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generis
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generis
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My answer is (E). It took me 01:32.

(A) Before the "Comma + and", "Thomas Nast, whose cartoons called for an end to corruption and were published in leading newspapers and magazines, including Newsweek" is not an independent clause but a name followed by a nonrestrictive relative clause.

(B) "published in leading newspapers and magazines" modifies "corruption". The antecedent for "they" can be ambiguous.

(C) Not a sentence. "whose cartoons ... to justice" modifies "Thomas Nast".

(D) should be "and were published".
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Good question! I’ll go with A

Let’s break it down!
whose refers to Thomas Nast
called for ... and were published refers to cartoons
including Newsweek refers to magazines
and these cartoons here and acts as a connector.

A looks good let’s keep it!

B The main subject is cartoons. Here published creates a problem as it should be followed by a verb to refer to cartoons. In this sentence published refers to corruption .. that’s wrong! Eliminate

C This is just a fragment. Lacks verb prior published and called Eliminate

D This too requires a verb after the connector and. published simply acts as a modifier as it lacks verb. Eliminate

E This looks good. But the question is played refers to what? cartoons OR Thomas Nast. Eliminate

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Thomas Nast, whose cartoons called for an end to corruption and were published in leading newspapers and magazines, including Newsweek, and these cartoons played a key role in bringing several corrupt politicians and their associates to justice.

A) No verb for subject "Thomas Nast"-eliminate

B) Modifier "published in leading newspapers and magazines" is modifying corruption -eliminate

C) No Main verb-Same issue as in A

D) Parallelism issue - clause and adverbial phrase can not be parallel
"Were published.." would have made this sentence legitimate.

E) Correct choice gametically; However, until I reached this option, I was under impression that his cartoons played key role not Thomas Nast directly.

(E) is the best

zhanbo
could you please share your view on whether Thomas Nast or his cartoons played key role in bringing several corrupt politicians and their associates to justice per intended meaning
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generis

Project SC Butler: Sentence Correction (SC1)


For SC butler Questions Click Here


Thomas Nast, whose cartoons called for an end to corruption and were published in leading newspapers and magazines, including Newsweek, and these cartoons played a key role in bringing several corrupt politicians and their associates to justice.


A) Thomas Nast, whose cartoons called for an end to corruption and were published in leading newspapers and magazines, including Newsweek, and these cartoons played
Incorrect. The subject "Thomas Nast" does not have a verb.

B) Thomas Nast’s cartoons called for an end to corruption, published in leading newspapers and magazines, including Newsweek, and they played
Incorrect. The modifier "published in leading newspapers and magazines" is placed away from the logical antecedent "cartoons". The way the sentence is structured, the modifier is illogically modifying the preceding noun "corruption".

C) Thomas Nast, whose cartoons, published in leading newspapers and magazines, including Newsweek, called for an end to corruption and played
Incorrect. The subject "Thomas Nast" again does not have a verb.

D) Thomas Nast’s cartoons called for an end to corruption and published in leading newspapers and magazines, including Newsweek, playing
Incorrect. The list attached to the subject "cartoons" is not parallel. While "called" is a verb, "published" is a modifier.

E) Thomas Nast, whose cartoons called for an end to corruption and were published in leading newspapers and magazines, including Newsweek, played
Correct. The subject "Thomast Nast" has a verb "played a key role". The modifier "whose.." maintains a parallel structure.
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Thomas Nast, whose cartoons called for an end to corruption and were published in leading newspapers and magazines, including Newsweek, and these cartoons played a key role in bringing several corrupt politicians and their associates to justice.

A) No verb for subject "Thomas Nast"-eliminate

B) Modifier "published in leading newspapers and magazines" is modifying corruption -eliminate

C) No Main verb-Same issue as in A

D) Parallelism issue - clause and adverbial phrase can not be parallel
"Were published.." would have made this sentence legitimate.

E) Correct choice gametically; However, until I reached this option, I was under impression that his cartoons played key role not Thomas Nast directly.

(E) is the best

zhanbo
could you please share your view on whether Thomas Nast or his cartoons played key role in bringing several corrupt politicians and their associates to justice per intended meaning
sumitkrocks , watch the modifiers. If meaning is not clear at the outset, intended meaning is determined by the option that is grammatical and whose meaning makes sense (i.e., its "meaning" in both dependent and independent clauses).

Elsewhere I have mentioned that aspirants should be on the alert when they see a relative pronoun such as who, that, or which, but also whom and whose (two other forms of who).

In particular, watch the verbs. Relative pronouns require their own verb or verbs.
Whose refers to an immediately preceding noun and will be followed by a noun. That second noun is the subject of a whose-clause and requires a verb..
→ The Phoenicians, whose well-made sailboats helped them travel widely, dominated ancient trade for almost 1,000 years.
whose refers to the Phoenicians and conveys that the sailboats were owned by the Phoenicians. The word sailboats takes the verb helped. Phoenicians takes the verb dominated.
Once a verb is "eaten up" by the relative pronoun, it cannot be paired with ("used by") the main subject.

I realize that this answer might sound circular.

Try both

(1) stripping away nonessential modifiers and

(2) making sure that the nonessential modifiers make sense. (True, nonessential modifiers can be excised from a sentence, but they still must make sense on their own.)

If you cannot decide between two options because an error does not jump out at you, risk going with "style": diction; clarity and concision of expression; and flow.

I hope that answer helps.

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generis

Before posting my answer, I would like to take a moment and 'Thank You' for what you are doing for this community!! Zillion kudos to you my friend.

Coming to the question at hand, this question is really good and I absolutely loved solving it.

I took me 1:31 mins and in my opinion E should be the correct answer.


Quote:
Thomas Nast, whose cartoons called for an end to corruption and were published in leading newspapers and magazines, including Newsweek, and these cartoons played a key role in bringing several corrupt politicians and their associates to justice.

Meaning:-
1.Thomas Nast made cartoons.
2. His idea was to end corruption through his cartoons.
3. The cartoons were published in leading newspaper and magazines, including Newsweek.
4. He played a key role in bringing several corrupt politicians and their associates to justice.


A) Thomas Nast, whose cartoons called for an end to corruption and were published in leading newspapers and magazines, including Newsweek, and these cartoons played
This is a 'Run-on' sentence. If you remove everything after comma,the sentence will look like :-
Thomas Nast,and these cartoons played a key role in bringing several corrupt politicians and their associates to justice
This is absolutely incorrect.


B) Thomas Nast’s cartoons called for an end to corruption, published in leading newspapers and magazines, including Newsweek, and they played
The sentence is trying to create parallelism but in-turn makes it look horrible.AS soon as I read the whole sentence, I eliminated it.
Very awkward construct in my opinion. Plus the 'they' at last is also not a correct.
Incorrect


C) Thomas Nast, whose cartoons, published in leading newspapers and magazines, including Newsweek, called for an end to corruption and played
This is again a sentence which many of us will say is written correctly.
Look closely, it was not Thomas Nast who called for an end to corruption.
The cartoons are playing a major role through which he tried to end corruption.
Incorrect.


D) Thomas Nast’s cartoons called for an end to corruption and published in leading newspapers and magazines, including Newsweek, playing
the -ing form playing is incorrect because neither it is trying to give us any additional information about the preceding clause nor it is leading to a result. Incorrect.

E) Thomas Nast, whose cartoons called for an end to corruption and were published in leading newspapers and magazines, including Newsweek, played
This is correct.This is matching with the meaning I mentioned above and is nicely written.
Correct.

IMO E.
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sumitkrocks
Thomas Nast, whose cartoons called for an end to corruption and were published in leading newspapers and magazines, including Newsweek, and these cartoons played a key role in bringing several corrupt politicians and their associates to justice.

A) No verb for subject "Thomas Nast"-eliminate

B) Modifier "published in leading newspapers and magazines" is modifying corruption -eliminate

C) No Main verb-Same issue as in A

D) Parallelism issue - clause and adverbial phrase can not be parallel
"Were published.." would have made this sentence legitimate.

E) Correct choice gametically; However, until I reached this option, I was under impression that his cartoons played key role not Thomas Nast directly.

(E) is the best

zhanbo
could you please share your view on whether Thomas Nast or his cartoons played key role in bringing several corrupt politicians and their associates to justice per intended meaning

sumitkrocks
Both you and I consider (E) to be the best answer. In (E), it is Thomas Nast who played a key role in bringing several corrupt politicians and their associates to justice.

In other sentences, if their grammatical errors were rectified, they might suggest that Thomas Nast's cartoons played the key role.

Either interpretation is acceptable. We need to bear in mind that, while we should be able to tell reasonable meanings from preposterous ones, we cannot tell which meaning is the intended meaning. Whatever meaning is putatively conveyed in option (A) is not the intended meaning against which other options are evaluated. To put it another way, because we cannot pretend to know the intended meaning of a sentence, we do not eliminate options based on their meaning changes (as long as their meanings are reasonable).
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Thomas Nast, whose cartoons called for an end to corruption and were published in leading newspapers and magazines, including Newsweek, and these cartoons played a key role in bringing several corrupt politicians and their associates to justice.

A) Thomas Nast, whose cartoons called for an end to corruption and were published in leading newspapers and magazines, including Newsweek, and these cartoons played
- Missing verb for Subject "Thomas Nast"

B) Thomas Nast’s cartoons called for an end to corruption, published in leading newspapers and magazines, including Newsweek, and they played
- Illogical meaning "corruption published in ........."

C) Thomas Nast, whose cartoons, published in leading newspapers and magazines, including Newsweek, called for an end to corruption and played
- Missing verb for Subject "Thomas Nast"
- Not conveying clear meaning

D) Thomas Nast’s cartoons called for an end to corruption and published in leading newspapers and magazines, including Newsweek, playing
- cartoons doing the action of "published" - Meaning error

E) Thomas Nast, whose cartoons called for an end to corruption and were published in leading newspapers and magazines, including Newsweek, played
- CORRECT
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Thank you generis zhanbo Much appreciate your helpful responses.

While understanding the intended meaning of the question is crucial, it is always not certain that given stem with non underlined and underlined portions acts as reference for picking logical meaning. There may be multiple logically correct and slightly different meanings. Task is to find THE ONLY ONE that captures logic with correct grammar.
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Hi Guys

Tough choice between D and E

IMO D is the correct answer and here’s why

The original sentence says the cartoons of Thomas nast played a key role and not the author Thomas nast himself

The meaning has to be verbatim in the gmat and hence I choose D over E

All other explanations are bang on in my opinion but we can’t choose an answer which changes what the first option is conveying.


Hence D

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The official explanation is here.
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