Turning away from literary realism to write romantic stories about the

Meaning issue - In C the meaning implied may be that the first Swedish writer and Selma Lagerlöf are two different people.

Hi Experts,
In SC, I have been following a rule that the pair "and' - "also" is redundant.
However, it seems to be incorrect after getting this question wrong.
Can someone please provide pertaining details of and-also.

Hi nikhilbhide ,

"X and Y" is normally used to indicate two different things. (if you said "the first woman and the first Swedish writer", without the "also", that would normally imply 2 different people)

"X and also Y" is normally used to bestow two descriptions on the SAME person or thing (notice that both of these descriptions are meant to describe Selma Lagerlof).

For more information , check https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/foru ... t5815.html

Turning away from literary realism to write romantic stories about the peasant life and landscape of northern Sweden, in 1909 Selma Lagerlöf was the novelist who became the first woman and was also the first Swedish writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature.

(A) Turning away from literary realism to write romantic stories about the peasant life and landscape of northern Sweden, in 1909 Selma Lagerlöf was the novelist who became the first woman and was also the first Swedish writer to win -- modifier error -- in 1909 after comma

(B) She turned away from literary realism and wrote romantic stories about the peasant life and landscape of northern Sweden, and novelist Selma Lagerlöf in 1909 became the first woman as well as the first Swedish writer that won -- usage of AND changes meaning because the two things -- she turned away ... and she became the first woman are not independent ; usage of that to refer to writer (a person )

(C) Selma Lagerlöf was a novelist who turned away from literary realism to write romantic stories about the peasant life and landscape of northern Sweden, and in 1909 she became the first woman in addition to the first Swedish writer winning -- what was she before she became the first women ; usage of in addition

(D) A novelist who turned away from literary realism to write romantic stories about the peasant life and landscape of northern Sweden, Selma Lagerlöf became in 1909 the first woman and also the first Swedish writer to win -- Correct

(E) As a novelist, Selma Lagerlöf turned away from literary realism and wrote romantic stories about the peasant life and landscape of northern Sweden, in 1909 becoming the first woman and also the first Swedish writer that won -- usage of that to refer to writer is incorrect

---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----


1.In option B , does She not refer to Selma Lagerlöf by virtue of parallelism(both are subjects) ?
She turned away from literary realism and wrote romantic stories about the peasant life and landscape of northern Sweden, and novelist Selma Lagerlöf in 1909 became the first woman as well as the first Swedish writer that won

whereas in question in the link - https://gmatclub.com/forum/she-was-an-e ... s#p2041716

She was an educator, a builder of institutions and organizations, and a major figure in the Black church and secular feminist movements as well, so one of the best-known and most well-respected African Americans of the early twentieth century was Nannie Helen Burroughs.

She is the subject of the independent clause , but Nannie Helen Burroughs is an object of second independent clause . So , as per parallelism , she CANNOT refer to NHB ?

2. Also , if the subject of both the independent clauses is the same , i believe repetition of subject(pronoun) leads to redundancy and thus should be avoided ?

https://gmatclub.com/forum/joan-of-arc- ... l#p1104716



AjiteshArun , GMATNinja , mikemcgarry , egmat , sayantanc2k, RonPurewal , DmitryFarber , MagooshExpert -- please enlighten

Hi Skywalker18!

Happy to help


Unfortunately, parallelism doesn't work this way. The pronoun "she" is referenced before we know what it's referring to. Parallelism is irrelevant here -- the problem is that we don't know what "she" refers to. Just because they are both subjects does not mean that they are referring to the same thing. We could say "apples are red and grapes are green", and both clauses are in parallel, but that doesn't mean that apples = grapes. Similarly, if we say "they are red and grapes are green", it's totally unclear what we're talking about. Does "they" refer to "grapes" or something else, like "apples"? That's the problem here.


I've highlighted the key part here. It is correct to remove the repeated subject and replace it with a pronoun, but only in the SECOND clause (i.e., after the noun has already been mentioned). For example, say we have:

Apples are red and apples grow in Washington state.

In this case, the correct modification would be:

Apples are red and they grow in Washington state.

But it is INCORRECT to say:

They are red and apples grow in Washington state.

We can only switch to the pronoun AFTER the subject (apples) has been mentioned. We can't substitute the pronoun into the first independent clause.

Does that help clear things up here? If not, let me know
-Carolyn

The reply above has addressed most of your questions. I'll just add a quick point.

This (pronoun reference through parallelism) is not really a "rule". Think of it as a "signal" (to the reader). Sometimes the parallelism helps your reader understand what you are trying to refer to. Sometimes it doesn't. For example:

It may not be the healthiest food, but chocolate remains part of his diet.

Here it is reasonably easy to understand that the it refers to chocolate.

In these situations, check whether there is a better option. Don't try to start solving a question by looking at pronoun ambiguity issues (ambiguity should be kept for later, after the more "sure" concepts).

Hi Carolyn MagooshExpert , AjiteshArun - Thanks for your help.

I believe you missed my second question --




Joan of Arc, a young Frenchwoman who claimed to be divinely inspired, turned the tide of English victories in her country by liberating the city of Orleans and she persuaded Charles VII of France to claim his throne.

(D) persuaded Charles VII of France to claim his throne
The only difference between option A and D is the pronoun "She".

What i can infer is as per GMAT , repetition of the pronoun is redundant. Can we use this fact as a rule or only as a preference?

Hello Skywalker18,

Here is my response to few of your questions.



It is not so that repeating pronoun leads to redundancy in this sentence. There are two aspects to this usage.

1. If the sentence intends to present two actions performed by the same doer, then why to write the two actions in two different clauses. The concise manner to present that sentence is to mention the doer once and present the two actions in a parallel list. This is what Choice D does.

2. Two independent clauses cannot be connected just by and. This is the flaw the original sentence suffers from.

If a comma is added before and in the original sentence, then it will be a correct sentence.

Now in this sentence, there is no confusion as to what the pronoun she refers to because Joan of Arc is mentioned right in the beginning of the sentence, and there is no other female mentioned in the sentence that she can refer to.


However, in the Selma Lagerlof problem, Choice B seems to suggest that its talking about two different people because two actions by the same doer has been presented in two different clauses, and first the pronoun is mentioned and then Selma Lagerlof is mentioned in the sentence.

So we come back to the same point. If the sentence intends to present two actions performed by the same doer, then why to write the two actions in two different clauses. The concise manner to present that sentence is to mention the doer once and present the two actions in a parallel list.

The correct answer choice of this question presents a structure that incorporates all the information about Selma Lagerlof in an unambiguous manner. This is the characteristic of a correct answer choice. It should present information in clear and simple manner.


Hope this helps.
Thanks.
Shraddha

AjiteshArun , GMATNinja , mikemcgarry , egmat , sayantanc2k, RonPurewal , DmitryFarber , MagooshExpert -- please enlighten

It may not be the healthiest food, but chocolate remains part of his diet. -- in this case the pronoun IT comes before the noun chocolate . So , is there a rule that Pronoun CANNOT come before the noun(to which the pronoun refers) in the sentence ?

No. It depends on the construction. For example, if we change my sentence to

(1) It may not be the healthiest food, and chocolate is hard to resist.
Here the reader cannot be expected to understand that the it is referring to chocolate. There is just no clear connection between the first clause and the second.

(2) It may not be the healthiest food, but chocolate remains part of his diet.
Note how we switched from and to but. Now, the reader can be expected to understand that the it refers to chocolate.

Two more sentences:
(3) Ajay arrived before time and he drove me home.
Here the he can be understood to be referring to Ajay.

(4) He arrived before time and Ajay drove me home.
Here the he is referring to someone not mentioned in the sentence.

Clearly, the "rules" that (a) a pronoun and noun will "match" as long as they are in the subject position of their respective clauses and (b) a pronoun can never come before the noun it refers to are not really rules that can be applied cleanly.

Again, I'll repeat what I said earlier: In these situations, check whether there is a better option. Don't try to start solving a question by looking at pronoun ambiguity issues (ambiguity should be kept for later, after the more "sure" concepts).

when do we use this structure ' and also' ? wouldn't adding 'also' after 'and' be redundant? Please help clarify

An also after and is used for emphasis. It does add redundancy, but the thing to remember here is that the presence of redundancy in an option does not mean that the option has no chance of being correct. We should check for other ("bigger") errors before looking to take an option out for redundancy.

Can we eliminate (C) with the help of parallelism "in"?

I'm not sure I understand how this is parallel.

(D) A novelist who turned away from literary realism to write romantic stories about the peasant life and landscape of northern Sweden, Selma Lagerlöf became in 1909 the first woman and also the first Swedish writer to win

How is it parallel? Doesn't this mean that in 1909 she became:

1) the first woman (doesn't make sense since there were women who existed before her)
2) the first Swedish writer to win the Nobel Prize for literature

How can we be sure that the infinitive phrase "to win" applies to both nouns (the first woman AND the first Swedish writer)?

"to win" can only refer back "Selma Lagerlof" because the start of the stem is "Selma lagerlof became in 1909".

Whenever you are trying parallelism try to find its stem.
So, read this sentence like this: Selma lagerlof became in 1909 (1)"the first woman" (makes sense)
Selma Lagerlöf became in 1909 (2)"also the first Swedish writer to win" (makes sense)

And the answer to your 1) the first woman (doesn't make sense since there were women who existed before her)
Its a bit of style to say. We really don't mean that she was the first woman, but somehow its just the style of the author at the end of the day. We have want to say that she was the first woman to "win" Nobel prize.

No. In (C), "in 1909" appropriately modifies "she became."

Hi experts, (MartyTargetTestPrep, GMATNinja, egmat, AjiteshArun)

For answer choice A, can you ever have a short prepositional phrase right after a modifier as this option has? (e.g., "Turning away form...,in 1909 SL was...") or is this ALWAYS incorrect?