The Ten Great Buildings of China were built by the Community

Question

The Ten Great Buildings of China were built by the Community rulers in 1959 in Beijing on a grand scale, constructions  that comprised an architectural amalgam of three major factors of modernism, communism, and historicism and reflected  the diverse aspects of the Chinese past and the then extant cultural canvas

A) that comprised an architectural amalgam of three major factors of modernism, communism, and historicism and reflected
B) comprising an architectural amalgam of three major factors of modernism, communism, and historicism and that reflecting 
C) that comprised an architectural amalgam of three major factors of modernism, communism, and historicism and reflecting 
D) that comprised an architectural amalgam of three major factors of modernism, communism, and historicism that reflected
E) comprising an architectural amalgam of three major factors of modernism, communism, and historicism and reflecting

daagh · Accepted Answer

The expression ‘ the then extant ’ has been used to refer to the prevailing culture at the time of the construction of the buildings to distinguish it from the then past culture. At this moment, both are past events. Looked in the same vein, the constructions also comprised those three factors that were prevailing then but still took the past tense verb comprised. So the use of past tense ‘reflected’ isn’t aberrant.

But the problem in A as I see it is that the constructions were doing two things 1. They comprised an amalgam and 2. They reflected the past and the present cultures. These two are independent of each other. Therefore we do need to have a “that” after the ‘and’ to keep the sentence symmetrical.

While we can easily dispense with choices B, C and D for using various forms of unparallel inputs, E stands out as the answer, avoiding the above pitfalls by using a couple of present participles, ‘comprising and reflecting’

daagh · Answer

My own creation; OA will follow after a while.

Zatarra · Answer

A is not parallel.Need that reflected after and
B,C not parallel
D : Meaning issue. How can historicism reflect aspects.
So E .

gmat1011 · Answer

i don't see much wrong with A...

THAT comprised.... and reflected (that X and Y...) seems fine

use of "reflected" as opposed to "reflecting" - with the then extant cultural canvas also seems fine

General Rose's comment also  reflected the then extant  disagreement between the British and the Americans over the doctrine for such operations: the Americans were again inclined to apply maximum force while the British were averse to the prospects of such a dangerous
page 67
Volume 10, 2008 Baltic Security & Defence Review

gmat1011 · Answer

the reason i say that is because initially 'the then extant' part seemed a bit incongruous with use "reflected" (past tense)... with "diverse aspects of the Chinese past" i think you can safely use past tense... but I'd just go with A as I don't see anything wrong as 'reflected' can i think be used...

what is the answer you had in mind? good question.

what is the answer you had in mind? good question.

mailnavin1 · Answer

I thought it to be your own creation Mr. Daagh, tried googling it as I couldn't sit back without knowing the OA. Google came up with one match, with the reference GMAT CLUB :-)

metallicafan · Answer

+1 E

daagh, I have a question: If choice A had "that" after "and", would it be correct?
In other words, are "that comprised" and "comprising" both correct?, Why?

Thanks!

gmat1011 · Answer

hmm..

https://web.ku.edu/~edit/that.html --- you need "thats" traveling in pairs for parallel construction when they refer to the same antecedent

like in the example given in this link: The senator said that he might run again and that, if he did, Myra Henry would be his campaign manager.

He said 2 independent things but the common antecedent is the senator...

I guess by the same token you need 2 thats here as well in A as the 'comprised' and the 'reflected' both relate back to 'constructions'... in the senator statement running the statement without 2 thats will just make it sound terrible... but the construction without the second "that" in your example is more difficult to catch. Thanks Daagh - good to bear this in mind. You get past A; E is the winner in my book.

daagh · Answer

metallicafan: IMO constructions that comprised and that reflected would be even more ideal in the given case than constructions comprising and reflecting as the entire sentence is set in the past. But I do not see any less in the present participial usages, which are also handy ever so many times. Besides that, I wonder whether there is any other hair splitting nuance that distinguishes one from the other.

But in the given context, it is beside the point as the error in A was deliberately introduced.

But in the given context, it is beside the point as the error in A was deliberately introduced.

Zatarra · Answer

Why did you reject D?
D is parallel.Is it because it changes the meaning.
Can you explain what r u trying to say in the above paragraph
sorry but i didnt understand your point.Do u mean to say that Using "comprised and reflect ie:the past tense ( as in A )is as preferable as using "comprising and reflecting ( as in E ) and A would have been right if only it had 2 thats

mailnavin1 · Answer

yes D changes the meaning and distorts the llsm. For the use of that check gmat1011 exp

daagh · Answer

mundasingh123:By that description, I was trying to convince gmat1011, who seemed initially to feel a little incongruous about the use of the past tense ‘reflected’ in choice A.

I meant to say that it was ok to use a past tense, even though it was describing a present tense event, given the context.

gmatexam439 · Answer

Hello  daagh /  GMATNinja ,
Hope you are doing good!
I chose "E" instead of "A" based on the usage of "comprised" and "reflected". Since a historical monument once built will continue to depict its heritage and culture, usage of past tense isn't advisable. So instead of past participle we need present participle as used in "E". Am I correct in my reasoning?

Awaiting your response.
Regards

Drialouyto · Answer

Why Ａ ｉｓ ｉｎｃｏｒｒｅｃｔ？

daagh · Answer

gmatexam

I agree with you. In my opinion, A is missing the 'that' parallelism before the word 'reflected'.

gmatexam439 · Answer

Thank you for the quick reply sire.

AdityaHongunti · Answer

Hello sir, I think I disagree with the " that " necessity in this problem.
In choice A, the  construction  is the subject to both the following verbs and hence a single that is sufficient. If the subject before " that " has to be different then, in that case, we need a separate that. On this basis choice, A is clear and precise. Secondly, if i were to think that reflected is to be parallel to the very first verb from the non underlined part then it doesn't make sense as it is incorrect to say " were reflected ". No doubt choice E is good. But you cannot just reject choice A on the basis of " kind of ambiguous " as it is neither ambiguous nor grammatically incorrect. Please correct me if I'm wrong. As it is your own creation I would request you to put up questions with answer choices with more distinct problems. To try to construct a 700+ question you may have just given two correct answer choices.

richirish · Answer

Brilliant question, perfect test for parallelism.

Gauravvinod92 · Answer

Option C also follows parallelism structure
 that   comprised( Past participle)....and reflecting( present participle) . Also reflecting shows present and comprised shows that something happened in past. By this logic i may go with C.

May you please correct the viewpoint.

Regards,
Gaurav

The Ten Great Buildings of China were built by the Community

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The Ten Great Buildings of China were built by the Community

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