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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 21 Mar 2022, 10:06
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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.
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GMATNinja

Really good explanation as always.

For me there seems to be a meaning issue in the correct option-
Quote:
D. Jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk produced a body of work that was rooted
Show more

Doesn't the "work that was rooted" mean that either the work is no longer rooted in what it used to be or somehow doesn't exist anymore? According to me this shouldn't be the case and it should be in present or continuous tense instead of being in simple past.

Could you shed some light on this please? Much appreciated.
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Thelonious Monk, who was a jazz pianist and composer, produced a body 21 Mar 2022, 21:09
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Doesn't the "work that was rooted" mean that either the work is no longer rooted in what it used to be or somehow doesn't exist anymore? According to me this shouldn't be the case and it should be in present or continuous tense instead of being in simple past.
Show more
Hi AXAN,

That's a very interesting question, and I would also like to see how GMATNinja (and other experts) approach this issue, because verb form in general is not an easy topic. As for your question, when we talk about the past, there are two very common interpretations of verbs in the past tense: (a) true in past but not now, and (b) generally true. Unfortunately, we usually need context to decide which interpretation is more likely, and sometimes we can't say with absolute certainty whether the intended meaning is (a) or (b). Here's an example:

1. He solved only verbal questions, because he was very good at quant.

In this sentence, we're (most likely) not trying to say that his being good at quant is a state that has changed (that is, the most likely interpretation is that he's still good at quant). So if he's still good at quant, why do we go with the past tense? Take a look at what happens if we try to move out of the past in a sentence that is primarily about something in the past:

2. He solved only verbal questions, because he is very good at quant.

Do we need to insist on using is in (2)? I'd say that (1) actually sounds better.
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Thelonious Monk, who was a jazz pianist and composer, produced a body 21 Mar 2022, 23:05
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Doesn't the "work that was rooted" mean that either the work is no longer rooted in what it used to be or somehow doesn't exist anymore? According to me this shouldn't be the case and it should be in present or continuous tense instead of being in simple past.
Hi AXAN,

That's a very interesting question, and I would also like to see how GMATNinja (and other experts) approach this issue, because verb form in general is not an easy topic. As for your question, when we talk about the past, there are two very common interpretations of verbs in the past tense: (a) true in past but not now, and (b) generally true. Unfortunately, we usually need context to decide which interpretation is more likely, and sometimes we can't say with absolute certainty whether the intended meaning is (a) or (b). Here's an example:

1. He solved only verbal questions, because he was very good at quant.

In this sentence, we're (most likely) not trying to say that his being good at quant is a state that has changed (that is, the most likely interpretation is that he's still good at quant). So if he's still good at quant, why do we go with the past tense? Take a look at what happens if we try to move out of the past in a sentence that is primarily about something in the past:

2. He solved only verbal questions, because he is very good at quant.

Do we need to insist on using is in (2)? I'd say that (1) actually sounds better.
Show more


AjiteshArun

Thanks for the response.

Seems a bit iffy to me. The meaning, in your example, will vary in my opinion. But for something generally true, don't we use the present tense?

You would say "The Earth revolves around the sun." and not "The Earth revolved around the sun.".
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Thelonious Monk, who was a jazz pianist and composer, produced a body 22 Mar 2022, 01:24
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AXAN
Seems a bit iffy to me. The meaning, in your example, will vary in my opinion. But for something generally true, don't we use the present tense?
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We don't always a see a perfect match between the name of a tense and the way(s) it can be used. That's English for you. :)

AXAN
You would say "The Earth revolves around the sun." and not "The Earth revolved around the sun.".
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That's only one clause. What about "(J.J. Thomson) discovered that the mass of the electron was very small, merely 1/1,836 that of a hydrogen ion" (source)? As far as I know, both the present (is very small) and past (was very small) tenses are acceptable in that structure.

As I said, it'd be good to get more thoughts on this, including from Charles/Mike.
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Thelonious Monk, who was a jazz pianist and composer, produced a body 22 Mar 2022, 06:47
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AXAN
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AXAN
Doesn't the "work that was rooted" mean that either the work is no longer rooted in what it used to be or somehow doesn't exist anymore? According to me this shouldn't be the case and it should be in present or continuous tense instead of being in simple past.
Hi AXAN,

That's a very interesting question, and I would also like to see how GMATNinja (and other experts) approach this issue, because verb form in general is not an easy topic. As for your question, when we talk about the past, there are two very common interpretations of verbs in the past tense: (a) true in past but not now, and (b) generally true. Unfortunately, we usually need context to decide which interpretation is more likely, and sometimes we can't say with absolute certainty whether the intended meaning is (a) or (b). Here's an example:

1. He solved only verbal questions, because he was very good at quant.

In this sentence, we're (most likely) not trying to say that his being good at quant is a state that has changed (that is, the most likely interpretation is that he's still good at quant). So if he's still good at quant, why do we go with the past tense? Take a look at what happens if we try to move out of the past in a sentence that is primarily about something in the past:

2. He solved only verbal questions, because he is very good at quant.

Do we need to insist on using is in (2)? I'd say that (1) actually sounds better.


AjiteshArun

Thanks for the response.

Seems a bit iffy to me. The meaning, in your example, will vary in my opinion. But for something generally true, don't we use the present tense?

You would say "The Earth revolves around the sun." and not "The Earth revolved around the sun.".
Show more
Hello, AXAN. For my part, I do not think the explanation AjiteshArun gave is iffy at all. He included what I think is the keenest insight someone could provide on the matter:

AjiteshArun
we usually need context to decide which interpretation is more likely
Show more
If we examine the sentence at hand with answer choice (D) inserted, I would argue that a present tense is rooted would not logically fit the context of non-underlined portion, the part with which we cannot negotiate.

Quote:
Jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk produced a body of work that was 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.
Show more
The presence of the simple past produced, in combination with stood at the end of the sentence, places rooted in a fixed position. I think a reasonable interpretation of the sentence is that Monk produced something that, at the time he created it, was drawing from the tradition mentioned. It would not make sense to skew the timeline by jumping into the present tense to comment on a general truth about that work when the sentence seems to follow Monk, the man, as opposed to the work itself—he stood apart from the mainstream jazz repertory [of the time], not it stood (or stands) apart. This is not to say that his work could not continue, into the present, to be rooted in the stride-piano tradition... but the man himself is no longer composing or, for that matter, living. The real brainteaser, in my mind, is why, on an exam that appears so fixated on like-to-like comparisons, we see he and the mainstream jazz repertory (or works) held in contrast. Perhaps this issue lies at the heart of your confusion. All I can say is that in this context, it is acceptable to GMAC™ that in Standard American English, a person and a body of work can be held in parallel, at least when that comparison is not being tested.

The more you aim to pin down English with rules, the more you will come to appreciate its slippery nature. It is only unfortunate that at the level of material this exam tests, you only get to see one side of the coin: the rules of mathematics seem perfectly logical and applicable, not subject to interpretation. But ask any mathematician or physicist about the nature of mathematics, and you will likely get some response about just how fluid it is.

In short, I agree with Ajitesh, and something tells me that Charles would add something similar in his own way.

- Andrew
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Thelonious Monk, who was a jazz pianist and composer, produced a body 26 Mar 2022, 07:47
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GMATNinja

Really good explanation as always.

For me there seems to be a meaning issue in the correct option-
Quote:
D. Jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk produced a body of work that was rooted

Doesn't the "work that was rooted" mean that either the work is no longer rooted in what it used to be or somehow doesn't exist anymore? According to me this shouldn't be the case and it should be in present or continuous tense instead of being in simple past.

Could you shed some light on this please? Much appreciated.
Show more
Better question: which answer choice would you pick if not (D)?

Can you make the case that the verb tense is a little confusing in (D)? Sure. Can you make the case that the past tense is warranted? Absolutely (kudos to AjiteshArun and AndrewN for their explanations on this issue!) -- the production of the body of work happened in the past, so it's not unreasonable to say that the body of work produced in the past was rooted.

Even if we don't love the tense, that's not a strong enough reason to eliminate (D). The other choices have more flagrant errors that we can't ignore, so we have to live with (D), like it or not. :)

I hope that helps!
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Thelonious Monk, who was a jazz pianist and composer, produced a body 27 Mar 2022, 11:08
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Quote:
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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Thought process: Modifier question

Quote:
(A) Thelonious Monk, who was a jazz pianist and composer, produced a body of work both rooted
Show more
Failing construction Both X and Y
Quote:
(B) Thelonious Monk, the jazz pianist and composer, produced a body of work that was rooted both
Show more
Failing construction Both X and Y
Quote:
(C) Jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk, who produced a body of work rooted
Show more
Removing subordinate clause, the sentence reads as Jazz.. Monk yet in many ways (Nonsensical)
Quote:
(D) Jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk produced a body of work that was rooted
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Thelonious monk produced <> yet in many ways he stood apart… makes sense
Quote:
(E) Jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk produced a body of work rooted both
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Failing construction Both X and Y
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Thelonious Monk, who was a jazz pianist and composer, produced a body 04 Jul 2022, 10:26
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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

GMATNinja
The difference in meaning is so subtle that I wouldn't pay much attention to it.

If I write, "Michael Jordan, the legendary Chicago Bull, loves to give his real name when he orders pizza," I'm offering "the legendary Chicago Bull" as important identifying information. In a sense, I'm asking the reader, "Don't you know Michael Jordan? He's the legendary Bull!"

If I write, "Michael Jordan, a legendary Chicago Bull," I'm suggesting that "a legendary Bull" is incidental background info. Jordan was lots of things, a legendary Bull among them.  

So, in this question, the writer is implying that "the jazz pianist" is crucial identifying info for Thelonious Monk.

Would I be comfortable using that distinction as a decision point? Probably not. The important thing is to recognize that it isn't an error.

I hope that clears things up!
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But if you use "A jazz pianist" then the sentence becomes "A jazz pianist (Person 1) and composer Thelonious Monk(Person 2)...". This is not the intended meaning.

I eliminated choice D just because it seems 2 persons are producing a body of work rooted.....

Please correct my reasoning.
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Thelonious Monk, who was a jazz pianist and composer, produced a body 04 Jul 2022, 18:55
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But if you use "A jazz pianist" then the sentence becomes "A jazz pianist (Person 1) and composer Thelonious Monk(Person 2)...". This is not the intended meaning.

I eliminated choice D just because it seems 2 persons are producing a body of work rooted.....

Please correct my reasoning.
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Hi PranjalJ,

The modification you made isn't complete, because you're trying to read that phrase without a comma. Try again, this time with a comma: "A jazz pianist and composer, Thelonious Monk...". Such modifiers can be used to refer to one person. We could even use an article before the second element, like this:

1. A doctor and a mother, she is... ← In this case, a doctor and a mother is not a reference to two different people. It's just a way to let the reader know that she is two things.
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Thelonious Monk, who was a jazz pianist and composer, produced a body 04 Jul 2022, 23:04
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Option D may be ambiguous because it may refer to 2 people, one is Jazz pianist and the other one is composer Thelonious Monk.
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Thelonious Monk, who was a jazz pianist and composer, produced a body 10 Jul 2022, 04:12
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But if you use "A jazz pianist" then the sentence becomes "A jazz pianist (Person 1) and composer Thelonious Monk(Person 2)...". This is not the intended meaning.

I eliminated choice D just because it seems 2 persons are producing a body of work rooted.....

Please correct my reasoning.
Hi PranjalJ,

The modification you made isn't complete, because you're trying to read that phrase without a comma. Try again, this time with a comma: "A jazz pianist and composer, Thelonious Monk...". Such modifiers can be used to refer to one person. We could even use an article before the second element, like this:

1. A doctor and a mother, she is... ← In this case, a doctor and a mother is not a reference to two different people. It's just a way to let the reader know that she is two things.
Show more

Hi AjiteshArun,

Thanks for the clarification but option D does not have a comma and it seems like 2 different people we are talking(one is a Jazz pianist and the other is a composer Thelonious Monk.). That's why I eliminated this choice.

Could you please tell me what am I missing?
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Thelonious Monk, who was a jazz pianist and composer, produced a body 10 Jul 2022, 04:42
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PranjalJ
But if you use "A jazz pianist" then the sentence becomes "A jazz pianist (Person 1) and composer Thelonious Monk(Person 2)...". This is not the intended meaning.

I eliminated choice D just because it seems 2 persons are producing a body of work rooted.....

Please correct my reasoning.
Hi PranjalJ,

The modification you made isn't complete, because you're trying to read that phrase without a comma. Try again, this time with a comma: "A jazz pianist and composer, Thelonious Monk...". Such modifiers can be used to refer to one person. We could even use an article before the second element, like this:

1. A doctor and a mother, she is... ← In this case, a doctor and a mother is not a reference to two different people. It's just a way to let the reader know that she is two things.

Hi AjiteshArun,

Thanks for the clarification but option D does not have a comma and it seems like 2 different people we are talking(one is a Jazz pianist and the other is a composer Thelonious Monk.). That's why I eliminated this choice.

Could you please tell me what am I missing?
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Hello PranjalJ,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, in Option D "Jazz pianist" and "composer" are two modifiers that both act upon the noun "Thelonious Monk" and are thus joined by the conjunction "and".

To clearly convey the meaning you have interpreted, the sentence formed by Option D would need to include a definite article before "composer" and an indefinite article before "Jazz pianist".

"A jazz pianist and the composer Thelonious Monk..." - such a construction conveys that "jazz pianist" is a noun separate from "composer Thelonious Monk".

We hope this helps.
All the best!
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Thelonious Monk, who was a jazz pianist and composer, produced a body 29 Aug 2022, 10:32
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Hi, why can we not take jazz pianist and Composer thelonious monk as two different people ? In that case the he mentioned will be ambiguous. Please help me understand.
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Thelonious Monk, who was a jazz pianist and composer, produced a body 30 Aug 2022, 05:17
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Indrakumar95
Hi, why can we not take jazz pianist and Composer thelonious monk as two different people ? In that case the he mentioned will be ambiguous. Please help me understand.
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Hello Indrakumar95,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, for "Jazz Pianist" to even ambiguously refer to a separate person, it would need to be preceded by an article such as "a" or "the".

We hope this helps.
All the best!
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Thelonious Monk, who was a jazz pianist and composer, produced a body 31 Aug 2022, 00:28
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Indrakumar95


First, it may be helpful to note that it's common to describe someone by preceding their name with their occupation: "actor Meryl Streep," "singer and multi-instrumentalist Stevie Wonder." Second, it creates a meaning problem to start by talking about a random, anonymous person ("jazz pianist") and then go on to talk about a specific person (Monk). Who would that jazz pianist be, and why is he or she in the sentence? If this mysterious "jazz pianist" were a separate person, we'd need the rest of the sentence to work with that. Since no version of the sentence gives us information about more than one subject, there's no way this can be the intended meaning. Third, as ExpertsGlobal5 has mentioned, we can't talk about a person by title or occupation alone without an article (a/the).
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Thelonious Monk, who was a jazz pianist and composer, produced a body 31 Aug 2022, 09:11
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Hi,

Can anyone help with my doubt? May sound silly.......... but I eliminated C, D and E ,since i thought there was ambiguity.

In Options C, D and E.

*Jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk* - Can't this be wrongly understood as a jazz pianist and a composer Thelonious produced.......

How are we sure that both jazz pianist and composer refers to Thelonious Monk???
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Thelonious Monk, who was a jazz pianist and composer, produced a body 31 Aug 2022, 10:39
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Pragadeesh48


If I'm reading you correctly, you are asking the same question as Indrakumar95 above. Do the posts from me and ExpertsGlobal5 help? If not, let us know how else we can clarify.
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Thelonious Monk, who was a jazz pianist and composer, produced a body 01 Sep 2022, 06:35
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Indrakumar95
Hi, why can we not take jazz pianist and Composer thelonious monk as two different people ? In that case the he mentioned will be ambiguous. Please help me understand.
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If there were two people, the second person would be named along with Thelonious Monk.

More generally, pronoun ambiguity is NOT TESTED on the GMAT! If a pronoun error is tested, the pronoun in question will not work—either because there's no noun for which it can stand in the first place, or else because the noun in question is in the wrong grammatical form (singular/plural) to correspond to the pronoun.
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Thelonious Monk, who was a jazz pianist and composer, produced a body 14 Nov 2022, 13:44
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Quote:
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
(B) Thelonious Monk, the jazz pianist and composer, produced a body of work that was rooted both
(C) Jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk, who produced a body of work rooted
(D) Jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk produced a body of work that was rooted
(E) Jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk produced a body of work rooted both
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Hi Experts,
In choice D, we're using an essential modifier (that...) to specify/ sort out things, right? My question is that 'is it necessary to specify which types of ''body of work'' we are talking about? What if we convert it to non-essential modifier? I am not questioning the official sentence; just curiosity to know that..

Jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk produced a body of work, which was 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.
Is it wrong sentence?
Thanks__
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Thelonious Monk, who was a jazz pianist and composer, produced a body 14 Nov 2022, 13:54
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RonTargetTestPrep
Indrakumar95
Hi, why can we not take jazz pianist and Composer thelonious monk as two different people ? In that case the he mentioned will be ambiguous. Please help me understand.

If there were two people, the second person would be named along with Thelonious Monk.

More generally, pronoun ambiguity is NOT TESTED on the GMAT! If a pronoun error is tested, the pronoun in question will not work—either because there's no noun for which it can stand in the first place, or else because the noun in question is in the wrong grammatical form (singular/plural) to correspond to the pronoun.
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Hello RonTargetTestPrep,
Can we use 'the' to indicate two different people like the following?
(D) The Jazz pianist and the composer Thelonious Monk produced a body of work that was roote.....

Thanks for the support...
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