Marcus Junius Brutus (85 – 42 BCE) became friends with Julius Caesar

Question

Marcus Junius Brutus (85 – 42 BCE) became friends with Julius Caesar, but he participated in the conspiracy that assassinated Caesar, and in subsequent centuries rose and fell according to the tides of various interpretations — as a treacherous villain in Dante and noble hero in Shakespeare.

(A) he participated in the conspiracy that assassinated Caesar, and in subsequent centuries rose and fell
(B) he participated in the conspiracy that assassinated Caesar, and in subsequent centuries rising and falling
(C) participated in the conspiracy that assassinated Caesar, and in subsequent centuries his reputation rose and fell
(D) participated in the conspiracy that assassinated Caesar, and in subsequent centuries his reputation rising and falling
(E) participated in the conspiracy that assassinated Caesar, and in subsequent centuries rose and fell

For a full discussion of parallelism and it's pitfalls, as well as the solution to this question, see:
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2013/parallelis ... orrection/

Experts, anything else you would like to add about typical parallelism traps on the GMAT SC?

Mike

mikemcgarry · Accepted Answer

Among other things, one of the traps is what I call " false parallelism " --- that is, folks mechanically putting the verbs ( became, participated, rose and fell ) in strict grammatical parallelism without considering logically, as you did, that they must have different subjects and therefore cannot be in parallel. It's a trap for folks who think of parallelism as only a grammatical construction, rather than a logical construction as well. Obviously, you are already quite adept at seeing the logical relationships, so this trap is not relevant to someone operating at your level. Does this make sense? Mike :-)

daagh · Answer

The text talks of some rise and fall in subsequent centuries. A person who lived in BC era could not have risen and fallen in Shakespeare’s or Dante’s era. Only his reputation could have. So, only choices C and D survive. D is a fragment; C is the correct choice. Out of curiosity,where is the play of parallelism in this ?

nikhil007 · Answer

Ok, I will give a shot..

Clause 1-  Marcus Junius Brutus (85 – 42 BCE)  became  friends with Julius Caesar this is an independent clause with markus as a subject and became as a verb, julias is the object.

Clause 2-  he   participated  in the conspiracy that assassinated Caesar, and in subsequent centuries rose and fell according to the tides of various interpretations. ----> the use of "he" is ambiguous here, although the original questions uses he to refer to markus, but its still ambiguous for eg consider the construction, "I became friends with mary, but she betrayed me". In this construction "she" reflects to mary. similarly he in the sentence can reflect to julius too.

now replying to the above poster. comma is used after julias to separate the clause 1(independent clause) with clause 2(dependent clause) which is perfectly grammatical.

modifier- as a treacherous villain in Dante and noble hero in Shakespeare. again in response to above poster, this is the clause modifying the "marcus" in the original sentence as the clause 2 begins with "he" who points back to marcus and the modifier in this instance modifies "he"
now another problem is "he"(marcus) cannot fall and rise in subsequent century. this is nonsensical. therefore we need something like his "reputation" to fall and rise which is perfectly fine.

due to above reason we can straight away eliminate A and B and E, as we need "reputation" here to fall and rise. between C and D. D uses "his reputation rising and falling" incorrectly. so C is the clear winner here.

hope this helps:)

mikemcgarry · Answer

Dear honggil Well, nikhil007 already handled these questions reasonably well, but I'll just add my 2¢ as well. 1) The two objects of the " as " preposition directly modify the word " interpretations " ----- a longer version would be ".... rose and fell according to the tides of various interpretations — an interpretation as a treacherous villain in Dante and an interpretation as noble hero in Shakespeare ." Yes, ultimately, we are talking about interpretations of the subject, Brutus --- that's what gives the sentence rhetorical unity --- but at the level of grammatical modification, the "as" refers to the word " interpretations ", to which it is immediately adjacent. 2) The comma after " Julius Caesar ", along with the conjunction " but ", separates to independent clauses. The structure is 100% standard and perfectly acceptable. Does all this make sense? Mike :-)

Sasindran · Answer

Option C.

We can get a 3:2 split based on "he was". the presence of but requires subordinate clause. option A and B ruled out.

Again based on the reputation we can choose C and D, because E doesnt make sense without the word reputation. it distorts the meaning because what rose and fell of MJB??

between C and D, D has tense error. only C fits

Norgay · Answer

Marcus Junius Brutus (85 – 42 BCE) became friends with Julius Caesar, but he was one of the conspirators who assassinated Caesar, and in subsequent centuries rose and fell according to the tides of various interpretations — as a treacherous villain in Dante and noble hero in Shakespeare.

A he was one of the conspirators who assassinated Caesar, and in subsequent centuries rose and fell -->  Meaning Error. rose and fell seems to depict that Marcus Brutus himself rose and fell. Seems vague and gives wrong meaning. Reputation can rise and fall. Not person himself.
 B he was one of the conspirators who assassinated Caesar, and in subsequent centuries rising and falling. -->  Same as A. Also, wrong tense usage 'rising and falling 
C was one of the conspirators who assassinated Caesar, and in subsequent centuries his reputation rose and fell -->  Correct use of verb. Word reputation gives correct meaning. Right Answer. 
D was one of the conspirators who assassinated Caesar, and in subsequent centuries his reputation rising and falling. -->  Again, wrong tense as in B. 
E was one of the conspirators who assassinated Caesar, and in subsequent centuries rose and fell.  Same meaning error as A and B.

Helium · Answer

This sentence has three elements. The first two can and should be in parallel — this means a single subject, Brutus. Including the pronoun “he” after the “but” makes the sentence longer, clunkier — repeating the subject for verbs in parallel is unnecessary. That’s the problem with (A) & (B).

The third element, though, cannot be in parallel. Choice (E) is an incorrect choice for folks who are thinking too mechanically about parallelism, without thinking about the logic. This is the trap of false parallelism. It’s not Brutus, the person, who rises and falls — rather, it’s his reputation. We can put the verbs “became” and “participated” in parallel after a single subject, but the third element demands a new subject: “his reputation”, as in (C) or (D). Choice (D) doesn’t have a full independent clause following the word, so this is incorrect. The only possible answer is (C).

AKSU2020 · Answer

I have doubts about the OA of this question. If we select option C then the clause after "but" becomes a run on as it lacks a clear subject. I agree that logically the verb of the second clause refers to the subject of the first clause, but I did not come across such a question, while solving the Official GMAT questions.

Nefertiti9 · Answer

Marcus Junius Brutus (85 – 42 BCE) became friends with Julius Caesar, but he participated in the conspiracy that assassinated Caesar, and in subsequent centuries rose and fell according to the tides of various interpretations — as a treacherous villain in Dante and noble hero in Shakespeare.

(A)  he  participated in the conspiracy that assassinated Caesar, and in subsequent centuries rose and fell
(B)  he  participated in the conspiracy that assassinated Caesar, and in subsequent centuries rising and falling
(C) participated in the conspiracy that assassinated Caesar, and in subsequent centuries his reputation rose and fell
(D) participated in the conspiracy that assassinated Caesar, and in subsequent centuries  his reputation rising and falling 
(E) participated in the conspiracy that assassinated Caesar, and in subsequent  centuries rose and fell

blablabla1997 · Answer

Adding my thought, does the usage of "his" in option C and D shows ambiguity? i agree reputation is a must on this, but C and D also not completely correct IMO. Kindly need extra explanation on this thankss

Marcus Junius Brutus (85 – 42 BCE) became friends with Julius Caesar

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Marcus Junius Brutus (85 – 42 BCE) became friends with Julius Caesar

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