A noted psychoanalyst claims that the causes of mental illness are mai

Question

A noted psychoanalyst claims that the causes of mental illness are mainly environmental – extreme poverty, lack of adequate parenting, and sexual abuse –  and chemical imbalances rarely .

A) and chemical imbalances rarely
B) and chemical imbalance being rare
C) with chemical imbalance as rare
D) chemical imbalances a rarity
E) with chemical imbalance as a rarity

KarishmaB · Accepted Answer

The part in the hyphen can be ignored. The rest of the sentence should be one whole.

A noted psychoanalyst claims that the causes of mental illness are mainly environmental and chemical imbalances rarely.

The claim is that causes of mental illness are environmental (some examples listed out) and that chemical imbalances lead to mental illnesses rarely.

A) and chemical imbalances rarely

With "and", we would need a complete clause. 
e.g. ... and chemical imbalances are rare...

B) and chemical imbalance being rare
"being" is used to express a temporary state.

C) with chemical imbalance as rare
"rare" is an adjective. You need a noun with "as" here - "chemical imbalance as a rarity"

D) chemical imbalances a rarity

A noted psychoanalyst claims that the causes of mental illness are mainly environmental chemical imbalances a rarity.
Connector that connects "chemical imbalances" to the rest of the sentence is missing. 
 
E) with chemical imbalance as a rarity
Grammatically fine.

Answer (E)

Abhi077 · Answer

Are you sure about the OA? With chemical imbalance as a rarity sounds awkward. IMO A should be the answer... as per the meaning of the sentence, Causes of mental illness are Mainly environmental- X,Y & Z & chemical imbalances .

ARIEN3228 · Answer

I am unable to understand what is wrong with option C,D and E.

I have added my bit of explanation below.

A noted psychoanalyst claims that the causes of mental illness are mainly environmental – extreme poverty, lack of adequate parenting, and sexual abuse – and chemical imbalances rarely.

Lets start with the meaning of the sentence. It says the causes of mental illness are mainly environmental factors such as extreme poverty, lack of adequate parenting and sexual abuse and not so much due to chemical imbalance.

Error Analysis- 
Structure  X and Y  is wrong. Because one factor outweighs the other as per meaning of the sentence.

A) and chemical imbalances rarely- eliminate
B) and chemical imbalance being rare-eliminate
C) with chemical imbalance as rare
D) chemical imbalances a rarity- 
E) with chemical imbalance as a rarity

Can someone discuss this in detail please. bunnuel,: GMATNinjaTwo, aragonn, sudarshan22, GMATNinja, hazelnut, Vyshak, generis

sayan640 · Answer

VeritasKarishma   GMATNinja   mikemcgarry  Can you please throw some light on this question ?

Posted from my mobile device

vvrkumar · Answer

Trying to fit each option into the main sentence.

A) A noted psychoanalyst claims that the causes of mental illness are mainly environmental – {ignore, the statements before and after the hyphens are to be consistent} –  and chemical imbalances rarely

Sentence feels wrong / stopped mid-way, also the 'and' is a problem here.

B) A noted psychoanalyst claims that the causes of mental illness are mainly environmental – {ignore, the statements before and after the hyphens are to be consistent} –  and  chemical imbalance being rare

Ruled out because of the 'and'

C) A noted psychoanalyst claims that the causes of mental illness are mainly environmental – {ignore, the statements before and after the hyphens are to be consistent} – with chemical imbalance  as rare

Incomplete sentence, does not gel well with the grammatical structure of the first part, especially with the plural word 'causes'

D) A noted psychoanalyst claims that the causes of mental illness are mainly environmental – {ignore, the statements before and after the hyphens are to be consistent} –  chemical imbalances a rarity

Missing conjunction between two parts of the sentence

E) A noted psychoanalyst claims that the causes of mental illness are mainly environmental – {ignore, the statements before and after the hyphens are to be consistent} –  with chemical imbalance as a rarity

Correct answer, by elimination of the above four.

AjiteshArun · Answer

You could also take a look at the  official question  that this question is based on.

mike2100 · Answer

Dear  VeritasKarishma 
what if it's "and rarely chemical imbalances " 
would that be correct? ??

can you please explain the use of  as + noun  
it's kinda strange to me 
Thank you

thangvietnam · Answer

the only error in choice d is "balances". we have no reason to use plural noun here beccause "poverty, parenting and abuse" are singular noun.

the pattern in choice d is without "with". this is good because absolute pattern can and can not go with "with".

gvij2017 · Answer

Why E over A.

I am more inclined to A as "and" is parallelism marker. 
I consider both mainly environmental and chemical imbalances rarely in parallel. And I don't see nothing wrong in it.

Ans if reworded option E, it seems to me like ...mental illness are mainly environmental (list of examples) with chemical imbalances as rarity. 
 "with chemical imbalances as rarity" seems to connected with mainly environmental directly. 
Please clear this doubt.

jaisonsunny77 · Answer

A noted psychoanalyst claims that the causes of mental illness are mainly environmental – extreme poverty, lack of adequate parenting, and sexual abuse –  and chemical imbalances rarely.

The phrase included in between the dashes is a modifier phrase that describes the 'causes'. Hence, if you remove this phrase completely, you'll still get a valid sentence. In fact, we need to remove this phrase to visualize what's going on in the passage.

So, after removing this phrase, the sentence effectively becomes:

A noted psychoanalyst claims that the causes of mental illness are mainly environmental  and chemical imbalances rarely.

Let's refer to this new version (of the sentence) as   V1.    we will now analyze our available options using V1 as our reference. 
 
A)  and chemical imbalances rarely  - By analyzing V1, we realize that what follows 'and' is not an independent clause. Hence,  eliminate (A)

B)  and chemical imbalance being rare  - Same error as in (A). Hence,  eliminate (B)

C)  with chemical imbalance as rare  - here, chemical imbalances is being equated to 'rare' as though both are analogous to each other. This, however, is incorrect as 'rare' is meant to behave as an adjective that describes the 'chemical imbalance'. Hence,  eliminate (C).

D)  chemical imbalances a rarity  - here, the preposition 'with' is missing. Without the preposition 'with', we cannot clearly make out what this underlined portion is trying to modify (or whether this underlined portion is a modifier in the first place). There's a lot of room for doubt here. Hence,  eliminate (D)

E)  with chemical imbalance as a rarity  - here, the preposition phrase 'with... as a rarity' is clearly modifying the noun '' the causes of mental illness''. Hence,   (E) is the right answer choice.

frankqxq · Answer

For choice A, there is no comma before "and". Thus, there should not be a need for an independent clause afterward right? 
are   and   seems correct to me? What is wrong with this interpretation?

VerbalBot · Answer

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A noted psychoanalyst claims that the causes of mental illness are mai

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A noted psychoanalyst claims that the causes of mental illness are mai

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