Events & Promotions
| Last visit was: 20 Sep 2026, 19:20 |
It is currently 20 Sep 2026, 19:20 |
|
|
GMAT Club Daily Prep
Thank you for using the timer - this advanced tool can estimate your performance and suggest more practice questions. We have subscribed you to Daily Prep Questions via email.
Customized
for You
Track
Your Progress
Practice
Pays
Not interested in getting valuable practice questions and articles delivered to your email? No problem, unsubscribe here.
Sep 2107:00 PM EDT
-10:00 PM EDT
Boost your GMAT score in less than one month in a live online class + 6 months access to TTP OnDemand video courses included!
Sep 1810:00 AM IST
-11:00 PM IST
Start your journey with a fully customized action plan and work with a dedicated mentor to achieve a 735+ score.
Sep 2601:00 PM EDT
-04:00 PM EDT
Top scores are possible when you enroll in a powerful GMAT course, taught live online + 6 months access to TTP OnDemand video courses included. Class starts Saturdays Sept. 26, 2026 - Dec. 19, 2026, 1:00pm-4:00pm ES
Updated on: 18 Mar 2019, 00:40
Originally posted by manoharpln on 20 Apr 2010, 16:59.
Last edited by Bunuel on 18 Mar 2019, 00:40, edited 4 times in total.
Last edited by Bunuel on 18 Mar 2019, 00:40, edited 4 times in total.
Edited the question.
Kudos
Bookmarks
E
Be sure to select an answer first to save it in the Error Log before revealing the correct answer (OA)!
Difficulty:
35%
(medium)
Question Stats:
56% (00:56) correct
44%
(01:09)
wrong
based on 6776
sessions
History
Date
Time
Result
Not Attempted Yet
The diet of the ordinary Greek in classical times was largely vegetarian—vegetables, fresh cheese, oatmeal, and meal cakes, and meat rarely.
(A) and meat rarely
(B) and meat was rare
(C) with meat as rare
(D) meat a rarity
(E) with meat as a rarity
(A) and meat rarely
(B) and meat was rare
(C) with meat as rare
(D) meat a rarity
(E) with meat as a rarity
The Official Guide for GMAT Review, 10th Edition, 2003
Practice Question
Question No.: SC 104
Page: 668
Practice Question
Question No.: SC 104
Page: 668
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1984/07/09/the-original-olympiads
One month before the Games began, the contestants arrived for more training in the several buildings erected for that purpose in the nearby town of Elis. As the Games progressed, trainers grew in importance. They were knowledgeable about such matters as exercise regimens, physiotherapy, and muscle physiology, and some had firm ideas about diet. That of the ordinary Greek in the early days was largely vegetarian—vegetables, fresh cheese, oatmeal, and meal cakes, with meat as a rarity. Some trainers later favored a heavy meat diet for their athletes, but one runner won the sprint on a diet of dried figs.
One month before the Games began, the contestants arrived for more training in the several buildings erected for that purpose in the nearby town of Elis. As the Games progressed, trainers grew in importance. They were knowledgeable about such matters as exercise regimens, physiotherapy, and muscle physiology, and some had firm ideas about diet. That of the ordinary Greek in the early days was largely vegetarian—vegetables, fresh cheese, oatmeal, and meal cakes, with meat as a rarity. Some trainers later favored a heavy meat diet for their athletes, but one runner won the sprint on a diet of dried figs.
If this question felt shaky,
try an adaptive mini quiz of similar problems in
GMAT Club Forum Quiz →. Free plan gives 5 questions per day.
22 Apr 2010, 19:11
Kudos
Bookmarks
Hey All,
No one bothered to explain this one on here, so I figured I'd weigh in, since it's a quick one.
The diet of the ordinary Greek in classical times was largely vegetarian—vegetables, fresh cheese, oatmeal, and meal cakes, and meat rarely.
Obviously, this is a parallelism issue. Every list needs to have "and" at the end. You can't use "and" twice, unless the second to last item in the list is a compound. For example: "I like all kinds of sandwiches: reuben, turkey, pastrami, peanut butter and jelly, and veggie." But in that case, there are two nouns in that second to last entry (peanut butter and jelly). We don't have that here, so there's no justification for having two "and"s.
(A) and meat rarely
PROBLEM: No and allowed.
(B) and meat was rare
PROBLEM: Again.
(C) with meat as rare
PROBLEM: You can't just say "meat as rare". As sets up either a comparison ("meat as rare as an uncooked log.") or some type of prepositional phrase ("meat as metaphor for life...").
(D) meat a rarity
PROBLEM: We need some segue from the last item in the list.
(E) with meat as a rarity
ANSWER: We get the prepositional phrase. It's a bit odd, since it's modifying something that came a long time ago, but it's still the best choice.
Hope that helps!
-tommy
No one bothered to explain this one on here, so I figured I'd weigh in, since it's a quick one.
The diet of the ordinary Greek in classical times was largely vegetarian—vegetables, fresh cheese, oatmeal, and meal cakes, and meat rarely.
Obviously, this is a parallelism issue. Every list needs to have "and" at the end. You can't use "and" twice, unless the second to last item in the list is a compound. For example: "I like all kinds of sandwiches: reuben, turkey, pastrami, peanut butter and jelly, and veggie." But in that case, there are two nouns in that second to last entry (peanut butter and jelly). We don't have that here, so there's no justification for having two "and"s.
(A) and meat rarely
PROBLEM: No and allowed.
(B) and meat was rare
PROBLEM: Again.
(C) with meat as rare
PROBLEM: You can't just say "meat as rare". As sets up either a comparison ("meat as rare as an uncooked log.") or some type of prepositional phrase ("meat as metaphor for life...").
(D) meat a rarity
PROBLEM: We need some segue from the last item in the list.
(E) with meat as a rarity
ANSWER: We get the prepositional phrase. It's a bit odd, since it's modifying something that came a long time ago, but it's still the best choice.
Hope that helps!
-tommy
15 Dec 2015, 12:20
Kudos
Bookmarks
Dear honchos,
My friend, I am happy to respond.
Before I respond, I will give you a little more feedback. I do this, not to make you feel bad, but to support your growth and learning. I share feedback with you precisely because I respect you as an intelligent member of this forum and want to support your success in every way.
The first point is a subtle punctuation issue. There is an important difference between the hyphen and the em-dash. The hyphen is a symbol that only appears in the middle of words, gluing two parts together in an hyphenated word:
well-being
able-bodied
broad-minded
mind-boggling
father-in-law
The hyphen is an ordinary keyboard symbol, just to the right of zero on a standard keyboard, and it is a symbol supported by the rtf of this forum. By contrast, the dash or em-dash is a punctuation symbol used to organize the flow of a sentence. In many ways, its use overlaps with the use of the colon. This SC sentence from the OG10 has a em-dash. Unfortunately, the em-dash is not a standard keyboard and there is no way to type a proper em-dash in the rtf of this forum. There is another dash, the en-dash, that is used for dates and ranges of values. They have three different sizes.
hyphen & dashes.JPG [ 15.03 KiB | Viewed 47223 times ]
The important point is that it is very confusing and misleading to type an em-dash as a hyphen. You typed:
...was largely vegetarian-vegetables, fresh cheese, ...
That makes it look as if you are creating a nonsense hyphenated word, "vegetarian-vegetables." The logic of the sentence requires an em-dash. There is no universally agreed-upon convention for how to type an em-dash in plain text, but I normally use three hyphens (because the em-dash is wider than the en-dash which is wider than the hyphen). This would be:
... was largely vegetarian---vegetables, fresh cheese, ...
I changed the original post to this for clarity. You may choose to follow this convention, but please do not type your em-dashes as hyphens.
The second point concerns discussing individual words. Toward the end of your post, you wrote:
1. What is the importance of as here.
2. what is the importance of with here.
Do you see how confusing this is? When you are addressing individual words, you need put those words in quotes: otherwise, it is terribly confusing for anyone trying to figure out what you are saying. These should be:
1. What is the importance of "as" here?
2. What is the importance of "with" here?
That is considerably clearer. As you may notice below, I use both quote marks and color to talk about an individual word. Please follow this convention, so that you don't create unnecessary difficulty for the person whose help you are soliciting. My friend, I realize that none of this is intended as disrespect. I realize you are learning, and that is perfectly fine. We are all always learning.
Finally, a minor point about my name. My name is Mike McGarry, not MikeGarry, as you have typed. As you go on in life, to business school, in the business world, etc., remember that one of the best ways to show someone respect is to show that you remember their name and that you know their correct name. Getting someone's name correct is always a sign of respect. Again, I am fully aware that you did not intend any disrespect, my friend.
Now, to your questions about this SC problem. This is SC #104 in the OG10. You are correct that (A) & (B) violate parallelism and can be rejected immediately. I think it was very insightful that you looked at the sentences after the list in parallel had been dropped:
(C) The diet of the ordinary Greek in classical times was largely vegetarian, with meat as rare
(D) The diet of the ordinary Greek in classical times was largely vegetarian, meat a rarity
(E) The diet of the ordinary Greek in classical times was largely vegetarian, with meat as a rarity
You are 100% correct: the OA should word as a full sentence with that list omitted.
From here, I will say, (D) is odd, because we just have a comma and then a noun with no connecting word. We can have a noun with no connecting word in an appositive phrase, modifying another noun, but that is not the structure here. Here, we just have an odd noun with no connector, and it is 100% grammatically incorrect. Choice (D) is wrong.
When we insert a preposition such a the word "with," that turns the free-standing noun into a phrase that can grammatically connect to the rest of the sentence. Choices (C) & (E) have this correct.
At this point, it's purely an idiom question. The structure
"with X as rare"
sounds awkward and unnatural. This is idiomatically incorrect. The correct idiom is:
"with X as a rarity."
In general, we use "as" + [adjective] only in a comparative structure, e.g.;
Meat was as rare as mangoes.
They ate little meat, but cheese was not as rare.
There's not really a correct structure for "as" + [adjective] apart from comparisons. By contrast, the structure "as" + [noun] has a few uses, among which is showing that something plays a certain role. The structure
"with meat as rare"
leave us wondering "as rare as what??" It leave us expecting a comparison that never happens. That's the problem with (C). The OA has the structure:
"with meat as a rarity."
In other words, meat is playing the role of a "rarity," or occupying the position of a "rarity." This is idiomatically correct and it reflects the meaning that the sentence is trying to convey. Choice (E) is flawless, a very strong OA.
Does all this make sense?
Mike
My friend, I am happy to respond.
Before I respond, I will give you a little more feedback. I do this, not to make you feel bad, but to support your growth and learning. I share feedback with you precisely because I respect you as an intelligent member of this forum and want to support your success in every way. The first point is a subtle punctuation issue. There is an important difference between the hyphen and the em-dash. The hyphen is a symbol that only appears in the middle of words, gluing two parts together in an hyphenated word:
well-being
able-bodied
broad-minded
mind-boggling
father-in-law
The hyphen is an ordinary keyboard symbol, just to the right of zero on a standard keyboard, and it is a symbol supported by the rtf of this forum. By contrast, the dash or em-dash is a punctuation symbol used to organize the flow of a sentence. In many ways, its use overlaps with the use of the colon. This SC sentence from the OG10 has a em-dash. Unfortunately, the em-dash is not a standard keyboard and there is no way to type a proper em-dash in the rtf of this forum. There is another dash, the en-dash, that is used for dates and ranges of values. They have three different sizes.
Attachment:
hyphen & dashes.JPG [ 15.03 KiB | Viewed 47223 times ]
...was largely vegetarian-vegetables, fresh cheese, ...
That makes it look as if you are creating a nonsense hyphenated word, "vegetarian-vegetables." The logic of the sentence requires an em-dash. There is no universally agreed-upon convention for how to type an em-dash in plain text, but I normally use three hyphens (because the em-dash is wider than the en-dash which is wider than the hyphen). This would be:
... was largely vegetarian---vegetables, fresh cheese, ...
I changed the original post to this for clarity. You may choose to follow this convention, but please do not type your em-dashes as hyphens.
The second point concerns discussing individual words. Toward the end of your post, you wrote:
1. What is the importance of as here.
2. what is the importance of with here.
Do you see how confusing this is? When you are addressing individual words, you need put those words in quotes: otherwise, it is terribly confusing for anyone trying to figure out what you are saying. These should be:
1. What is the importance of "as" here?
2. What is the importance of "with" here?
That is considerably clearer. As you may notice below, I use both quote marks and color to talk about an individual word. Please follow this convention, so that you don't create unnecessary difficulty for the person whose help you are soliciting. My friend, I realize that none of this is intended as disrespect. I realize you are learning, and that is perfectly fine. We are all always learning.
Finally, a minor point about my name. My name is Mike McGarry, not MikeGarry, as you have typed. As you go on in life, to business school, in the business world, etc., remember that one of the best ways to show someone respect is to show that you remember their name and that you know their correct name. Getting someone's name correct is always a sign of respect. Again, I am fully aware that you did not intend any disrespect, my friend.
Now, to your questions about this SC problem. This is SC #104 in the OG10. You are correct that (A) & (B) violate parallelism and can be rejected immediately. I think it was very insightful that you looked at the sentences after the list in parallel had been dropped:
(C) The diet of the ordinary Greek in classical times was largely vegetarian, with meat as rare
(D) The diet of the ordinary Greek in classical times was largely vegetarian, meat a rarity
(E) The diet of the ordinary Greek in classical times was largely vegetarian, with meat as a rarity
You are 100% correct: the OA should word as a full sentence with that list omitted.
From here, I will say, (D) is odd, because we just have a comma and then a noun with no connecting word. We can have a noun with no connecting word in an appositive phrase, modifying another noun, but that is not the structure here. Here, we just have an odd noun with no connector, and it is 100% grammatically incorrect. Choice (D) is wrong.
When we insert a preposition such a the word "with," that turns the free-standing noun into a phrase that can grammatically connect to the rest of the sentence. Choices (C) & (E) have this correct.
At this point, it's purely an idiom question. The structure
"with X as rare"
sounds awkward and unnatural. This is idiomatically incorrect. The correct idiom is:
"with X as a rarity."
In general, we use "as" + [adjective] only in a comparative structure, e.g.;
Meat was as rare as mangoes.
They ate little meat, but cheese was not as rare.
There's not really a correct structure for "as" + [adjective] apart from comparisons. By contrast, the structure "as" + [noun] has a few uses, among which is showing that something plays a certain role. The structure
"with meat as rare"
leave us wondering "as rare as what??" It leave us expecting a comparison that never happens. That's the problem with (C). The OA has the structure:
"with meat as a rarity."
In other words, meat is playing the role of a "rarity," or occupying the position of a "rarity." This is idiomatically correct and it reflects the meaning that the sentence is trying to convey. Choice (E) is flawless, a very strong OA.
Does all this make sense?
Mike
General Discussion
07 May 2010, 04:16
Kudos
Bookmarks
there is no need for any explanation after Tommy`s, doing it just for myself
E
there are three points in a row. before the last one we can see the conjunction "and". So all options with another "and" are out.
rarity is much better than rare when you are trying to describe a noun.
E
there are three points in a row. before the last one we can see the conjunction "and". So all options with another "and" are out.
rarity is much better than rare when you are trying to describe a noun.
