The team streamed into the locker room, donned their uniform

Question

The team streamed into the locker room, donned their uniforms,  and before commencing its first practice, they joined in a breif strategy session.

A) and, before commencing its first practice, they joined in a breif strategy session.

B) and before commencing their first practice, they joined in a breif strategy session.

C) and before commencing their first practice, joined in a breif strategy session.

D) and, before commencing their first practice, they joined in a breif strategy session.

E) and, before commencing their first practice, joined in a brief strategy session.

Zarrolou · Answer

Hi riderofthestorm, this question is flawed. In the not underlined part "their" has no reference, it should stand for "the players", but this noun does not appear anywhere in the sentence. I would suggest you to use reliable sources for you preparation, and to finish all the Official Question before doing other source's questions. Regards

riderofthestorm · Answer

Unfortunately, I finished all of the OG Qs and I want to practice so I don't have too many options...

PiyushK · Answer

is it ok to place comma after and ??

KyleWiddison · Answer

You know, I would be surprised to see a question like this come from the GMAT. It's not grammatically incorrect to include a non-essential phrase after a coordinating conjunction (and), but there is some debate around how to punctuate a situation like that. I find it interesting that this particular problem has the comma as the single determining factor between choices C & E. It's rare to see GMAT questions come down a choice about whether to include a comma or not. On this problem it's clear that they want you to decide that this is a non-essential element and set it off by commas as in choice E, but I don't love that single, forced decision between C & E.

If anyone has seen a non-essential phrase directly after a coordinating conjunction on an official GMAT question I would love to see what punctuation the GMAT expects in that rare case.

KW

JusTLucK04 · Answer

Does it always have to be so mechanical..it is quite implied...I think this should be Ok on the GMAT...are u sure that this usage is incorrect on the GMAT under all circumstances...

aditya8062 · Answer

option C has been wrongly modified in here .the correct option C is :  and a strategy session preceded its first practice

though i have different issue : i have a little problem with E .when ever we have a participle modifier then it should be followed by a subject that it tends to modify .so "before commencing their first practice" should be followed by a subject .this is not happening in E.
kindly comment on this 
thanks and regrads

JusTLucK04 · Answer

I am not sure as to what is a participle modifier...

But I can break the structure:

The team
1.streamed into the locker room
2.donned their uniforms
3.joined in a brief strategy session

The modifier: "before commencing their first practice" modifies the team and is placed before 3 to put more emphasis on the time frame

aditya8062 · Answer

the modifier  "before commencing their first practice"  is a participle modifier

KyleWiddison · Answer

I think this would be ok on the GMAT because using the pronoun "their" makes clear that we aren't emphasizing the team as a collective noun but rather the individual members of the team. That said, if we saw this on the GMAT I would bet that it would say "the team MEMBERS" to avoid confusion that is not core to the question itself.

KW

KyleWiddison · Answer

I think you mean to say that "before commencing their first practice" is a prepositional modifier because "before" starts the modifying phrase and it's a preposition. Participial modifiers are started with participles. The word "commencing" might make you think it's participial, but that is where -ing verbs are tricky - they can act as modifiers, nouns and verbs. Here, "commencing" is being used as a noun.

KW

himanshujovi · Answer

Is the breif vs brief spelling mistake intentional ?

KyleWiddison · Answer

The spelling error would not be intentional. Spelling is not a tested area on the GMAT, so any spelling errors you see in the forum would be the result of errors is copying over the words.

KW

Maxirosario2012 · Answer

This is a Kaplan question. Official explanation about the "theirs" is:
"Notice, by the way, that the team, though technically singular, is construed as plural in the part of the sentence that´s not underlined; it must be constructed in the same way throughout the sentence, and this is another reason why (A), (B) and (C) are wrong.

KyleWiddison · Answer

Thanks for adding the explanation from Kaplan. It highlights the importance of recognizing what you are stuck with in the non-underlined portion.

KW

Posted from my mobile device

suramya26 · Answer

Hi riderofthestorm, this question is flawed. In the not underlined part "their" has no reference, it should stand for "the players", but this noun does not appear anywhere in the sentence. I would suggest you to use reliable sources for you preparation, and to finish all the Official Question before doing other source's questions. Regards

Does it always have to be so mechanical..it is quite implied...I think this should be Ok on the GMAT...are u sure that this usage is incorrect on the GMAT under all circumstances... I think this would be ok on the GMAT because using the pronoun "their" makes clear that we aren't emphasizing the team as a collective noun but rather the individual members of the team. That said, if we saw this on the GMAT I would bet that it would say "the team MEMBERS" to avoid confusion that is not core to the question itself. KW Sir, I was puzzled between D and E I chose D over E Because I thought that then sentence E might not be as clear as D.. Correct me if I am wrong

anje29 · Answer

Hi,

The team streamed into the locker room, donned their uniforms, and before commencing its first practice, they joined in a brief strategy session.

D) and, before commencing their first practice, they joined in a brief strategy session.

E) and, before commencing their first practice, joined in a brief strategy session.

Option D breaks parallelism between 3 verbs 'streamed , donned ,and joined' , therefore incorrect

VerbalBot · Answer

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The team streamed into the locker room, donned their uniform

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The team streamed into the locker room, donned their uniform

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