When Mary Webb died at the age of forty-six, literature lost

Question

When Mary Webb died at the age of forty-six, literature lost a voice that promised to speak for Shropshire  with the poignancy that Thomas Hardy had spoken for Wessex and Emily Bronte did  for Yorkshire.

(A) with the poignancy that Thomas Hardy had spoken for Wessex and Emily Bronte did
(B) with poignancy like that with which Thomas Hardy had spoken for Wessex and Emily Bronte had
(C) as poignantly as Thomas Hardy for Wessex, and Emily Bronte spoke
(D) as poignantly as Thomas Hardy had spoken for Wessex, and Emily Bronte
(E) poignantly, as did Thomas Hardy for Wessex, and Emily Bronte had spoken

https://www.nytimes.com/1982/10/24/books/two-country-classics.html

An essayist and poet as well as a novelist, Mary Webb was born in Shropshire in 1881 and began writing during World War I. But it was not until 1924, with the publication of ''Precious Bane,'' that a substantial readership came to respect her quiet genius; and it is for this country classic that Mary Webb has been remembered ever since. When she died at the age of 46, literature lost a voice that promised to speak for Shropshire  as poignantly as Thomas Hardy had spoken for Wessex, Emily Bronte  for Yorkshire.

Initially, I picked b.
After checking OA, I looked over the question again and tried to find errors in each choices.
This is my reasoning, and I'd like you to tell me your opinion about my reasoning.
Thanks.

< My reasoning >
a) tense problem : Thomas had spoken, Emily did

b) wordy

c) spoke should have been had spoke because it happened earlier than main clause.

d) OA

e) tense problem : did , had spoken

sayantanc2k · Accepted Answer

Not just "had", but also "spoken" is missing, and the absence is not erroneous. In parallel structure it is alright to eliminate the repeated parts, even verbs, from the second element of the structure.

.....as poignantly as  Thomas Hardy had spoken for Wessex , AND  Emily Bronte  had spoken  for Yorkshire .

Parallelism marker: AND
First element: green highlighted
Second element: purple highlighted- verb "had spoken" omitted from the second element.

GMATNinja · Answer

Let's focus on this bit first: "a voice that promised to speak for Shropshire with  the poignancy that Thomas Hardy had spoken  for Wessex..."

The phrase "the poignancy" is modified by the ensuing "that..." clause. So, Webb (or her voice), promised to speak  with  poignancy -- specifically, the poignancy that Thomas Hardy  had spoken  for Wessex. This wording implies that Hardy had spoken poignancy, and that doesn't make any sense. You can speak WITH poignancy, but you can't speak poignancy itself (at least not without taking a LOT of poetic license... "I speak poignancy" sounds like a workable rap lyric, maybe?).

It's not a strong enough reason to eliminate (A) on its own, but it's certainly a red flag.

The other red flag is that the "did" after "Emily Bronte" suggests a simple past verb (i.e. "Bronte did speak" or "Bronte spoke"). If we wanted to stick with the past perfect to match the verb for Hardy ("had spoken"), it would have been clearer to use "had" as a placeholder. (For more on those placeholder verbs, check out  this post .)

Do we have different tenses for Hardy and Bronte? And if we go with the simple past for Bronte, does that mean that she was speaking at the same time that Webb "died" or "promised"? That wouldn't make much sense -- so the timing of the events is unclear at best, but arguably completely illogical.

(A) looks pretty crappy, but I suppose you could hang onto it if you wanted to be conservative.

Webb (or her voice) promised to speak with poignancy like    with  which Thomas Hard had spoken for Wessex. The "with" addresses the first issue we saw in (A), and up to this point (B) doesn't sound so bad.

But then we hit a snag:

"like   with which (1) Thomas Hardy had spoken for Wessex and (2) Emily Bronte had for Yorkshire."

Notice the parallelism here: both (1) and (2) are tied back to "with which," and that means that (1) and (2) both refer to  the same  poignancy -- the poignancy with which Hardy had spoken AND   Bronte had spoken.

It doesn't make much sense to imply that Hardy and Bronte spoke with the same exact poignancy. Again, I would hesitate to make an elimination based on something so subtle, but I think we can do better with one of the other answer choices...

I like the "as poignantly as" much more than the "with" options we saw in (A) and (B). How poignantly did Webb promise to speak? As poignantly as (something). That could work!

But then we run into trouble again.

How poignantly did Webb promise to speak? As poignantly as... Thomas Hardy for Wessex? Was Thomas Hardy himself a very "poignantly" person? That doesn't make much sense. The "-ly" tells us that "poignantly" is an adverb here, so I guess we can figure out that there's an implied verb for Hardy... "spoke" is probably our best bet, but forcing the reader to get through the Thomas Hardy part and THEN go back and stick in the verb is, at best, confusing.

Even if we go with "spoke" as the verb for Hardy, the simple past is also confusing, as we saw in (A).

Last but not least, we have a comma+conjunction (", and") followed by an independent clause ("Emily Bronte spoke for Yorkshire"). So what's that second part doing here? Does it, too, describe how poignantly Webb promised to speak? Or does it split the sentence into two distinct statements? It seems like the sentence is making a completely separate statement about Bronte, so this is unclear at best.

Can we figure out that the sentence intends to compare Webb to Bronte? I suppose, but (C) isn't looking good.

(D) fixes the last issue we saw in (C): the part after the comma+conjunction (",and") is NOT a complete thought, so the reader KNOWS that "Emily Bronte for Yorkshire" must be part of the comparison.

And that makes perfect sense. How poignantly did Webb/her voice promise to speak? As poignantly as (1) Thomas Hardy had spoken for Wessex and (2)   Emily   for Yorkshire.

Now we have a verb for Hardy right away, which is much easier to follow than the structure in (C). Sure, we have to fill in the verb for Bronte, but when we read, "Hardy had spoken for Wessex and Bronte for Yorkshire," it's natural enough to fill in that same verb in between the subject and the preposition ("for").

Also, the past perfect makes the chronology much clearer and more logical. Hardy and Bronte clearly spoke BEFORE Webb promised or died, and the reader isn't left guessing about the timeline.

(D) is the best option so far.

The "as did" is confusing because it seems to refer to the preceding simple past verb ("promised"). Does that mean that Hardy, too, promised to speak poignantly and/or promised to speak for Shropshire?

In order to make this work, we have to assume that "did" refers to a verb that isn't there ("spoke") AND we have to assume that this verb does NOT include the "for Shropshire" part. Sure, we can figure it out, but the reader has to deviate from the implied meaning to make this work -- that's a sign of unclear writing. The "as poignantly as" comparison in (D) is much clearer and makes a lot more sense.

Also, the dual independent clauses lead to the same issue we saw in (C).

So (D) is our winner.

crick20002002 · Answer

I would attack the problem as a parallelism problem.

Once I understand the meaning that the original sentence is saying

1) Mary Webb promised to speak for Shropshire
2) Thomas Hardy had spoken for Wessex 
3) Emily Bronte had spoken for Yorkshire

Our aim is to keep these 3 items in the list in parallel. Only D does that.

Crick

saikarthikreddy · Answer

+1 for D.Parallelism is tested here .

tuanquang269 · Answer

I get wrong this question. Nice question. Thank :D.

Konstantin1983 · Answer

I guess in D either "had" is missing erroneously or assumed to be and that is why missing. The only difference between B and D is that B is wordy.

devikeerthansr · Answer

Only D is parallel. You can remove repeated construction in parallelism

Harsh2111s · Answer

When Mary Webb died at the age of forty-six, literature lost a voice the promised to speak for Shropshire with the poignancy that Thomas Hardy had spoken for Wessex and Emily Bronte did for Yorkshire.

(A) with the poignancy that Thomas Hardy had spoken for Wessex and Emily Bronte did
What Emily Bronte "did" ?

(B) with poignancy like that with which Thomas Hardy had spoken for Wessex and Emily Bronte had
like that with which- like that is unnecessary here, meaning is not clear.

(C) as poignantly as Thomas hardy for Wessex, and Emily Bronte spoke
Parallelism issue

(D) as poignantly as Thomas Hardy had spoken for Wessex, and Emily Bronte
Correct.

(E) poignantly, as did Thomas Hardy for Wessex, and Emily Bronte had spoken
What Thomas Hardy did for Wessex ?

Hope it helps

ShankSouljaBoi · Answer

Dear Mods,

Is the stem ok ? I think it should be  that promised  and not  the promised

Best

Bunuel · Answer

I think you are right: https://www.nytimes.com/1982/10/24/book ... ssics.html

Gokul20 · Answer

Experts, 
Can someone please explain what is wrong with Option A ?
I did choose option D going by meaning and parallelism. I was able to comfortably eliminate all other options except A and D.
I thought "poignancy that" is wrong in Option A, as we are comparing how Mary webb spoke rather than. 
Also it would be great if someone can underline errors in other options as well. TIA

VIGHNESHKAMATH · Answer

I selected ''poignantly'' over ''poignancy'' as adverb needs to be used to modify the verb (had spoken) instead of noun.

Please let me know if this understanding is correct.

ExpertsGlobal5 · Answer

Hello  VIGHNESHKAMATH ,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, this reasoning is, unfortunately, not correct. Prepositional phrases such as "with the poignancy" can function as an adverb.

For example, "He spoke with affection."

We hope this helps.
All the best!
Experts' Global Team

niyatisuri · Answer

GMATNinja , @VeritasKarishma,  egmat ,

Could you please help with this question?
Thanks in advance!

Regards,

krittapat · Answer

GMATNinja   egmat   KarishmaB   mikemcgarry   MartyTargetTestPrep 
Could you please help explain this question?
I'm wondering why option A is not correct, and D is the correct one instead.

MartyTargetTestPrep · Answer

Let's first consider the (A) version of the sentence.

When Mary Webb died at the age of forty-six, literature lost a voice that promised to speak for Shropshire  with the poignancy that Thomas Hardy had spoken for Wessex and Emily Bronte did  for Yorkshire.

"Poignancy" means "the quality of being deeply touching." So, "literature lost a voice that promised to speak for Shropshire  with the poignancy ," means ""literature lost a voice that promised to speak for Shropshire  with the quality of being deeply touching ."

So, notice that "the poignancy that Thomas Hardy had spoken" doesn't make sense, since it doesn't make sense that "Thomas Hardy had spoken" the quality of being deeply touching. After all, one does not speak a quality.

Also, "Emily Bronte did for Yorkshire" the quality of being deeply touching is nonsensical.

So, the meaning conveyed by the (A) version is nonsensical.

Let's now consider the (D) version.

When Mary Webb died at the age of forty-six, literature lost a voice that promised to speak for Shropshire  as poignantly as Thomas Hardy had spoken for Wessex, and Emily Bronte  for Yorkshire.

We see that this version expresses a logical comparison of how poignantly the voice of Mary Webb promised to speak for Shropshire and how poignantly Thomas Hardy had spoken for Wessex and Emily Bronte had spoken for Yorkshire.

Also, a second "had spoken" is understood to work with the subject "Emily Bronte." So, that part of the sentence is correct without a second written "had spoken."

Thus, the (D) version effectively expresses a meaning that makes sense.

VerbalBot · Answer

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When Mary Webb died at the age of forty-six, literature lost

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When Mary Webb died at the age of forty-six, literature lost

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