I came across on one of the forums where these questions

Question

I came across on one of the forums where these questions were posted, but couldn't find the explanation. So, posting it here, so that any of the experts can shed some light on them. Both are of same kind of questions but with different type of answers. I am confused & curious to know the reason.
Plzz! help.

In addition to her work on the Miocene hominid fossil, Mary Leakey contributed to archaeology through her discovery of the earliest direct evidence of hominid activity and through her painstaking documentation of East African cave paintings.

A) Mary Leakey contributed to archaeology through her discovery of the earliest direct evidence of hominid activity and through her painstaking documentation of

B) Mary Leakey contributed to archaeology by her discovery of the earliest direct evidence of hominid activity and painstakingly documenting

C) Mary Leakey was a contributor to archaeology by discovering the earliest direct evidence of hominid activity and with her painstaking documentation of

D) Mary Leakey's contributions to archaeology include her discovery of the earliest direct evidence of hominid activity and painstakingly documenting

E) Mary Leakey's contributions to archaeology include her discovering the earliest direct evidence of hominid activity and painstaking documentation of

OA A

In addition to her work on the Miocene hominid fossil record, Mary Leakey contributed to archaeology with her discovery of the earliest direct evidence of hominid activity and painstakingly documenting East African cave paintings.

A) Leakey contributed to archaeology with her discovery of the earliest direct evidence of hominid activity and painstakingly documenting

B) Leakey contributed to archaeology by her discovery of the earliest direct evidence of hominid activity and by painstakingly documenting

C) Leakey was a contributor to archaeology with her discovery of the earliest direct evidence of hominid activvity and with her painstaking documentation of

D) Leakey's contributions to archaeology include her discovery of the earliest direct evidence of hominid activity and her painstaking documentation of

E) Leakey's contributions to archaeology include discovering the earliest direct evidence of hominid activity and painstaking documentation of

OA D

@Moderators...couldn't find these questions on forum, in case already discussed please! merge it to the original.

testprep2010 · Answer

Question 1. A

Parallelism: You need to check for Parallelism in two areas "her ...", "... of"

1. Mary Leakey ... her discovery ... her discovery ... her painstaking documentation

2. her discovery of .... her painstaking documentation of

Only Option A statisfies both.

testprep2010 · Answer

Question 2. D

Same explanation as above

Only Option D has parallelism in "her" and "of"

ykaiim · Answer

I marked D for:
1. ||sm - ...her work...her dicovery...her painstaking...
2. In the introductory part we have HER, so we need a possesive noun (Leakey's) rather than a simple noun (Leakey).

seekmba · Answer

A it is.

Possessive pronoun can refer back to subject or object noun. Possessive pronoun should be paid attention in the last when there is nothing esle to pick in the sentence. 'her' can refer to 'Mary Leakey's' or 'Mary Leakey'.

A is correct for parallelism.

noboru · Answer

How can the modifier be correct with both Leakey and Leakey's?

Thanks.

kidchaos · Answer

I agree with the second one....the first one seems wrong

miti · Answer

'her' is the pronoun used for Mary Leakey...not for Mary Leakey's work.... so options D and E can be eliminated

miti · Answer

'her' is the pronoun used for Mary Leakey...not for Mary Leakey's work.... so options D and E can be eliminated

metallicafan · Answer

+1 A
A is the only parallel sentence.

yossarian84 · Answer

I've the same doubt. Experts please clarify!

'In addition to HER WORK on Y, X's contribution' looks like the correct modifier here...

VeritasPrepBrian · Answer

Hey yossarian,

I agree with you...my first thought upon reading this one is that "In addition to ___________" needs to modify Leakey's contributions and not Leaky herself, since the modifier is talking about another of her contributions. That makes E in the second example the perfect way to phrase that, in my opinion.

Here's where SC strategy gets involved, though. In the first example, you don't have that option. Both D and E in the first example include poorly-written, not-at-all-parallel options "her discovery" and "painstakingly documenting"; and "her discovering" and "painstaking documentation". Those options are both incorrect, which brings you back to the beginning:

In addition to her work, Leakey contributed through her discovery and her documentation...

While I don't love this modifier, I may be stuck with it because D and E are so bad, and if you take this as an inverted sentence, you can make it look a lot better by saying:

Leaky contributed through her discovery and her documentation, in addition to her work.

That seems to work pretty well, and accordingly A seems to me to be the 'least incorrect' answer of the first question. Honestly, I'm not sure that it's a perfect modifier, but that's the only sentence of the 5 that I think has a chance to be correct, so in a test-day situation that's the one I'm going with. One of my colleagues at Veritas Prep - David Newland - is fond of saying that Sentence Correction is a search for "Better, Not Best"...you may not get a perfect sentence the way that you'd prefer it to be written - the best way - but you can find better ways that don't violate obvious rules, and often that's what needs to be done. Here, strategically, I'd look first for #2, choice E, but in #1 if I can't find it I'll get rid of the clearly-wrong answers first and then try to justify what's left.

I hope that helps - thanks for the invitation to weigh in!

yossarian84 · Answer

Thanks for the reply, Brian - makes more sense with the inverted sentence.

Zatarra · Answer

Invoking a very old posts.Possessive poisson rule says a possessive pronoun cant refer back to a subject pronoun

thangvietname · Answer

there is two points here.

first, looking for better not perfect choice. this is one thing

second. this case poses a questions. do the phrase "in additiona to+noun" need a noun to refer to. if yes, then the secon question is best not perfect.
if no, the second question is the perfect.

in the test room, we have no time to thing about perfectism. just choose the better.

VerbalBot · Answer

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I came across on one of the forums where these questions

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