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BillyZ
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A
Be sure to select an answer first to save it in the Error Log before revealing the correct answer (OA)!
Difficulty:
45%
(medium)
Question Stats:
55% (01:02) correct
45%
(01:27)
wrong
based on 6942
sessions
History
Date
Time
Result
Not Attempted Yet
Sartre, an inadvertent guru, had an opinion on everything, painfully considered, elaborately reasoned, often changed.
(A) often changed
(B) and it was usually changed
(C) that was often changed
(D) changing often
(E) one he often changed
SC56561.01
(A) often changed
(B) and it was usually changed
(C) that was often changed
(D) changing often
(E) one he often changed
SC56561.01
https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,924058-2,00.html
This inadvertent guru had an opinion on everything, painfully considered, elaborately reasoned, often changed. But for most of his life he was convinced of the ineluctable corruption of the bourgeoisie, even though he was to the bourgeoisie born. His father was a naval officer who sickened and died when Jean-Paul was only two. The boy was brought up in the house of his grandfather, a linguistics professor who doted on him. His prim Roman Catholic mother he loved but did not respect, because nobody else in his free-thinking Lutheran grandfather's household did ("My mother and I were the same age," Sartre later recalled).
This inadvertent guru had an opinion on everything, painfully considered, elaborately reasoned, often changed. But for most of his life he was convinced of the ineluctable corruption of the bourgeoisie, even though he was to the bourgeoisie born. His father was a naval officer who sickened and died when Jean-Paul was only two. The boy was brought up in the house of his grandfather, a linguistics professor who doted on him. His prim Roman Catholic mother he loved but did not respect, because nobody else in his free-thinking Lutheran grandfather's household did ("My mother and I were the same age," Sartre later recalled).
30 Sep 2019, 16:24
Kudos
Bookmarks
Hello Everyone!
Let's tackle this question, one issue at a time, and narrow down our choices to the right one! First, let's take a quick scan over the original question for clues, and highlight any major differences between the options in orange:
Sartre, an inadvertent guru, had an opinion on everything, painfully considered, elaborately reasoned, often changed.
(A) often changed
(B) and it was usually changed
(C) that was often changed
(D) changing often
(E) one he often changed
After a quick glance over the options, it seems that everything except the words "changed/changing" are different. This means we need to look to the original sentence for clues as to what grammar concept we're likely dealing with:
Sartre, an inadvertent guru, had an opinion on everything, painfully considered, elaborately reasoned, often changed.
What I've highlighted in pink is a list - and whenever we deal with lists on the GMAT, there is one grammar concept we always begin with:
PARALLELISM!
We need to make sure each item in the list is written using similar wording, structure, verb tenses, etc. Let's add in the first two items on the list to see which options use parallelism properly:
(A) painfully considered, elaborately reasoned, often changed = PARALLEL
(Each part of the list follows the same general format of ADJECTIVE + VERB-ed)
(B) painfully considered, elaborately reasoned, and it was usually changed = NOT PARALLEL
(C) painfully considered, elaborately reasoned, that was often changed = NOT PARALLEL
(D) painfully considered, elaborately reasoned, changing often = NOT PARALLEL
(E) painfully considered, elaborately reasoned, one he often changed = NOT PARALLEL
There you have it - option A is the only one that uses parallelism correctly! Remember - whenever you're dealing with a list, parallelism is the first thing to look for when trying to narrow down your options quickly!
Don't study for the GMAT. Train for it.
Let's tackle this question, one issue at a time, and narrow down our choices to the right one! First, let's take a quick scan over the original question for clues, and highlight any major differences between the options in orange:
Sartre, an inadvertent guru, had an opinion on everything, painfully considered, elaborately reasoned, often changed.
(A) often changed
(B) and it was usually changed
(C) that was often changed
(D) changing often
(E) one he often changed
After a quick glance over the options, it seems that everything except the words "changed/changing" are different. This means we need to look to the original sentence for clues as to what grammar concept we're likely dealing with:
Sartre, an inadvertent guru, had an opinion on everything, painfully considered, elaborately reasoned, often changed.
What I've highlighted in pink is a list - and whenever we deal with lists on the GMAT, there is one grammar concept we always begin with:
PARALLELISM!
We need to make sure each item in the list is written using similar wording, structure, verb tenses, etc. Let's add in the first two items on the list to see which options use parallelism properly:
(A) painfully considered, elaborately reasoned, often changed = PARALLEL
(Each part of the list follows the same general format of ADJECTIVE + VERB-ed)
(B) painfully considered, elaborately reasoned, and it was usually changed = NOT PARALLEL
(C) painfully considered, elaborately reasoned, that was often changed = NOT PARALLEL
(D) painfully considered, elaborately reasoned, changing often = NOT PARALLEL
(E) painfully considered, elaborately reasoned, one he often changed = NOT PARALLEL
There you have it - option A is the only one that uses parallelism correctly! Remember - whenever you're dealing with a list, parallelism is the first thing to look for when trying to narrow down your options quickly!
Don't study for the GMAT. Train for it.
09 Nov 2019, 11:29
Kudos
Bookmarks
EducationAisle
Isn't this ridiculous? Just to make the questions difficult, such odd writing styles are being tested.
06 Feb 2021, 08:28
Kudos
Bookmarks
RupalTot123
This question is mostly about parallelism. The non-underlined portion ends with a list of attributes (describing Sartre's opinion), so we're expecting another attribute to complete the list. The first two attributes (“painfully considered, elaborately reasoned”) show us the pattern: adverb adjective, adverb adjective.
Choice (A) gives us exactly what we expect: another attribute that describes Sartre's opinion, in the form "adverb adjective" ("often changed"). So (A) is looking pretty good, but let's see if we can eliminate the others.
Quote:
If we only had "usually changed" instead of "it was usually changed," then (B) would be tempting. Again, the first two elements of the list are in the form "adverb + adjective," so we expect something similar in the final part.
Instead, we get "pronoun + verb + adverb + adjective"--the addition of a subject pronoun and verb ("it was") makes it seem like we are starting an entirely new sentence, rather than continuing the list of attributes.
That's not what we want, so we can get rid of (B).
Quote:
This would be fine if the “that was” came before the whole list: “…had an opinion on everything that was painfully considered, elaborately reasoned, [and] often changed.” But at the end of the list, "that was" doesn't make any sense and throws off the parallelism. (C) is out.
Quote:
Here the parallelism might technically be ok because we have another attribute that describes Sartre's opinion ("changing often"). But unlike in (A), we don't get a nice, clean (and easy-to-follow) list of "adverb + adjective" pairs.
Moreover, since we are talking about Sartre's opinion in the past, the opinion shouldn’t be “changing often"--this seems to imply that the opinion is STILL changing in the present.
In contrast, "considered" and "reasoned" suggest actions that were performed ON the opinions in the past--the opinions were painfully considered BY Sartre, and the opinions were elaborately reasoned BY Sartre. That pattern doesn't work with the third item: "The opinions were changing often by Sartre" doesn't make sense.
On the other hand, choice (A) implies that "the opinions were often changed by Sartre," which makes more sense and fits with the pattern of the first two attributes. This makes (A) the better choice, so we can eliminate (D).
Quote:
You can get rid of (E) pretty quickly because it doesn't fit with the parallel structure at all. Using this option, the list of attributes has the form: "(1) adverb adjective, (2) adverb adjective, (3) pronoun ("one") noun modifier ("[that] he often changed")--the parallelism is clearly better in (A).
That's enough reason to get rid of (E). But if (and only if) you'd like nerd out and dive a little deeper on this one, keep reading...
Aside from the obvious deviation from the part of speech pattern, there is another really subtle reason that the parallelism isn't ideal here:
- The first two items in the list describe what Sartre’s opinion was like, without mentioning specific action by Sartre: his opinion was considered and reasoned. (If you like the jargon, this is the passive voice). As we saw in option (D), the first two elements imply actions performed ON the opinions.
- But with "one he often changed," "he" is the subject of the verb "changed." This active construction gives Sartre more agency—he is the one specifically changing the opinion, as opposed to the opinion having been changed BY him.
- Simply put, because two of the elements in the list are in the passive voice and one is in the active, the parallelism isn't as good as it is in option (A). Again, you don't need to go there to get rid of (E), but this gives us one more vote for (A) over (E)
.
In any case, (A) is our best option.
I hope that helps!
