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In her 1851 magazine series, later becoming the famous novel Uncle Tom
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 Updated on: 05 Jun 2021, 07:40
Originally posted by akashaggarwal88 on 28 Apr 2013, 20:56.
Last edited by Bunuel on 05 Jun 2021, 07:40, edited 1 time in total.
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In her 1851 magazine series, later becoming the famous novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe sought to portray the impact of slavery and further the abolitionist cause.

(A) later becoming the famous novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe sought to portray the impact of slavery and further the abolitionist cause

(B) which would later become the famous novel Uncle Tom’s cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s mission was to portray the impact of slavery further, and the abolitionist cause

(C) which would later become the famous novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe sought to portray the impact of slavery and further the abolitionist cause

(D) later becoming the famous novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s mission was to portray the impact of slavery, furthering the abolitionist cause

(E) which had later become the famous novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe sought to portray the impact of slavery and further the abolitionist cause
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In her 1851 magazine series, later becoming the famous novel Uncle Tom
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29 Apr 2013, 04:55
akashaggarwal88
In her 1851 magazine series, later becoming the famous novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe sought to portray the impact of slavery and further the abolitionist cause.

1. later becoming the famous novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe sought to portray the impact of slavery and further the abolitionist cause
2. which would later become the famous novel Uncle Tom’s cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s mission was to portray the impact of slavery further, and the abolitionist cause
3. which would later become the famous novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe sought to portray the impact of slavery and further the abolitionist cause
4. later becoming the famous novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s mission was to portray the impact of slavery, furthering the abolitionist cause
5. which had later become the famous novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe sought to portray the impact of slavery and further the abolitionist cause
Show more


This question is heavy on the modifiers...

The first issue involves the phrase 'in her 1851 magazine series'. That phrase is meant to modify Harriet Beacher Stowe, but in choices B and D the phrase is incorrectly modifying her 'mission' and not Stowe herself.

The second modifier issue is whether to start the next modifying phrase (the part in commas) with 'later becoming' or 'which'. When you start the modifier with 'later becoming' it is unclear exactly what you are modifiying - the series, her, the entire previous section - but when you start with 'which' you can only be modifying the preceding noun - her 'magazine series'. We want to modify the 'series', so we can eliminate A.

That leaves C and E, but E incorrectly uses the past perfect tense 'had become', so we are left with C.

KW

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In her 1851 magazine series, later becoming the famous novel Uncle Tom
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29 Apr 2013, 11:36
sdas
Out of given choices C is best. Since we cannot use past perfect when the actual verb sought is in simple past.

However, I am not convinced with usage of "would later become" in C......
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Hi sdas,

Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin was a magazine till in 1851. But later, it became a famous novel by the same name. So from the point of 1851, the magazine series turning into a novel is a future event. But the main tense of this sentence is past tense because all the information here pertains to the past. That is the reason why, the correct answer choice C uses the expression "which would later become".

This is a common usage in English language.

Hope this helps. :-)
Thanks.
Shraddha

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In her 1851 magazine series, later becoming the famous novel Uncle Tom
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29 Apr 2013, 07:13
KyleWiddison
akashaggarwal88
In her 1851 magazine series, later becoming the famous novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe sought to portray the impact of slavery and further the abolitionist cause.

1. later becoming the famous novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe sought to portray the impact of slavery and further the abolitionist cause
2. which would later become the famous novel Uncle Tom’s cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s mission was to portray the impact of slavery further, and the abolitionist cause
3. which would later become the famous novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe sought to portray the impact of slavery and further the abolitionist cause
4. later becoming the famous novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s mission was to portray the impact of slavery, furthering the abolitionist cause
5. which had later become the famous novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe sought to portray the impact of slavery and further the abolitionist cause


This question is heavy on the modifiers...

The first issue involves the phrase 'in her 1851 magazine series'. That phrase is meant to modify Harriet Beacher Stowe, but in choices B and D the phrase is incorrectly modifying her 'mission' and not Stowe herself.

The second modifier issue is whether to start the next modifying phrase (the part in commas) with 'later becoming' or 'which'. When you start the modifier with 'later becoming' it is unclear exactly what you are modifiying - the series, her, the entire previous section - but when you start with 'which' you can only be modifying the preceding noun - her 'magazine series'. We want to modify the 'series', so we can eliminate A.

That leaves C and E, but E incorrectly uses the past perfect tense 'had become', so we are left with C.

KW
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Hi Kyle,

Thanks for the explanation. OA is C. I chose E as the answer. Could you please tell me what is the problem in E, how "had become" is an issue ??
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In her 1851 magazine series, later becoming the famous novel Uncle Tom
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29 Apr 2013, 07:24
Out of given choices C is best. Since we cannot use past perfect when the actual verb sought is in simple past.

However, I am not convinced with usage of "would later become" in C......
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In her 1851 magazine series, later becoming the famous novel Uncle Tom
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29 Apr 2013, 11:16
akashaggarwal88
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In her 1851 magazine series, later becoming the famous novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe sought to portray the impact of slavery and further the abolitionist cause.

1. later becoming the famous novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe sought to portray the impact of slavery and further the abolitionist cause
2. which would later become the famous novel Uncle Tom’s cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s mission was to portray the impact of slavery further, and the abolitionist cause
3. which would later become the famous novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe sought to portray the impact of slavery and further the abolitionist cause
4. later becoming the famous novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s mission was to portray the impact of slavery, furthering the abolitionist cause
5. which had later become the famous novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe sought to portray the impact of slavery and further the abolitionist cause


This question is heavy on the modifiers...

The first issue involves the phrase 'in her 1851 magazine series'. That phrase is meant to modify Harriet Beacher Stowe, but in choices B and D the phrase is incorrectly modifying her 'mission' and not Stowe herself.

The second modifier issue is whether to start the next modifying phrase (the part in commas) with 'later becoming' or 'which'. When you start the modifier with 'later becoming' it is unclear exactly what you are modifiying - the series, her, the entire previous section - but when you start with 'which' you can only be modifying the preceding noun - her 'magazine series'. We want to modify the 'series', so we can eliminate A.

That leaves C and E, but E incorrectly uses the past perfect tense 'had become', so we are left with C.

KW

Hi Kyle,

Thanks for the explanation. OA is C. I chose E as the answer. Could you please tell me what is the problem in E, how "had become" is an issue ??
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The past perfect tense is used to show the EARLIER of two events that both took place in the past [I had already eaten before I arrived at the party.]. The use of past perfect here (had become) is clearly incorrect in answer choice E because 'becoming famous' was the later event not the earlier event (had LATER become). The GMAT will sometimes include these time reference clues in the text to show incorrect uses of past perfect.

KW

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In her 1851 magazine series, later becoming the famous novel Uncle Tom
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29 Apr 2013, 14:18
egmat
sdas
Out of given choices C is best. Since we cannot use past perfect when the actual verb sought is in simple past.

However, I am not convinced with usage of "would later become" in C......

Hi sdas,

Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin was a magazine till in 1851. But later, it became a famous novel by the same name. So from the point of 1851, the magazine series turning into a novel is a future event. But the main tense of this sentence is past tense because all the information here pertains to the past. That is the reason why, the correct answer choice C uses the expression "which would later become".

This is a common usage in English language.

Hope this helps. :-)
Thanks.
Shraddha
Show more

Thanks for your response Shraddha.
Still I have a doubt, with reference to 1851 the event of renaming the magazine is definitely a future event - using future tense, but overall sentence construction - both events are in past, then why would we need a future tense, only with reference to one event? Does it not distort the meaning? Instead can we not use past perfect (though it is not in the option, yet for my understanding)?

Thanks
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In her 1851 magazine series, later becoming the famous novel Uncle Tom
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29 Apr 2013, 14:47
Hi sdas,

I understand your point. The sentence can be written correctly using just the simple past tense as "which later became...". But again, we are not the author of the sentence. :-)
The author has chose to write this sentence this way. And, this is the grammatical way of using the verb. If you watch documentaries, you will come across such narrations.

From the GMAT point, we need to choose the best possible answer choice. And C is that answer choice.

Hope this helps. :-)
Thanks.
Shraddha

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In her 1851 magazine series, later becoming the famous novel Uncle Tom
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29 Apr 2013, 20:06
sdas
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sdas
Out of given choices C is best. Since we cannot use past perfect when the actual verb sought is in simple past.

However, I am not convinced with usage of "would later become" in C......

Hi sdas,

Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin was a magazine till in 1851. But later, it became a famous novel by the same name. So from the point of 1851, the magazine series turning into a novel is a future event. But the main tense of this sentence is past tense because all the information here pertains to the past. That is the reason why, the correct answer choice C uses the expression "which would later become".

This is a common usage in English language.

Hope this helps. :-)
Thanks.
Shraddha

Thanks for your response Shraddha.
Still I have a doubt, with reference to 1851 the event of renaming the magazine is definitely a future event - using future tense, but overall sentence construction - both events are in past, then why would we need a future tense, only with reference to one event? Does it not distort the meaning? Instead can we not use past perfect (though it is not in the option, yet for my understanding)?

Thanks
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'Would' is not the future tense, it's actually the Conditional tense. One of the uses of the conditional tense is to express the future as seen from the past [He said he would eat all the food]. That's exactly the situation we have here where the sentence is in the past but looking forward to a future event.

KW

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In her 1851 magazine series, later becoming the famous novel Uncle Tom
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25 Jun 2014, 01:41
In her 1851 magazine series,
2. which would later become the famous novel Uncle Tom’s cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s mission was to portray the impact of slavery further, and the abolitionist cause
3. which would later become the famous novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe sought to portray the impact of slavery and further the abolitionist cause

I think 2 and 3 both are good contenders, here possessive pronoun her goes well with both Harriet Beecher Stowe’s mission and Harriet Beecher Stowe. I hope we can apply possessive poison rule to clear that ambiguous considered reference.

Therefore I need alternate reason to select correct between option 2 and 3.
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In her 1851 magazine series, later becoming the famous novel Uncle Tom
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25 Jun 2014, 13:36
PiyushK
In her 1851 magazine series,
2. which would later become the famous novel Uncle Tom’s cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s mission was to portray the impact of slavery further, and the abolitionist cause
3. which would later become the famous novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe sought to portray the impact of slavery and further the abolitionist cause

I think 2 and 3 both are good contenders, here possessive pronoun her goes well with both Harriet Beecher Stowe’s mission and Harriet Beecher Stowe. I hope we can apply possessive poison rule to clear that ambiguous considered reference.

Therefore I need alternate reason to select correct between option 2 and 3.
Show more

There are a few issues with the last part of option 2: "to portray the impact of slavery further, and the abolitionist cause". First a small issue - the comma is used incorrectly because you only have 2 items you are dealing with. There is a real problem has to do with Parallelism - "to portray" and "the abolitionist cause" are not parallel. There is also a meaning issue with "further". The correct meaning for the sentence is to say that Stowe furthered the abolitionist cause, not that she portrayed slavery further.

KW

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In her 1851 magazine series, later becoming the famous novel Uncle Tom
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25 Jun 2014, 13:44
KyleWiddison
PiyushK
In her 1851 magazine series,
2. which would later become the famous novel Uncle Tom’s cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s mission was to portray the impact of slavery further, and the abolitionist cause
3. which would later become the famous novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe sought to portray the impact of slavery and further the abolitionist cause

I think 2 and 3 both are good contenders, here possessive pronoun her goes well with both Harriet Beecher Stowe’s mission and Harriet Beecher Stowe. I hope we can apply possessive poison rule to clear that ambiguous considered reference.

Therefore I need alternate reason to select correct between option 2 and 3.

There are a few issues with the last part of option 2: "to portray the impact of slavery further, and the abolitionist cause". First a small issue - the comma is used incorrectly because you only have 2 items you are dealing with. There is a real problem has to do with Parallelism - "to portray" and "the abolitionist cause" are not parallel. There is also a meaning issue with "further". The correct meaning for the sentence is to say that Stowe furthered the abolitionist cause, not that she portrayed slavery further.

KW
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Thanks Kyle, Earlier I missed that parallelism and verb issue. I was not aware that further is acting as a verb.
All clear !!
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In her 1851 magazine series, later becoming the famous novel Uncle Tom
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25 Jun 2014, 13:53
That further piece is very tricky. That is a good little trick there by using the same word in two different ways: a verb or a modifier. When you see a word change places in the sentence, look to see if that change impacts the meaning of the sentence. Sometimes a small change in location can make a big difference.

KW

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In her 1851 magazine series, later becoming the famous novel Uncle Tom
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20 Oct 2015, 21:34
E-gmat,

In her 1851 magazine series, later becoming the famous novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe sought to portray the impact of slavery and further the abolitionist cause.

The first part In her 1851 magazine series is prepositional phrase. prepositional phrase doesn't contain subject. how second part, later becoming the famous novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin---- modifier, modifies the first part.

option C, which would later become the famous novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe sought to portray the impact of slavery and further the abolitionist cause

here, which would later become the famous novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin is a dependent clause, whereas Harriet Beecher Stowe sought to portray the impact of slavery and further the abolitionist cause is independent clause.

My problem is how second part of option C is correct with respect to second part of option A.

Please help.


egmat
Hi sdas,

I understand your point. The sentence can be written correctly using just the simple past tense as "which later became...". But again, we are not the author of the sentence. :-)
The author has chose to write this sentence this way. And, this is the grammatical way of using the verb. If you watch documentaries, you will come across such narrations.

From the GMAT point, we need to choose the best possible answer choice. And C is that answer choice.

Hope this helps. :-)
Thanks.
Shraddha
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In her 1851 magazine series, later becoming the famous novel Uncle Tom
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22 Oct 2015, 04:57
sun01
E-gmat,

In her 1851 magazine series, later becoming the famous novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe sought to portray the impact of slavery and further the abolitionist cause.

The first part In her 1851 magazine series is prepositional phrase. prepositional phrase doesn't contain subject. how second part, later becoming the famous novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin---- modifier, modifies the first part.

Thanks.
Shraddha
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So, the modifier cannot modify another modifier?
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In her 1851 magazine series, later becoming the famous novel Uncle Tom
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28 Oct 2015, 21:36
In this case, using 2 SUCH modifiers (Prepositional Phrase and Noun/Verb modifier - ing form) doesn't bring clarity in meaning. "Who" is modifying "What"... So, in this case, this situation brings ambiguity and is incorrect.

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29 Oct 2015, 05:12
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In this case, using 2 SUCH modifiers (Prepositional Phrase and Noun/Verb modifier - ing form) doesn't bring clarity in meaning. "Who" is modifying "What"... So, in this case, this situation brings ambiguity and is incorrect.
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Hi Aryama,

I think its very clear (at least to me) that "later becoming the famous novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin" modifies "her magazine series" because logically it cannot modify anything else. However, I don't know if this is grammatically possible since in this situation we will have a -ing form modifying a prepositional phrase. Could you please shed some light in this issue?
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30 Oct 2015, 20:26
Logically (Meaningwise) - "later becoming" can modify magazine series or In her magazine series - Ambiguous

Technically - "later becoming" is verbing modifier after comma. In this respect (apart from modifying the entire previous clause) , the modifier needs to match with the subject and we know that there is no subject in the prepositional phrase. So, ambiguous.

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In her 1851 magazine series, later becoming the famous novel Uncle Tom
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03 Nov 2015, 09:46
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akashaggarwal88
In her 1851 magazine series, later becoming the famous novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe sought to portray the impact of slavery and further the abolitionist cause.

1. later becoming the famous novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe sought to portray the impact of slavery and further the abolitionist cause
2. which would later become the famous novel Uncle Tom’s cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s mission was to portray the impact of slavery further, and the abolitionist cause
3. which would later become the famous novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe sought to portray the impact of slavery and further the abolitionist cause
4. later becoming the famous novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s mission was to portray the impact of slavery, furthering the abolitionist cause
5. which had later become the famous novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe sought to portray the impact of slavery and further the abolitionist cause


This question is heavy on the modifiers...

The first issue involves the phrase 'in her 1851 magazine series'. That phrase is meant to modify Harriet Beacher Stowe, but in choices B and D the phrase is incorrectly modifying her 'mission' and not Stowe herself.

The second modifier issue is whether to start the next modifying phrase (the part in commas) with 'later becoming' or 'which'. When you start the modifier with 'later becoming' it is unclear exactly what you are modifiying - the series, her, the entire previous section - but when you start with 'which' you can only be modifying the preceding noun - her 'magazine series'. We want to modify the 'series', so we can eliminate A.

That leaves C and E, but E incorrectly uses the past perfect tense 'had become', so we are left with C.

KW
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Hi Kyle-
I am also aligned with Option C. However, I have a query. In option C, is the use of "would" is correct?? Won't it changes the meaning of the sentence (little bit) as originally stated in the question stem?? conveyed the same statement as more like a "possibility"

Any thoughts?

Thanks,
Chanakya
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In her 1851 magazine series, later becoming the famous novel Uncle Tom
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24 Nov 2015, 05:52
chanakya84
KyleWiddison
akashaggarwal88
In her 1851 magazine series, later becoming the famous novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe sought to portray the impact of slavery and further the abolitionist cause.

1. later becoming the famous novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe sought to portray the impact of slavery and further the abolitionist cause
2. which would later become the famous novel Uncle Tom’s cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s mission was to portray the impact of slavery further, and the abolitionist cause
3. which would later become the famous novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe sought to portray the impact of slavery and further the abolitionist cause
4. later becoming the famous novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s mission was to portray the impact of slavery, furthering the abolitionist cause
5. which had later become the famous novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe sought to portray the impact of slavery and further the abolitionist cause


This question is heavy on the modifiers...

The first issue involves the phrase 'in her 1851 magazine series'. That phrase is meant to modify Harriet Beacher Stowe, but in choices B and D the phrase is incorrectly modifying her 'mission' and not Stowe herself.

The second modifier issue is whether to start the next modifying phrase (the part in commas) with 'later becoming' or 'which'. When you start the modifier with 'later becoming' it is unclear exactly what you are modifiying - the series, her, the entire previous section - but when you start with 'which' you can only be modifying the preceding noun - her 'magazine series'. We want to modify the 'series', so we can eliminate A.

That leaves C and E, but E incorrectly uses the past perfect tense 'had become', so we are left with C.

KW

Hi Kyle-
I am also aligned with Option C. However, I have a query. In option C, is the use of "would" is correct?? Won't it changes the meaning of the sentence (little bit) as originally stated in the question stem?? conveyed the same statement as more like a "possibility"

Any thoughts?

Thanks,
Chanakya
Show more

This is a good point you bring up. The issue of "intent" is tricky one sentence correction. It's tempting to pull from the original sentence for the intent, but you have to keep in mind that the original sentence is only 1 of 5 different choices but it happens to appear first. The meaning that we do have to "maintain" is from the non-underlined portion of the sentence. Any correct answer will need to have proper meaning when combined with the non-underlined portion of the sentence. In this question, the non-underlined portion is simply "In her 1851 magazine series" and so there really isn't much meaning to maintain there. The use of "would" has perfectly logical meaning with the non-underlined portion so we are fine to keep it as our answer.

KW

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