Thelonious Monk, who was a jazz pianist and composer, produced a body

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!

Dear Friends,

Here is a detailed explanation to this question-

Meaning is crucial to solving this problem:
Understanding the intended meaning is key to solving this question; the intended meaning of this sentence is that Thelonious Monk produced a body of work that was rooted in the stride-piano tradition of both Willie (The Lion) Smith and Duke Ellington, yet in many ways, he stood apart from the mainstream jazz repertory.

Concepts tested here: Meaning + Parallelism + Awkwardness/Redundancy

• “both A and B" or "A as well as B" are the correct usages; A and B must be parallel and comparable.

A: This answer choice alters the meaning of the sentence through the phrase “both rooted in the stride-piano tradition of Willie (The Lion) Smith and Duke Ellington”; the construction of this phrase illogically implies that Thelonious Monk's body of work was rooted in the stride-piano tradition of Willie (The Lion) Smith, and Thelonious Monk's work was also Duke Ellington; the intended meaning is that Thelonious Monk's body of work was rooted in the stride-piano tradition of both Willie (The Lion) Smith and Duke Ellington. Further, Option A fails to maintain parallelism between A (“influenced by…Horrace”) and B (“Virgil”) in the idiomatic construction “both A and B; please remember, “both A and B" or "A as well as B" are the correct usages; A and B must be parallel and comparable.

B: This answer choice alters the meaning of the sentence through the phrase “both the stride-piano tradition of Willie (The Lion) Smith and Duke Ellington”; the construction of this phrase incorrectly implies that Thelonious Monk's body of work was rooted in the stride-piano tradition of Willie (The Lion) Smith, and was also rooted in Duke Ellington; the intended meaning is that Thelonious Monk's body of work was rooted in the stride-piano tradition of both Willie (The Lion) Smith and Duke Ellington. Further, Option B places the needlessly wordy modifying phrase "the jazz pianist and composer" between two commas, rendering itself awkward, needlessly wordy, and needlessly indirect.

C: This answer choice fails to form a complete sentence; as “produced”, “rooted”, and “stood apart” are all parts of modifying phrases, there is no active verb to act upon the subject “Thelonious Monk”.

D: Correct. This answer choice acts upon an independent subject “Thelonious Monk” with the active verb “produced” to form a complete thought, leading to a complete sentence. Further, Option D uses the phrase “rooted in the stride-piano tradition of Willie (The Lion) Smith and Duke Ellington”, conveying the intended meaning – that Thelonious Monk's body of work was rooted in the stride-piano tradition of both Willie (The Lion) Smith and Duke Ellington. Additionally, Option D avoids the idiomatic error seen in Option A, as it does not employ the “both A and B” idiomatic construction. Further, Option D is free of any awkwardness or redundancy.

E: This answer choice alters the meaning of the sentence through the phrase “both the stride-piano tradition of Willie (The Lion) Smith and Duke Ellington”; the construction of this phrase incorrectly implies that Thelonious Monk's body of work was rooted in the stride-piano tradition of Willie (The Lion) Smith, and was also rooted in Duke Ellington; the intended meaning is that Thelonious Monk's body of work was rooted in the stride-piano tradition of both Willie (The Lion) Smith and Duke Ellington.

Hence, D is the best answer choice.

All the best!
Experts' Global Team

The usage of "who" in choice C is wrong.

Take a run at this simplified example...

Tiger Woods, who is a famous golfer, endorses Nike, but he wears Reebok. [Correct]

Tiger Woods, who is a famous golfer that endorses Nike, but he wears Reebok. [Incorrect]

Why? --- The noun Tiger Woods does not have an accompanying verb. It is incomplete.

Choice C can be corrected as follows:

Thelonious Monk, who produced a body of work rooted in the stride-piano tradition of Willie (The Lion) Smith and Duke Ellington, was a traditional jazz pianist and composer, yet in many ways he stood apart from the mainstream jazz repertory.

As you can see -- [Noun], [WHO]......., [Verb] + Modifier, [Coordinating Conjunction] + [Independent Clause]
[Monk], [WHO]......., [was] + traditional jazz.. , [YET] [He stood apart from the...]

Hi Smruti,

You have changed the original Official question , nonetheless this is a good question to learn from.

If you have a noun prefaced by expression that is NOT preceded by an article 'THE/AN/A' then you do not need a comma this is the case in choice
Jazz pianist and composer Theo Mark produced a body of work that was rooted in the stride-piano tradition of will smith and duke.

If it said 'The/A jazz pianist and composer , Theo Mark (comma is needed because article is used ) or
if it said Innovative and Creative, Theo mark.. (comma needed because Noun preceded by adjective)

BTW the reason for elimination of choice [a] in the official question was a //m issue ;there is nothing wrong with the sentence structure
Theo Mark, the jazz pianist and composer, produced a body of work that was rooted in the stride-piano tradition of will smith and duke.
Noun, modifier, rest of the clause---is a OK structure


For clarity the original question is

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) same as above
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

OA

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) same
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

"rooted both" and "both rooted" : not required. The sentence means that the roots of the work are in the tradition of Willie and Duke Ellington.

Willie (The Lion) Smith and Duke Ellington : here [highlight]and[/highlight] is used for the composers [highlight]not the roots[/highlight]

The sentence means that the work is rooted in the tradition of WS and DE.

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

C : ambiguous who
Hence D.

Both x and y
Both in x and in y
Both at X and at Y is correct. Both on X or on Y is correct.
Both should always have parallel forms associated to it.

I think we should take note an important issue here. The word ‘both’ is the spoilsport in the original text. What does ‘both’ refer to? When we say both, we mean both x and Y. However, there is only one factor here that ------ Monk produced a body of work rooted in the stride-piano tradition of Willie (The Lion) Smith and Duke Ellington. Note that sibular phrase ‘a body of work’. So using ‘both’ before rooted has no relevance.

2. Can ‘rooted both’ be right? If there are two traditions in the context, it is understandable. However, here is only one tradition i.e. ‘the stride-piano tradition’ which belongs to the two gentlemen noted there.

Therefore, all choices using both in any of the contexts are wrong here. This leaves us only with C and D. Between them, C is an oitright fragment because of the intrusion of the pronoun “who”. Hence D.

3. A note on whether you really have to say ‘was rooted”. Here ‘a body of work rooted’ does not mean that the verb rooted is in active voice. It is actually a past participle, essentially conveying a passive voice such as ‘is rooted/ are rooted/ was rooted / were rooted etc’ depending on the context. Hence, the voice of the verb is out of scope here. In fact, D will still be right answer, even if you drop, the auxiliary verb ‘was’ before rooted.

First, you must know that "both....and...." is a idiom, and it requires parallelism.
What does this mean? That the elements inside that idiom must have the same gramatical structure.
In other words: "both (noun) and (noun)"
"both (adjective) and (adjective)"
etc.

In this case, notice that after "and" there is a noun (Duke Ellington). So, the structure must be "both (noun) and (noun)".
Notice that in all the choices in which there is "both...and...", there is not parallelism in the elements. A, B, and E out.
C creates a fragment sentence "Jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk" is a subject that doesn't have a verb, because after "yet" there is a new and independent clause. D is the answer.

I suggest to read the MGMAT SC book; it provides you a lot of useful concepts.

Hope it helps.

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

The idiom both..and is deceptively used here. All options except C and D use the word both incorrectly here. C is a fragment, not a complete sentence. Hence the right answer is D.

If you use "BOTH" the sentence structure would have to be:
"that was rooted both in X....and ...in Y"

We have:
"that was rooted both in [the stride-piano tradition of these guys], yet in many ways.."

WHERE is Y?

Note the "and" between "Willie and Duke Ellington" isn't part of the same structure. You would need the word "IN" or some other prepositional phrase like "both IN X and ON Y"---simply have the word "and" without the correct structure is NOT what we want.

SO there is no X&Y consistency here so it's no good. Specifically, the word "BOTH" is no good.

There's nothing wrong with "the jazz pianist and composer" - it's just that if you see other answer choices that say the same exact thing but in fewer words, then you want the other guy. "THE jazz pianist and composer" can be simplified to "Jazz pianist and composer" without sacrificing any meaning.

Hello Everyone!

Let's tackle this question, one issue at a time, and narrow it down to the right option quickly! To start, here is the original question with any major differences between the options highlighted in orange:

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

After a quick glance over our options, a couple things stand out that we can focus on:

1. How they begin: Thelonious Monk... / Jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk...
2. both rooted / that was both rooted / rooted / that was rooted / rooted both

Let's start with #2 on our list because it deals with a pretty simple concept: to use the word "both" or not to use it! Whenever you see the word "both" in a sentence, make sure that it follows this format in some way:

both X and Y

It's also important to make sure X and Y are both parallel items, which is the key here to ruling out some confusing and just plain wrong answers. Let's focus on finding the X and Y in each sentence, and rule out any that aren't parallel. (I added the remainder of the sentence to help you see more clearly.)

(A) 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. --> NOT PARALLEL

(B) Thelonious Monk, the jazz pianist and composer, produced a body of work that was rooted both 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. --> NOT PARALLEL

(C) Jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk, who produced a body of work 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. --> OK (doesn't use the word "both" at all)

(D) 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. --> OK (doesn't use the word "both" at all)

(E) Jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk produced a body of work rooted both 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. --> NOT PARALLEL

We can eliminate options A, B, & E because they use the idiom "both X and Y," but the X and Y items aren't parallel. They all have X as "in the stride-piano tradition" and Y as "Duke Elllington," which are not parallel items at all!

Now that we have it narrowed down to only 2 options, let's take a closer look at #1 on our list: how to begin. To make problems easier to spot, I've included the rest of the sentence again:

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

This option is INCORRECT because it's missing a verb! By starting the next phrase with "...,who produced...," we've turned it into a non-essential clause or modifier! This means we have a SUBJECT + MODIFIER + SUBORDINATE CLAUSE, which isn't enough to make it a complete sentence.

(D) 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.

This is CORRECT! It eliminated the use of "both," making it clear that the stride-piano tradition belongs to Willie Smith and Duke Ellington, which makes sense. It also puts the adjectives (jazz pianist and composer) next to the subject, Thelonious Monk, which also works. Oh, and it's a complete sentence with a clear subject (Thelonious Monk) and verb (produced).


There you have it - option D is the correct choice!


Don't study for the GMAT. Train for it.

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:


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.


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

Going to try this by elimination. The first thing to look out here is the keyword for idiom "both". "both A and B" is the correct idiom. This eliminates A because of idiom error. In fact I get the feeling the the usage of 'both' is incorrect altogether here, since with 'both A and B' , A and B need to be at least somewhat parallel. In this case they are not. Thus eliminate B and E.

C just doesnt read correctly for me. Consider this :
Jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk, who produced a body of work 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.

The 'he' is pretty ambiguous here.

Thus I will go with D.

Which one of the following is right ??
a. Theo Mark, the jazz pianist and composer, produced a body of work that was rooted in the stride-piano tradition of will smith and duke.
b. Jazz pianist and composer Theo Mark produced a body of work that was rooted in the stride-piano tradition of will smith and duke.

Regards,
Smruti

"Jazz pianist" and "composer" are both describing Thelonious Monk, not two separate people. If it helps, think about whether it would make sense to say "Jazz pianist... produced a body of work..." That's a mess, right? We could say "a jazz pianist produced a body of work" or "the jazz pianist produced a body of work" -- but either way, we'd need an article for "jazz pianist" to work properly as a noun in this context.

Since "jazz pianist" can't make sense as a noun in this sentence, it must be a modifier for "Thelonious Monk." And that makes perfect sense: why would we talk about a generic "jazz pianist", but then mention a specific composer (Thelonious Monk)? And it's completely reasonable for a musician to be both a pianist and a composer.

I hope this helps!

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.

both is not needed, Monk's work is rooted in only the stride-piano tradition, thus eliminate A, B and E.


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

hence, D is the answer.