Dear sunny91,

I'm happy to respond.

My friend, I will begin by telling you something shocking. The GMAT SC is NOT a test of grammar. The GMAT SC is a test of the quality of writing, and the quality of writing depends on (1) grammar, (2) logic, and (3) rhetoric; in a well-written sentence, such as a correct answer on the SC, all three of these strands cooperate to support a single clear meaning. The folks who write the GMAT SC questions are concerned with all aspects of the quality of writing.

One direct consequence of these facts is that the GMAT SC often has incorrect answers that are 100% grammatically correct. This is particularly befuddling to non-native students who are focused exclusively on grammar: such answers function as traps for these students. You see, a version of a sentence might be 100% grammatically correct, but illogical or awkward or wordy or etc. etc. There are dozens of ways in which a sentence can fall short of the standards of high quality writing.

In this SC question about the late Sen. Daniel Inouye (a very good man!), choice (D) is precisely such an answer. Choice (D) is 100% correct grammatically, absolutely no grammar flaw at all, and yet, it's not the right answer. Why? consider (C) and (D) side by side:

(C) . . . during his first term, including assistant majority whip . . .

(D) . . . during his first term, some of which were assistant majority whip . . .

Notice that, compared to version (C), version (D) uses one more syllable, 66% more letters, and 300% more words! Whether we are speaking or writing the sentence, it takes more effort & more space to use (D) than (C). The paradox is that if (C) didn't exist, (D) could be a perfectly fine right answer, but compared to (C), (D) looks clunky, swollen, and rambling. This is a subtle point: the GMAT SC is not just about black vs. white, absolutely right vs. absolutely wrong, the way math always is; instead, it is quite explicitly about the "best answer," and this focus means that one choice could be very good but still be beaten out by something better!

It's often hard to give clear simple rules for rhetoric, but one clear rule that the GMAT consistently follows is as follows: if you can say exactly the same thing correctly with more words or fewer, it's always better to say it with fewer. This is one of the many conditions in which a 100% grammatically correct answer would not be the OA.

Does all this make sense?
Mike
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United States Senator Daniel Inouye was appointed to several posts within the Democratic party during his first term, that included assistant majority whip and vice-chair of the Democratic Senatorial Committee.

(A) that included
(B) which includes
(C) including
(D) some of which were
(E) among them being


E. among them being

Please critique!

A. that is relative pronoun that never follows comma. That indicates that information will always be essential to the sentence and should never be sectioned off by commas.
B. Which is a relative pronoun that serves to modify the noun that proceeds it. In this instance, which modifies term and alters the meaning of sentence.
E. Improperly use the preposition among

Between C&D, C cuts down on unecessary wordiness and uses the correct construction: IC + "," + Participle Phrase

Best,

NCH2024

look at choice C and D.

both including and which can jump over some words to modify a far noun.
why D is wrong
some of which were is wrong because
"some" means several. "some of which were A and B" is not logic. we can not say thay several persons are Mr. A and Mr. B. instead, we have to say that "two of which are Mr. A and Mr B"

if "some" is several things, it is not logic. we can not say "some of which is A and B"

choice D can be correct if it is

two of which were A and B.

look at choice E
being is redundant. choice E can be correct if it is
among them whip and vice chair.

Experts, please help me understand this:
Q)United States Senator Daniel Inouye was appointed to several posts within the Democratic party during his first
term, including assistant majority whip and vice-chair of the Democratic Senatorial Committee.

According to my understanding, "Including" modifies the preceding closest noun, right?
So in this question doesn't "including" modify "term"?

Hi Aniket, the word including is quite flexible in terms of what it can modify: either the word preceding it or the phrase preceding it, whichever makes sense.

p.s. Our book EducationAisle Sentence Correction Nirvana discusses the application of “including”. Have attached the corresponding section of the book, for your reference.

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My take on this one

A. that included - illogical and "that" after a comma is usually wrong unless there is an implied and unstated subject, which is not the case here
B. which includes - modifying "touch rule" makes this one wrong
C. including - 'including' is modifying the whole clause before --> logical, succinct
D. some of which were - POE eliminates this for wordyness
E. among them being - 'being' takes an illogical turn

the point here is that
including can jump over the adverb (during..." ) while which clause can not jump over the adverb . which clause can only jump over the noun modifier.

so, including can "jump" further than which clause.

I am still not sure why I should choose C over D.
Is there any grammatical error with D?
Is conciseness the only reason that makes C better than D?

1 consiceness 2 modification "which" is way too away from "several post"
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Have you checked out this post by thangvietnam?

Consider the following examples:

• "I saw several movies last year, some of which were long and boring." - I saw several movies (say, 20 movies) last year. Some subset of those movies (say, 5 movies) were long and boring. The words "long" and "boring" describe the 5 movies.
• "I saw several movies last year, some of which were Bohemian Rhapsody and Deadpool 2." - We can have multiple movies that were "long and boring", but we can't have multiple movies that were Bohemian Rhapsody and Deadpool 2.
• "I saw several movies last year, including Bohemian Rhapsody and Deadpool 2." - This makes much more sense. Bohemian Rhapsody and Deadpool 2 are just two of the movies that I saw last year. So the movies that I saw last year included Bohemian Rhapsody and Deadpool 2.

Now look at choice (D):


Does that mean that there were multiple posts that qualified as both assistant majority whip and vice-chair of the Democratic Senatorial Committee?? (D) has the same problem as the second example above.

Compare that to choice (C):


The meaning is much clearer here. Inouye was appointed to several posts. Assistant majority whip and vice-chair of the Democratic Senatorial Committee are just two of those posts. The several posts to which he was appointed included 1) assistant majority whip and 2) vice-chair of the Democratic Senatorial Committee.

Yes, choice (C) is more concise than (D). But, more importantly, the meaning is clearer in (C).

I hope this helps!
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C is the right answer,
Including is used as a modifier in this sentence. furthermore, it should give a list of some but not all of that noun.
One example from Thursdays from Ron video is as follows:

The gym teacher asked us to three body-weight exercises,including sit ups, push ups and chin ups. --> wrong
The gym teacher asked us to ten body-weight exercises,including sit ups, push ups and chin ups. --> correct

the original sentence is also similar to the above sentence.

Hi mike,

Based on this link from eGMAT your explanation is not right. It says that the verb-ing modifier after a clause PRECEDED by a comma, should modify the whole clause or say the result of the preceding clause. It also mentions to modify a noun, verb-ing should come without a comma. So I was wondering how it can modify a noun?
https://e-gmat.com/blogs/usage-verb-ing ... g%20clause.

Hi

One more reason to eliminate Choice D here is "The modified entity should be close to the sub group modifier".

Thank you for posting the solutions. These are very helpful

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