While Noble Sissle may be best known for his collaboration with Eubie

Hello Everyone!

Let's tackle this question, one problem at a time, to get to the correct answer quickly! To get started, here is the original question with the major differences between each option highlighted in orange:

While Noble Sissle may be best known for his collaboration with Eubie Blake, as both a vaudeville performer and as a lyricist for songs and Broadway musicals, also enjoying an independent career as a singer with such groups as Hahn's Jubilee Singers.

(A) and as a lyricist for songs and Broadway musicals, also enjoying
(B) and writing lyrics for songs and Broadway musicals, also enjoying
(C) and a lyricist for songs and Broadway musicals, he also enjoyed
(D) as well as writing lyrics for songs and Broadway musicals, he also enjoyed
(E) as well as a lyricist for songs and Broadway musicals, he had also enjoyed

After a quick glance over each option, it's clear that we have two main issues to deal with:

1. Parallelism with "a vaudeville performer" and the variety of ways to say he was also a lyricist.
2. How each phrase ends: enjoying/enjoyed

Let's start with #1 on our list: parallelism. The sentence informs us that Noble Sissle was a vaudeville performer and a lyricist. Whenever we use the word "both" to describe two characteristics of a person, both items must be written in parallel format. Let's take a closer look at each option to see which ones are parallel, and which non-parallel options we can rule out:

(A) as both a vaudeville performer and as a lyricist --> NOT PARALLEL

For this to be parallel, it would have to put the word "as" in both items, or take it out of both:
both as a vaudeville performer and as a lyricist
as both a vaudeville performer and a lyricist

(B) as both a vaudeville performer and writing lyrics --> NOT PARALLEL

One item is a job title (vaudeville performer) and the other is an action being performed (writing lyrics).

(C) as both a vaudeville performer and a lyricist --> PARALLEL

(D) as both a vaudeville performer as well as writing lyrics --> NOT PARALLEL

One item is a job title (vaudeville performer) and the other is an action being performed (writing lyrics).

(E) as both a vaudeville performer as well as a lyricist --> PARALLEL

We can eliminate options A, B, and D because they don't use parallel structure.This only leaves us with options C and E to choose from, so let's tackle #2 on our list: the verbs used in the endings (enjoying/enjoyed/had enjoyed).

We have two events that happen in the same sentence:

1. We know that Noble Sissle used to work with Eubie Blake (present tense knowledge of a past event)
2. Sissle also did other things on his own and with others (past event)

Since we are talking about two past events that happened at the same time (working with Blake and working solo or with others), it's best to use past tense throughout to show these events all happened together. Let's see which answer holds up!

(C) and a lyricist for songs and Broadway musicals, he also enjoyed

This is CORRECT! It's clear that Sissle worked with Blake while also doing solo projects and working with other bands. It also uses parallel structure to describe Sissle's job roles.

(E) as well as a lyricist for songs and Broadway musicals, he had also enjoyed

This is INCORRECT because it uses past perfect tense, which would mean that he worked on solo and other projects before be worked with Blake, which isn't true to the original meaning. Therefore, this isn't the best option.


There you go - option C is the correct choice because it uses parallel structure and uses the right verb tenses throughout!


Don't study for the GMAT. Train for it.
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While Noble Sissle may be best known for his collaboration with Eubie Blake, as both a vaudeville performer and as a lyricist for songs and Broadway musicals, also enjoying an independent career as a singer with such groups as Hahn's Jubilee Singers.

Meaning : NS may be best known for his collaboration with EB, as both a VP and a L. He also enjoyed X.
We have sentence structure as while + Clause, Clause

(A) and as a lyricist for songs and Broadway musicals, also enjoying
Two issues:
1) Both X and Y -> where X and Y should be parallel.
as both a VL and as a Lyrists -> we don't have top repeat "as" again.
2) we require another clause but we have "enjoying" which cannot be a verb. It can be a modifier. For continuous tense , we require an auxiliary verb "is/are/were" etc.

(B) and writing lyrics for songs and Broadway musicals, also enjoying
two issues:
1) "Writing lyrics" is not parallel to "a vaudeville performer".
2) Same issue as option A)

(C) and a lyricist for songs and Broadway musicals, he also enjoyed
-> Correct

(D) as well as writing lyrics for songs and Broadway musicals, he also enjoyed
Two issues:
1) As well as -> is not part of the idiom Both X and Y
2) "Writing lyrics" is not parallel to "a vaudeville performer"

(E) as well as a lyricist for songs and Broadway musicals, he had also enjoyed
Two issues:
1) Same issue as option D) -> Both X and Y
2) had -> changes the tense to past perfect and since we don't require ordering of two events, past perfect is not required.

Dear Friends,

Here is a detailed explanation to this question-

Concepts tested here: Tenses + Parallelism + Grammatical Construction

• “both A and B" or "A as well as B" are the correct usages; A and B must be parallel and comparable.
• The simple past tense is used to refer to actions that concluded in the past.
• The past perfect tense (marked by the use of helping verb "had") is used when a sentence contains two actions in the past; the helping verb "had" is used with the action in the "greater past”.

A: This answer choice fails to form a complete sentence; as “While Noble Sissle may be best known for his collaboration with Eubie Blake” is a dependent clause and “also enjoying an independent career as a singer with such groups as Hahn's Jubilee Singers” is a modifying phrase, there is no independent subject for the modifiers to act upon. Further, Option A fails to maintain parallelism between A (“a vaudeville performer”) and B (“as a lyricist”) in the idiomatic construction “both A and B”; remember, “both A and B" is the correct usage; A and B must be parallel and comparable.

B: This answer choice fails to form a complete sentence; as “While Noble Sissle may be best known for his collaboration with Eubie Blake” is a dependent clause and “also enjoying an independent career as a singer with such groups as Hahn's Jubilee Singers” is a modifying phrase, there is no independent subject for the modifiers to act upon. Further, Option B fails to maintain parallelism between A (“a vaudeville performer”) and B (“writing lyrics”) in the idiomatic construction “both A and B”; remember, “both A and B" is the correct usage; A and B must be parallel and comparable.

C: Correct. This answer choice correctly uses the dependent clause “While Noble Sissle may be best known for his collaboration with Eubie Blake” to act upon the independent clause “he also enjoyed an independent career as a singer...”, forming a complete sentence. Further, Option C correctly uses the simple past tense verb "enjoyed" to refer to an action that concluded in the past. Additionally, Option C correctly uses the idiomatic construction “both A and B”, maintaining parallelism between A (“a vaudeville performer”) and (“a lyricist”).

D: This answer choice incorrectly uses the unidiomatic construction “both A as well as B” and fails to maintain parallelism between A (“a vaudeville performer”) and B (“writing lyrics”); remember, “both A and B" or "A as well as B" are the correct usages; A and B must be parallel and comparable.

E: This answer choice incorrectly uses the past perfect tense verb “had…enjoyed” to refer to an action that concluded in the past; remember, the simple past tense is used to refer to actions that concluded in the past, and the past perfect tense (marked by the use of helping verb "had") is used when a sentence contains two actions in the past; the helping verb "had" is used with the action in the "greater past". Further, Option E incorrectly uses the unidiomatic construction “both A as well as B”; remember, “both A and B" or "A as well as B" are the correct usages; A and B must be parallel and comparable.

Hence, C is the best answer choice.

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



To understand the concept of "Past Perfect Tense" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~2 minutes):



All the best!
Experts' Global Team
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The sentence presents a contrast using the structure "While X, Y"

X= While Noble Sissle may be best known for his collaboration with Eubie Blake
Y= also enjoying

However, a dependent clause cannot stand on its own and thus, A and B can be knocked off.

Also, the structure: Both (a vaudeville performer) and (as a lyricist) is not idiomatic. For an idiomatic structure, X and Y must be parallel.


(A) and as a lyricist for songs and Broadway musicals, also enjoying

(B) and writing lyrics for songs and Broadway musicals, also enjoying

'lyrics' is not logically parallel with 'performer'.


(C) and a lyricist for songs and Broadway musicals, he also enjoyed - Looks good!

(D) as well as writing lyrics for songs and Broadway musicals, he also enjoyed

Both X as well as is unidiomatic. The correct idiom is 'Both X and Y'.
'writing lyricist' is redundant as lyricist' is a person who writes.

(E) as well as a lyricist for songs and Broadway musicals, he had also enjoyed

Both X as well as is unidiomatic. The correct idiom is 'Both X and Y'.
Past perfect tense is not required when past simple suffices.

Happy Prepping!

Dolly Sharma
Prepcorn

Both A and B are run-on sentences. Among C,D,E only C is correct because of a use of idiom "Both X and Y". Hope it is clear

(A) and as a lyricist for songs and Broadway musicals, also enjoying
(B) and writing lyrics for songs and Broadway musicals, also enjoying
(C) and a lyricist for songs and Broadway musicals, he also enjoyed
(D) as well as writing lyrics for songs and Broadway musicals, he also enjoyed
(E) as well as a lyricist for songs and Broadway musicals, he had also enjoyed
IMO c

Why is "also enjoying" wrong. Is it because the sentence doesn't have an independent clause and "he had enjoyed" would make that part an independent clause?

Hi kongaharsha,
Yes , because in both the options A and B , there is no independent clause .
Besides that , there is a parallelism issue in A and B.
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IMO B

(A) and as a lyricist for songs and Broadway musicals, also enjoying
(B) and writing lyrics for songs and Broadway musicals, also enjoying
(C) and a lyricist for songs and Broadway musicals, he also enjoyed
(D) as well as writing lyrics for songs and Broadway musicals, he also enjoyed
(E) as well as a lyricist for songs and Broadway musicals, he had also enjoyed

It is about ||sm
as both ( a vaudeville performer and a lyricist )for songs .... seems to be perfect ..

How do we know to which noun the Pronoun "he" in answer choice C refers to? It can refer to Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake. I think pronoun "he" is ambiguous here.

While Noble Sissle may be best known for his collaboration with Eubie Blake, as both a vaudeville performer and as a lyricist for songs and Broadway musicals, also enjoying an independent career as a singer with such groups as Hahn's Jubilee Singers.

(A) and as a lyricist for songs and Broadway musicals, also enjoying
(B) and writing lyrics for songs and Broadway musicals, also enjoying
(C) and a lyricist for songs and Broadway musicals, he also enjoyed
(D) as well as writing lyrics for songs and Broadway musicals, he also enjoyed
(E) as well as a lyricist for songs and Broadway musicals, he had also enjoyed

A, B and C have "and"
D and E have "as well as"

Before the underline part, we have "both"

Idiomatic construction is "Both......and......"
D and E are out

the part after 'Both' must be parallel to part after 'and'

In the sentence, word after 'both' is 'a vaudeville performer'

In A, both a vaudeville ...... and as..... not parallel.....Out
In B, both a vaudeville ..... and writing......... not parallel...out
In C, both a vaudeville ..... and a lyricist....parallel.

So, C is correct.

Another way to solve this question is


In the last part of the options

A and B, we have "also enjoying"
C we have " he also enjoyed"

In the sentence, 'While' is used to join two clauses, two clauses must be parallel

While Noble Sissle ......................... Eubie Blake,

We need 'he also enjoyed' to make it parallel to 'Noble Sissle'

While Noble Sissle may be best known for his collaboration with Eubie Blake, as both a vaudeville performer and as a lyricist for songs and Broadway musicals, also enjoying an independent career as a singer with such groups as Hahn's Jubilee Singers.

(A) and as a lyricist for songs and Broadway musicals, also enjoying
(B) and writing lyrics for songs and Broadway musicals, also enjoying
(C) and a lyricist for songs and Broadway musicals, he also enjoyed
(D) as well as writing lyrics for songs and Broadway musicals, he also enjoyed
(E) as well as a lyricist for songs and Broadway musicals, he had also enjoyed

A) The problem with the original sentence is not the first part before the comma, but the "also enjoying" after the comma, which is not ideal because it is neither parallel nor active voice (the opposite of passive voice, which buries the subject of the action as you can see here).
B) "and writing" does not complete the idiomatic and parallel expression "as both an A and a B"
C) is the best choice because it preserves the 1st part of the original, while improving the portion after the comma by changing it from passive ("also enjoying" obscures the subject) to active voice ("he also enjoyed" puts the subject--Noble Sissle--at the forefront of the phrase).
D) "both" + "as well as" = redundant
E) "both" + "as well as" = redundant

Same doubt and the only reason I negated C.
Any expert??

Noble Sissle is clearly the subject of the sentence, because Eubie Blake is an object (we can tell this because he is preceded by the preposition "with"), so the "he" after the final comma refers to Noble, not Eubie.

For example, in the sentence:

"Although President Obama had a cordial meeting with President-elect Trump, he privately feared for the future of the nation."

you can see that the "he" clearly refers to Obama, since Obama is the subject of the opening clause, and Trump is the object (preceded by "with").

More practically speaking from a GMAT test-taker standpoint, that particular concern--pronoun ambiguity--is rendered irrelevant by the fact that none of the answer choices offers a more explicit reference to the subject that follows the final comma.

If we hide the participial phrase, we see that "also enjoying" is incorrect for various reasons, most obvious is tense agreement. The correct form is he also enjoyed.
While Noble Sissle may be best known for his collaboration with Eubie Blake, as both a vaudeville performer and as a lyricist for songs and Broadway musicals, also enjoying an independent career as a singer with such groups as Hahn's Jubilee Singers.

Eliminate A and B

Next, the idiom both X and Y is the proper form. Instead, this sentence uses both X as well as Y

Eliminate D and E

The correct answer is C - This answer also uses the right comparison vaudeville performer and lyricist for songs

In order to fix this sentence, we need a parallel structure.

Option C gives us a structure, having structure - both x and y

Other options do not have parallel structure in place.

Hence, C
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can u please help me with identifying the main verb of the sentence

"C" is the correct choice: parallel
"A" and "B" are not parallel. As both a vaudeville performer, and as a lyricist
"D" and "E" are not parallel - both a vaudeville performer as well as a lyricist.

Correct expression should have been "as both a vaudeville performer and a lyricist
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tusumathur1995

Here is how we identify sentence structure:

While Noble Sissle may be best known for his collaboration with Eubie Blake,
as both a vaudeville performer and as a lyricist for songs and Broadway musicals,
also enjoying an independent career as a singer with such groups as Hahn's Jubilee Singers.

The sentence wants to communicate few characteristics about Noble Sissle:

he was best known for his collaboration with Eubie Blake,
he was a vaudeville performer and a lyricist.
he also enjoyed an independent career as a singer with such groups as Hahn's Jubilee Singers.

If you look closely in (A) there is no main verb, note that while usually has two functions - either to show contrast or show
simultaneous actions. Note that while starts off with dependent clause (since it communicates partial idea in spite of
Subject Verb presence) we need at least one independent clause in sentence.

Also note that enjoying w/o a helping verb (is / are / were) acts as a verb-ing modifier.

By changing enjoyed as main verb in correct answer choice we correct the said error.

Hope this helps! Let me know if you still have any doubts.
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