By their later years, many artists have often modified their ideologie

Question

By their later years, many artists have often modified their ideologies and  reflect their changed attitude by painting images much more abstract  than those in their earlier works.

A. reflect their changed attitude by painting images much more abstract
B. reflect their changed attitude by painting images being much more abstract
C. reflected their changed attitude by painting images much more abstract
D. reflected their changed attitude by painting images being much more abstract
E. reflected their changed attitude by painting images that have been much more abstract

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zhanbo · Answer

My answer is  (C) . It took me 01:03.

(AB) can be eliminated because "reflect" should be "reflected" so that "reflected" and "changed" are parallel.

(CDE) can be analyzed together. 
(C) is the shortest; shorter is better. More importantly, (C) conveys a clear and sensible meaning. 
(D) While the use of "being" is not an automatic disqualifier, if "being" can be removed without hurting the meaning, "being" is superfluous. In using the "being", the sentence suggests a sense of continuousness, which is not in keeping with the rest of the sentence. 
(E) can be eliminated for two reasons: (1) It is not as concise as (C) (2) "have been" should be "are".

Bunuel · Answer

Official Explanation

This underlined portion begins with a verb, and the GMAT repeatedly tests proper verb tense and subject-verb agreement. You need to know whether the verb agrees with the subject of the sentence and whether the verb tense is appropriate for the sequence of events in the sentence.

Using the verb that begins each choice, the answers can be grouped with a 3-2 split. (A) and (B) begin with “reflect” while (C), (D), and (E) begin with “reflected.”

The present tense verb “reflect” is connected to the non-underlined portion by “and” and does not parallel the past tense verb “modified.” (A) and (B) should be quickly eliminated.

Compare the remaining three choices. (D) changes “much more abstract” to “being much more abstract,” while (E) changes the same phrase to “that have been much more abstract.” Both changes introduce unnecessary words into the original sentence. On the GMAT, proper style requires that ideas be expressed as concisely as possible, so (D) and (E) should be eliminated.

(C) is correct  because it replaces “reflect” with “reflected” to correct the verb tense error and introduces no additional error.

TAKEAWAY:  Sometimes errors can be subtle. Here, the correct answer differed from the original sentence by just two letters. Don't be tempted by big changes if only a small fix is needed.

Fido10 · Answer

Dear  zhanbo ,

I'm sorry, but "reflected" should not be parallel to "changed". "Changed" is a modifier modifying "attitude" and it is not a verb.
However, "reflected" should be made parallel to "have modified". It, then, should be "have reflected".

VerbalBot · Answer

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By their later years, many artists have often modified their ideologie

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GMAT Sentence Correction (SC - EA only) Questions

By their later years, many artists have often modified their ideologie

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