In the late 1880s, the journalist Jacob Riis visited tenement dwelling

Question

In the late 1880s, the journalist Jacob Riis visited tenement dwellings in several impoverished New York City neighbourhoods to investigate housing conditions and photograph immigrant tenant's apartments,  whose interiors were inhumanely overcrowded, their floors often serving as beds, and their walls often windowless and dilapidated with age and neglect.

(A) whose interiors were inhumanely overcrowded, their floors often serving as beds, and their walls often windowless and dilapidated with age and neglect

(B) whose interiors were inhumanely overcrowded, their floors were often serving as beds, and their walls were often lacking windows and dilapidated due to age and neglect

(C) whose interiors were inhumanely overcrowded, their floors were often serving as beds, and they had walls often windowless and dilapidated with age and neglect

(D) having interiors inhumanely overcrowded, their floors often serving for beds, and their walls were often windowless and dilapidated due to age and neglect

(E) having interiors that were inhumanely overcrowded, their floors often serving as beds, and their walls often lacked windows and were dilapidated on account of age and neglect

swati007 · Accepted Answer

A it is.

(A) whose interiors were inhumanely overcrowded, their floors often serving as beds, and their walls often windowless and dilapidated with age and neglect -  correct  
(B) whose interiors were inhumanely overcrowded, their floors were often serving as beds , and their walls were often lacking windows and dilapidated due to age and neglect  - the highlighted statement is an independent sentence and two independent sentence cannot be connected using just commas->creates a run on sentence. 
(C) whose interiors were inhumanely overcrowded, their floors were often serving as beds, and they had walls often windowless and dilapidated with age and neglect
- same error as B
(D) having interiors inhumanely overcrowded, their floors often serving for beds, and their walls were often windowless and dilapidated due to age and neglect
 - changes the meaning. From the sentence it seems as if Jacob Riis had interiors when he started to visit 
(E) having interiors that were inhumanely overcrowded, their floors often serving as beds, and their walls often lacked windows and were dilapidated on account of age and neglect - same as D

pqhai · Answer

In the late 1880s, the journalist Jacob Riis visited tenement dwellings in several impoverished New York City neighbourhoods to investigate housing conditions and photograph immigrant tenant's apartments,  whose interiors were inhumanely overcrowded, their floors often serving as beds, and their walls often windowless and dilapidated with age and neglect.

(A) whose interiors were inhumanely overcrowded, their floors often serving as beds, and their walls often windowless and dilapidated with age and neglect
  Correct .  Modifier is used correctly.

(B) whose interiors were inhumanely overcrowded, their floors were often serving as beds, and their walls were often lacking windows and dilapidated due to age and neglect
  Wrong.   information about the floors and walls just provides   additional info   for inhumanely overcrowded apartments' interiors ==>  modifier should be used.

(C) whose interiors were inhumanely overcrowded, their floors were often serving as beds, and they had walls often windowless and dilapidated with age and neglect
  Wrong.   Same as B.

(D) having interiors inhumanely overcrowded, their floors often serving for beds, and their walls were often windowless and dilapidated due to age and neglect
  Wrong.    Verb-ing modifier + comma ==> modify preceding clause.  However, the underlined part just modifies "apartments".

(E) having interiors that were inhumanely overcrowded, their floors often serving as beds, and their walls often lacked windows and were dilapidated on account of age and neglect
  Wrong.   Same as D.  Verb-ing modifier + comma ==> modify preceding clause.  That's wrong here.

Hope it helps.

swati007 · Answer

Hi gmatter0913,

below is one of the examples from verbal review

However much United States voters may agree that there is waste in government and that the government as a whole spends beyond its means，it is difficult to find broad support for a movement toward a minimal state．

(A) However much United States voters may agree that
(B) Despite the agreement among United States voters to the fact
(C) Although United States voters agree
(D) Even though United States voters may agree
(E)There is agreement among United States voters that

Some days back i have mentioned about run-on sentences in a post. You can find it here -

https://gmatclub.com/forum/the-missouri-compromise-of-1820-a-legislative-effort-to-154841.html

One more example - the-iroquois-were-primarily-planters-but-supplementing-32790.html#p1259011

Please let me know if you have any doubts.

gaurav2187 · Answer

Just one question.
In option A, isnt there a parallelism error-

whose interiors were inhumanely overcrowded,  their floors often serving as beds , and t heir walls often windowless and dilapidated with age and neglect

1 is in Verb-ed form other is in verb-ing form

sayantanc2k · Answer

The first modifier (relative clause modifier) is not supposed to be parallel to the second and the third (absolute phrases).

Relative phrase modifier: whose interiors were inhumanely overcrowded
Absolute phrase 1: their floors often serving as beds
Absolute phrase 2: their walls often windowless and dilapidated with age and neglect.

There is no bearing of "overcrowded" with "serving" since they are in two different elements which has no parallelity requirement.

The only parallelity requirement is within the absolute phrase 1 and the absolute phrase 2, and they are parallel (noun + noun modifier)

Absolute phrase 1: Noun = their floors, noun modifier (present participle) = (often) serving as beds
Absolute phrase 2: Noun = their walls, noun modifier (adjectival) = windowless and dilapidated with age and neglect.

The only requirement here is that "their walls" and "their walls" be parallel. (Even the noun modifiers in two differnet absolute phrases need not be parallel.)

ProfX · Answer

Can something get dilapidated with age? I thought something can get dilapidated only due to something. I chose 'B', even though I understand that there is a parallelism error, because of the above logic, B seemed the most appropriate

Khuranasup · Answer

I opted for B. Can someone please help me understand why is B incorrrect

HKD1710 · Answer

Hi  Khuranasup ,

1.  Parallelism at issue :

Whose  interiors were....,  their  floors were..., and  their  walls were -- this is not parallel. It should be written like this:
 Whose  interiors were....,  Whose  floors were..., and  Whose  walls were

2.  Wrong use of due to . Replacement of "due to" by "CAUSED BY" does not make sense.

their walls were dilapidated  due to  age. 
their walls were dilapidated CAUSED BY age

tejas0999 · Answer

Can Whose be used to modify a non-living thing like appartments?

Bharath99 · Answer

Yes, Whose can be used for persons, things Below is the general list to refer People -- who , whom , whose to refer Things -- whose, which , that Let me know in case any further info needed If it helps... Kudos

please

nightblade354 · Answer

Hi  Bharath99 ,

Be careful when you make general statements like this. Whose can refer to a house, but only if it shows possession. In this case, it does. But 'whose' is not always appropriate when talking about inanimate objects.

Helium · Answer

Though this sentence is long and not necessarily in your favorite style, there is nothing grammatically wrong with it.

Stripped way down, the last part of this sentence would read: "The interiors were overcrowded, their floors serving as beds and their walls windowless." The last two phrases modify the interiors, giving more information about the insides of these apartments. Joined by "and," they must be parallel to each other.

It may seem odd, but here the word "serving" in the phrase "their floors often serving as beds" actually functions as an adjective. This is fairly common, however. For example, in the sentence "She ran for the bus, shouting, and finally caught it," the verbs "ran" and "caught" are parallel, while the word "shouting" functions as an adjective, describing what she was like while "she ran for the bus." Thus, each of these modifying phrases is noun + adjective, and they are parallel in construction.

Since there is nothing wrong with this sentence, just check each of the other choices to see if any of them is better stylistically.

Scan and Group the Answer Choices:

There is a clear and useful 3-2 split here. (A), (B) and (C) all begin "whose interiors were" and (D) and (E) both begin with "having interiors."

Eliminate Wrong Answer Choices:

(D) and (E) both begin with the word "having," which is incorrect, because it isn't clear who or what has these interiors. Is it the apartments, the immigrants, or Jacob Riis? Such ambiguity is unacceptable, which is enough reason to rule out these two choices. Further, (D) changes "dilapidated with age" to "dilapidated due to age," and (E) changes it to "dilapidated on account of age." Both are wordier than the original. In fact, the phrase "on account of" is usually wrong on the GMAT. So, both (D) and (E) are incorrect.

(B) makes several small changes from the original. First, it changes "floors often serving" to "floors were often serving." This small change has big implications. Without the word "were," the phrase "their floors often serving as beds" is a descriptive aside. With "were," this is an independent clause (it could stand on its own), so it would at the very least have to be parallel with the preceding clause, making a list with it. However, it isn't parallel; to be parallel, it would have to read, "whose floors served as beds." (B) also inserts the word "were" in the last clause, which creates exactly the same problem there. Finally, it unnecessarily changes the phrase "dilapidated with" to "dilapidated due to." "With" is fine, so there's no reason to make the phrase any longer. Because of these problems, (B) is incorrect.

(C) also creates an unparallel list. To be parallel, the second and third clause would have to begin "whose walls" and "whose floors."

Since each of the other choices introduces new errors, the sentence is correct as written and Answer Choice (A) is correct.

patto · Answer

Are the possesive pronouns "their" correct in this sentence? aren't they ambiguos?

MartyTargetTestPrep · Answer

Here's the correct version.

In the late 1880s, the journalist Jacob Riis visited tenement dwellings in several impoverished New York City neighbourhoods to investigate housing conditions and photograph immigrant tenant's apartments, whose interiors were inhumanely overcrowded, their floors often serving as beds, and their walls often windowless and dilapidated with age and neglect.

"Their" would not refer to "neighborhoods" or "conditions," because neither neighborhoods nor conditions would have floors or walls described as these floor and walls are.

"Their" probably does not refer to "tenants'," as tenants probably would not be the ones that have floors and walls.

Regarding the other two nearby plural nouns, "apartments" and "interiors," there is no clear way to determine with a reasonable degree of certainty which of these nouns "their" refers to, as both apartments and interiors could have floors and walls. So, yes, which noun "their" refers to is ambiguous.

gmatgurulondon · Answer

Hello!

I'd just like to point out that there is technically a grammar error in the correct option that I didn't see addressed in the comments, so this isn't a great GMAT question.

We don't use commas in lists of two; for example, if I were to say "I bought milk and eggs," we obviously wouldn't use a comma after milk. But this also applies when we have lists of modifiers. For example, I could say: "I bought some milk, going to the store and paying for it at the register." This sentence ends with two modifiers; we could simplify it as "I bought some milk, X and Y."

We have the same pattern in the "correct" answer: In the late 1880s, the journalist Jacob Riis visited tenement dwellings in several impoverished New York City neighbourhoods to investigate housing conditions and photograph immigrant tenant's apartments, whose interiors were inhumanely overcrowded,  their floors often serving as beds,  and  their walls often windowless and dilapidated with age and neglect . The two bold portions represent modifier 1 and modifier 2, respectively, in a list, and therefore we shouldn't have a comma before the and separating the two.

Veenu21 · Answer

I assumed the same thing and opted for 'B'. 
Can anyone please explain.

himanshu0123 · Answer

Please review my understanding below:

in A] are these absolute phrases : ''their floors often serving as beds, and their walls often windowless and dilapidated with age and neglect''

In C] had there been a semicolon before 'their' floors often serving...?
Would D] be correct then?

in D] I tweek the option below: Is it correct now? Is the usage of 'having' fine here? when do we say ''having' as ing verbal is wrong?

'',having interiors inhumanely overcrowded, floors often serving for beds, and their walls often windowless and dilapidated with age and neglect''

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In the late 1880s, the journalist Jacob Riis visited tenement dwelling

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GMAT Sentence Correction (SC - EA only) Questions

In the late 1880s, the journalist Jacob Riis visited tenement dwelling

Prep Toolkit

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

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