Unlike the buildings in Mesopotamian cities, which were arranged hapha

Question

Unlike  the buildings in Mesopotamian cities, which were arranged haphazardly, the same basic plan was followed for all cities of the Indus Valley: with houses  laid out on a north-south, east-west grid, and houses and walls were built of standard-size bricks.

(A) the buildings in Mesopotamian cities, which were arranged haphazardly, the same basic plan was followed for all cities of the Indus Valley: with houses

(B) the buildings in Mesopotamian cities, which were haphazard in arrangement, the same basic plan was used in all cities of the Indus Valley: houses were

(C) the arrangement of buildings in Mesopotamian cities, which were haphazard, the cities of the Indus Valley all followed the same basic plan: houses

(D) Mesopotamian cities, in which buildings were arranged haphazardly, the cities of the Indus Valley all followed the same basic plan: houses were

(E) Mesopotamian cities, which had buildings that were arranged haphazardly, the same basic plan was used for all cities in the Indus Valley: houses that were

I have a doubts here:

Unlike the buildings in Mesopotamian cities,  which  
were arranged haphazardly......

Does "which" refer to the subject i.e. "the buildings" or the closer noun i.e. "Mesopotamian cities"? Is there a rule that applies here?

TIA

GMATNinja · Accepted Answer

The word "unlike" is the first thing that should leap off the page at us. This is begging you for a nice, strict comparison. (And if you aren't 100% comfortable with comparisons, check out  this video  or  this sequel .)

But the comparison doesn't work in (A): "Unlike  the buildings  in Mesopotamian cities...  the same basic plan  was followed for all cities of the Indus Valley..." Nope, we can't really compare "buildings" to a "plan."

There's another minor problem, though. In general, colons are used to introduce examples or descriptions or definitions, and in this sentence, the colon introduces a more detailed description of "the basic plan". But there's really no reason to use the preposition "with" in front of that description. (And the really good news is that the nuances of colon or semicolon or dash usage are rarely tested on the GMAT. More on GMAT punctuation in  this video .)

For what it's worth: I'm OK with the idea that "which were arranged haphazardly" could modify the entire phrase "buildings in Mesopotamian cities", and not the cities themselves. But the comparison error alone is definitely enough to disqualify (A).

(B) has exactly the same comparison error as (A): "Unlike  the buildings  in Mesopotamian cities...  the same basic plan  was used in all cities of the Indus Valley..." Nope, we still can't really compare "buildings" to a "plan."

I'm also not crazy about the phrase "which were haphazard in arrangement" -- it's a pretty inelegant way to say "which were arranged haphazardly." But I'm not certain that it's definitely WRONG. And I'm much more comfortable with the description after the colon, for whatever it's worth -- see the explanation for answer choice (A) for more on this issue.

Anyway, the comparison error is about as bad as it gets, so (B) is gone.

(C) rearranges a bunch of stuff, but the comparison is still a mess: "Unlike  the arrangement  of buildings in Mesopotamian cities...  the cities  of the Indus Valley..." Nope, we can't compare "the arrangement" to "the cities."

There's also a little bit of a problem with the modifier "which were haphazard". Because "were" is plural, the sentence seems to be saying that either the cities or the buildings themselves were haphazard, and neither of those make sense: the arrangement was actually haphazard.

So we have two strong reasons to cross out (C).

Hurray, the comparison is acceptable now. "Unlike Mesopotamian cities... the cities of the Indus Valley..." Yup, that's cool.

And I don't see any other potential issues. The "which" modifier is clear as a bell now: "in which buildings were arranged haphazardly" clearly describes "Mesopotamian cities." The phrase after the colon is a perfectly reasonable description of the "basic plan."

Let's keep (D).

And once again, the comparison is crap: "Unlike Mesopotamian cities... the same basic plan..." Nope.

And there are some other minor issues. The modifier "which had buildings that were arranged haphazardly" isn't WRONG, exactly, but it's a messy and wordy way to say "in which buildings were arranged haphazardly." Plus, the chunk after the colon is no longer parallel: " houses that were  laid out on a... grid, and  houses and walls were  built of standard-size bricks." That's not OK: the noun phrase "houses that were laid out" is not parallel to the clause "houses and walls were built..."

So (E) is gone, and we're left with (D).

AdamKnewton · Answer

The rule for "which," and for all other relative pronouns ("who," "that," etc.), is that it must modify the  noun or noun idea  immediately preceding it. A "noun idea" is a single idea composed of a noun with some associated modifiers, often a prepositional phrase, that may or may not involve another noun. In this case, the relative pronoun can modify either the immediately preceding noun or the immediately preceding noun idea.

So, in your example, "which" could modify either the "bulidings" (which it seems to here) or the "cities" -- either would be grammatically correct, depending on the logic of the sentence.

egmat · Answer

Hi There,

Unlike  the buildings in Mesopotamian cities, which were arranged haphazardly, the same basic plan was followed for all cities of the Indus Valley: with houses  laid out on a north-south, east-west grid, and houses and walls were built of standard-size bricks.

https://e-gmat.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Grammar.png

Error Analysis

1. “Unlike” tells us that this sentence presents a contrast. What follows “Unlike” is “the buildings in Mesopotamian cities”. Now, the “buildings” have been illogically contrasted with “the same basic plan” that is subject of the main clause. Hence, this sentence has parallelism error. We need to make both the contrasting entities parallel to make the contrast logical.

POE:
 
 Choice A:  the buildings in Mesopotamian cities, which were arranged haphazardly, the same basic plan was followed for all cities of the Indus Valley: with houses:  Incorrect  for the reason stated above.

Choice B:  the buildings in Mesopotamian cities, which were haphazard in arrangement, the same basic plan was used in all cities of the Indus Valley: houses were:  Incorrect  as it repeats the parallelism error of Choice A.

Choice C:  the arrangement of buildings in Mesopotamian cities, which were haphazard, the cities of the Indus Valley all followed the same basic plan: houses:  Incorrect  as it contrasts “the arrangement of buildings…” with “the cities of the Indus Valley”. We again have illogical contrast here.

Choice D:  Mesopotamian cities, in which buildings were arranged haphazardly, the cities of the Indus Valley all followed the same basic plan: houses were:  Correct.  “Mesopotamian cities” have been correctly contrasted with “the cities of the Indus Valley”.

Choice E:  Mesopotamian cities, which had buildings that were arranged haphazardly, the same basic plan was used for all cities in the Indus Valley: houses that were:  Incorrect.  “Mesopotamian cities” have been illogically contrasted with “that same basic plan”.

https://e-gmat.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Takeaway.png

1. The sentence must present logical comparison or contrast.
2. The entities compared or contrasted must grammatically as well as logically parallel.

Hope this helps.
Thanks.
Shraddha

egmat · Answer