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Updated on: 16 May 2022, 09:31
Originally posted by eybrj2 on 12 Feb 2012, 01:46.
Last edited by GMATNinjaTwo on 16 May 2022, 09:31, edited 5 times in total.
Last edited by GMATNinjaTwo on 16 May 2022, 09:31, edited 5 times in total.
capitalized Hardy
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D
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:
68% (01:39) correct
32%
(01:53)
wrong
based on 1890
sessions
History
Date
Time
Result
Not Attempted Yet
When Mary Webb died at the age of forty-six, literature lost a voice that promised to speak for Shropshire with the poignancy that Thomas Hardy had spoken for Wessex and Emily Bronte did for Yorkshire.
(A) with the poignancy that Thomas Hardy had spoken for Wessex and Emily Bronte did
(B) with poignancy like that with which Thomas Hardy had spoken for Wessex and Emily Bronte had
(C) as poignantly as Thomas Hardy for Wessex, and Emily Bronte spoke
(D) as poignantly as Thomas Hardy had spoken for Wessex, and Emily Bronte
(E) poignantly, as did Thomas Hardy for Wessex, and Emily Bronte had spoken
(A) with the poignancy that Thomas Hardy had spoken for Wessex and Emily Bronte did
(B) with poignancy like that with which Thomas Hardy had spoken for Wessex and Emily Bronte had
(C) as poignantly as Thomas Hardy for Wessex, and Emily Bronte spoke
(D) as poignantly as Thomas Hardy had spoken for Wessex, and Emily Bronte
(E) poignantly, as did Thomas Hardy for Wessex, and Emily Bronte had spoken
https://www.nytimes.com/1982/10/24/books/two-country-classics.html
An essayist and poet as well as a novelist, Mary Webb was born in Shropshire in 1881 and began writing during World War I. But it was not until 1924, with the publication of ''Precious Bane,'' that a substantial readership came to respect her quiet genius; and it is for this country classic that Mary Webb has been remembered ever since. When she died at the age of 46, literature lost a voice that promised to speak for Shropshire as poignantly as Thomas Hardy had spoken for Wessex, Emily Bronte for Yorkshire.
Initially, I picked b.
After checking OA, I looked over the question again and tried to find errors in each choices.
This is my reasoning, and I'd like you to tell me your opinion about my reasoning.
Thanks.
< My reasoning >
a) tense problem : Thomas had spoken, Emily did
b) wordy
c) spoke should have been had spoke because it happened earlier than main clause.
d) OA
e) tense problem : did , had spoken
An essayist and poet as well as a novelist, Mary Webb was born in Shropshire in 1881 and began writing during World War I. But it was not until 1924, with the publication of ''Precious Bane,'' that a substantial readership came to respect her quiet genius; and it is for this country classic that Mary Webb has been remembered ever since. When she died at the age of 46, literature lost a voice that promised to speak for Shropshire as poignantly as Thomas Hardy had spoken for Wessex, Emily Bronte for Yorkshire.
Initially, I picked b.
After checking OA, I looked over the question again and tried to find errors in each choices.
This is my reasoning, and I'd like you to tell me your opinion about my reasoning.
Thanks.
< My reasoning >
a) tense problem : Thomas had spoken, Emily did
b) wordy
c) spoke should have been had spoke because it happened earlier than main clause.
d) OA
e) tense problem : did , had spoken
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13 Jun 2016, 13:47
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Konstantin1983
Not just "had", but also "spoken" is missing, and the absence is not erroneous. In parallel structure it is alright to eliminate the repeated parts, even verbs, from the second element of the structure.
.....as poignantly as Thomas Hardy had spoken for Wessex, AND Emily Bronte
Parallelism marker: AND
First element: green highlighted
Second element: purple highlighted- verb "had spoken" omitted from the second element.
Updated on: 16 Aug 2024, 16:20
Originally posted by GMATNinja on 20 May 2022, 06:11.
Last edited by GMATNinjaTwo on 16 Aug 2024, 16:20, edited 1 time in total.
Last edited by GMATNinjaTwo on 16 Aug 2024, 16:20, edited 1 time in total.
fixed typo
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niyatisuri
Quote:
Let's focus on this bit first: "a voice that promised to speak for Shropshire with the poignancy that Thomas Hardy had spoken for Wessex..."
The phrase "the poignancy" is modified by the ensuing "that..." clause. So, Webb (or her voice), promised to speak with poignancy -- specifically, the poignancy that Thomas Hardy had spoken for Wessex. This wording implies that Hardy had spoken poignancy, and that doesn't make any sense. You can speak WITH poignancy, but you can't speak poignancy itself (at least not without taking a LOT of poetic license... "I speak poignancy" sounds like a workable rap lyric, maybe?).
It's not a strong enough reason to eliminate (A) on its own, but it's certainly a red flag.
The other red flag is that the "did" after "Emily Bronte" suggests a simple past verb (i.e. "Bronte did speak" or "Bronte spoke"). If we wanted to stick with the past perfect to match the verb for Hardy ("had spoken"), it would have been clearer to use "had" as a placeholder. (For more on those placeholder verbs, check out this post.)
Do we have different tenses for Hardy and Bronte? And if we go with the simple past for Bronte, does that mean that she was speaking at the same time that Webb "died" or "promised"? That wouldn't make much sense -- so the timing of the events is unclear at best, but arguably completely illogical.
(A) looks pretty crappy, but I suppose you could hang onto it if you wanted to be conservative.
Quote:
Webb (or her voice) promised to speak with poignancy like [the poignancy] with which Thomas Hard had spoken for Wessex. The "with" addresses the first issue we saw in (A), and up to this point (B) doesn't sound so bad.
But then we hit a snag:
- "like [poignancy] with which (1) Thomas Hardy had spoken for Wessex and (2) Emily Bronte had for Yorkshire."
Notice the parallelism here: both (1) and (2) are tied back to "with which," and that means that (1) and (2) both refer to the same poignancy -- the poignancy with which Hardy had spoken AND [with which] Bronte had spoken.
It doesn't make much sense to imply that Hardy and Bronte spoke with the same exact poignancy. Again, I would hesitate to make an elimination based on something so subtle, but I think we can do better with one of the other answer choices...
Quote:
I like the "as poignantly as" much more than the "with" options we saw in (A) and (B). How poignantly did Webb promise to speak? As poignantly as (something). That could work!
But then we run into trouble again.
How poignantly did Webb promise to speak? As poignantly as... Thomas Hardy for Wessex? Was Thomas Hardy himself a very "poignantly" person? That doesn't make much sense. The "-ly" tells us that "poignantly" is an adverb here, so I guess we can figure out that there's an implied verb for Hardy... "spoke" is probably our best bet, but forcing the reader to get through the Thomas Hardy part and THEN go back and stick in the verb is, at best, confusing.
Even if we go with "spoke" as the verb for Hardy, the simple past is also confusing, as we saw in (A).
Last but not least, we have a comma+conjunction (", and") followed by an independent clause ("Emily Bronte spoke for Yorkshire"). So what's that second part doing here? Does it, too, describe how poignantly Webb promised to speak? Or does it split the sentence into two distinct statements? It seems like the sentence is making a completely separate statement about Bronte, so this is unclear at best.
Can we figure out that the sentence intends to compare Webb to Bronte? I suppose, but (C) isn't looking good.
Quote:
(D) fixes the last issue we saw in (C): the part after the comma+conjunction (",and") is NOT a complete thought, so the reader KNOWS that "Emily Bronte for Yorkshire" must be part of the comparison.
And that makes perfect sense. How poignantly did Webb/her voice promise to speak? As poignantly as (1) Thomas Hardy had spoken for Wessex and (2) [as poignantly as] Emily [had spoken] for Yorkshire.
Now we have a verb for Hardy right away, which is much easier to follow than the structure in (C). Sure, we have to fill in the verb for Bronte, but when we read, "Hardy had spoken for Wessex and Bronte for Yorkshire," it's natural enough to fill in that same verb in between the subject and the preposition ("for").
Also, the past perfect makes the chronology much clearer and more logical. Hardy and Bronte clearly spoke BEFORE Webb promised or died, and the reader isn't left guessing about the timeline.
(D) is the best option so far.
Quote:
The "as did" is confusing because it seems to refer to the preceding simple past verb ("promised"). Does that mean that Hardy, too, promised to speak poignantly and/or promised to speak for Shropshire?
In order to make this work, we have to assume that "did" refers to a verb that isn't there ("spoke") AND we have to assume that this verb does NOT include the "for Shropshire" part. Sure, we can figure it out, but the reader has to deviate from the implied meaning to make this work -- that's a sign of unclear writing. The "as poignantly as" comparison in (D) is much clearer and makes a lot more sense.
Also, the dual independent clauses lead to the same issue we saw in (C).
So (D) is our winner.
