a hot mess, addition of 'who' isn't adding extra layer of meaning , in adition independent clause is followed by a noun clause doesn't make much sense therefore out

(D) Jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk produced a body of work that was rooted
The parallelism and the meaning is perfect therefore let us hang on to it

(E) Jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk produced a body of work rooted both
Similar reasoning as B

THerefore IMO D
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Thelonious Monk, who was a jazz pianist and composer, produced a body 23 Jan 2022, 00:25
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Thelonious Monk, who was a jazz pianist and composer, produced a body of work both rooted in the stride-piano tradition of Willie (The Lion) Smith and Duke Ellington, yet in many ways he stood apart from the mainstream jazz repertory.


(A) Thelonious Monk, who was a jazz pianist and composer, produced a body of work both rooted

Her , problem lies with the usage of both , which is cretaing distotion with parallelism, as we need something like both rooted and -----which need to be follwed by some verb in the past tense, which is not present there.

(B) Thelonious Monk, the jazz pianist and composer, produced a body of work that was rooted both

here, gain problem lies with the usage of both, as both in the stride-piano tradition of Willie Smith and Duke Ellington conveys stride piano tradition (of willie smith) and duke smith - so meaning error.

(C) Jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk, who produced a body of work rooted

meaning error with this optios as this option tries to convey either thelonious monk produced only one body of work or all works he produced were deep rooted in the stride tradition of piano,....

(D) Jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk produced a body of work that was rooted

everything fine with option- it conveys that thelonious monk produced a body of work which was deep rooted in the stride tradition of willie smith and duke smith - so parlleslism is fine.yet his works stood apart from mainstream jazz repertory.

(E) Jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk produced a body of work rooted both

again issue with both.
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Thelonious Monk, who was a jazz pianist and composer, produced a body 07 Feb 2022, 09:27
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I got it why option 'E' is the correct choice but I still have a small problem with the question. Can't "Jazz pianist and composer T. Monk" refer to two separate people in the option choices C,D,E?
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Thelonious Monk, who was a jazz pianist and composer, produced a body 07 Feb 2022, 19:57
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I got it why option 'E' is the correct choice but I still have a small problem with the question. Can't "Jazz pianist and composer T. Monk" refer to two separate people in the option choices C,D,E?
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If we were talking about two different people, the first a jazz pianist, and the second composer Thelonious Monk, then the verb "produced" would apply to both of them, right?

Here's the problem: it's fine to write, "Composer Thelonious Monk produced a body of work," but we can't write "Jazz pianist produced a body of work." (At minimum, we'd need an article before "jazz pianist" for it to make any sense.) So it stands to reason that because "jazz pianist" can't function as a subject, it must be operating as a modifier. And the only entity it could logically modify here is "Thelonious Monk." Perfectly reasonable.

And really, even if there were some ambiguity about whether we were talking about two people or one, (A) and (B) have concrete parallelism errors, so you're stuck with the construction, even if you don't love it.

I hope that clears things up!
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