Martin Luther King Jr., a social activist and Baptist minister, who pl

Question

Martin Luther King Jr., a social activist and Baptist minister, who played a key role in the American civil rights movement from the mid-1950s until his assassination in 1968, was the driving force behind watershed events such as the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the 1963 March on Washington,  which helping bring about such landmark legislations as the Civil Rights Act and as  the Voting Rights Act.

A which helping bring about such landmark legislations as the Civil Rights Act and as
B which helped bring about such landmark legislations as the Civil Rights Act and
C was helping bring about landmark legislations such as the Civil Rights Act and
D helped bring landmark legislations such as about the Civil Rights Act and
E which helped bring about such landmark legislations the Civil Rights Act and

TestPrepUnlimited · Answer

This sentence requires the simple past "helped" to indicate that the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the 1963 March on Washington aided in bringing about the legislations. Further, the sentence requires either "landmark legislations such as" or "such landmark legislations as" to introduce the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act.

(A): Incorrect. "Helping" is a participle and not a conjugated verb. Further, (A) incorrectly repeats "as"; the idiom is "such X as Y." 
(B): Correct
(C): Incorrect. (C) incorrectly employs the past progressive to indicate something a discrete action -- the passage of the legislations. 
(D): Incorrect. (D) incorrectly splices the verb phrase "bring about." 
(E). Incorrect. (E) incorrectly omits the "as" in the idiom "such X as Y."

ExpertsGlobal5 · Answer

Dear Friends,

Here is a detailed explanation to this question-

Choice A:  This answer choice introduces redundancy into the sentence through the use of the second "as", which is unneeded. Moreover, this answer choice incorrectly utilizes the past participle "helping" rather than the simple past verb "helped" to refer to an event that concluded in the past. Thus, this answer choice is incorrect.

Choice B:  This answer choice maintains proper tense and idiom use and preserves the intended meaning of the sentence. Thus, this answer choice is correct.

Choice C:  This answer choice incorrectly uses the past continuous tense to refer to an action, the passage of the legislation, that concluded in the past. Additionally, in using the past continuous tense this answer choice places the final clause in parallel with the clause "was the driving force..."; as a result of this parallelism, the final clause incorrectly serves as a modifying phrase for the noun "Martin Luther King Jr." and implies that he "was helping" bring about the landmark legislation. Thus, this answer choice is incorrect.

Choice D:  This answer choice fails to maintain the proper idiomatic construction "bring about". Thus, this answer choice is incorrect.

Choice E:  This answer choice fails to maintain the proper idiomatic construction "such as". Thus, this answer choice is incorrect.

Hence, B is the best answer choice.

To understand the concept of "Simple Tenses on GMAT", you may want to watch the following video (~1 minute):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZj-SubJwsM

All the best!
Experts' Global Team

aniket2045 · Answer

ExpertsGlobal5  - In option B, WHICH is modifying to noun or modifying something else?

pratikpokharkar · Answer

I think question tag should be changed to "verb , modifier " instead of "subject-verb"

Ranasaymon · Answer

Option A is incorrect  because we need  a clause after subordinating conjunction 'which' .

Option C and D is incorrect  because  there is no connector to link two ICs.

In option E,  the use of  'such' is not idiomatic.  The correct idiom is such...as.

Option B is the correct answer .

anshgupta_2 · Answer

I'm slightly confused with the sentence structure in this one.
Subject = Martin Luther King Jr.
Verb = was the...
non-essential modifier describing the subject = a social activist..minister

But what exactly is 'who played....1968'? Is it another modifier describing the subject? and more importantly, can two modifiers be placed together?

GMATNinja   AndrewN

AndrewN · Answer

Hello,  anshgupta_2 . The sentence can function with or without the comma between the two modifiers. With the comma, I prefer to read the appositive phrase as an interrupter between the subject and the modifying clause:

Martin Luther King Jr. ,  a social activist and Baptist minister ,  who played a key role in ...

There is no rule on the number of phrases or clauses that may be used to modify a noun, although at a certain point, it would be difficult to tell just what the sentence was aiming to convey. A more typical sentence might remove the comma and join the two modifiers:

Martin Luther King Jr. ,  a social activist and Baptist minister who played a key role in ...

I might prefer the latter sentence, but there is nothing inherently incorrect about the earlier iteration. Thank you for thinking to ask, and good luck with your studies.

- Andrew

Martin Luther King Jr., a social activist and Baptist minister, who pl

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GMAT Sentence Correction (SC - EA only) Questions

Martin Luther King Jr., a social activist and Baptist minister, who pl

Prep Toolkit

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards