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With his last three plays Mr. Leonard has turned increasingly toward a 27 Jul 2021, 02:59
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EMPOWERgmatVerbal
Hi TheRzS,

Thanks for your question! In answer C, the possessive "O'Neill's" is referring to the plays that O'Neill also wrote. You could just as easily spell it out for readers by saying "as Eugene O'Neill's plays did," but that's not necessary - the reader can infer that's what it means.

I hope this helps!
Show more

I inferred "O'Neill's" is referring to autobiographical material and yes it could refer to plays also but why not autobiographical material? It makes sense.
Additionally, the sentence was conveying 2 thing about Mr. Leonard
Mr. Leonard
1)has turned increasingly toward autobiographical material
and
2)has come to terms with a difficult personal history
So why do we need a possessive noun for comaprison i.e. "O'Neill's"
Don't we need to compare Mr Leonard with Eugene O'Neill?

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With his last three plays Mr. Leonard has turned increasingly toward a 27 Jul 2021, 17:19
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Hi TheRzS,

Thanks for your question! In answer C, the possessive "O'Neill's" is referring to the plays that O'Neill also wrote. You could just as easily spell it out for readers by saying "as Eugene O'Neill's plays did," but that's not necessary - the reader can infer that's what it means.

I hope this helps!

I inferred "O'Neill's" is referring to autobiographical material and yes it could refer to plays also but why not autobiographical material? It makes sense.
Additionally, the sentence was conveying 2 thing about Mr. Leonard
Mr. Leonard
1)has turned increasingly toward autobiographical material
and
2)has come to terms with a difficult personal history
So why do we need a possessive noun for comaprison i.e. "O'Neill's"
Don't we need to compare Mr Leonard with Eugene O'Neill?

GMATNinja EMPOWERgmatVerbal
Show more

Thanks for asking Poojita!

It can't refer to autobiographical material. In the sentence, the words "autobiographical material" are describing the PLAYS that Mr. Leonard wrote - NOT a different kind of writing. Mr. Leonard and Mr. O'Neill were both still writing plays. The sentence is just describing in more detail what kinds of plays Mr. Leonard was writing. Therefore, O'Neill's can only refer back to plays.

We hope that helps! Feel free to tag us at EMPOWERgmatVerbal if you have any more questions! :) :thumbsup:
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With his last three plays Mr. Leonard has turned increasingly toward a 25 Aug 2021, 06:57
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Hi generis GMATNinja egmat

In OA (C), What does the verb "DID" stand for?
As per my understanding AND per generis's article on elipsis, This is the correct rule: In order to be omitted, the exact words first have to be present someplace in the sentence.

Please guide. TIA

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With his last three plays Mr. Leonard has turned increasingly toward a 09 Apr 2022, 06:25
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Hi,
I am not satisfied with any explanations:

With his last three plays Mr. Leonard has turned increasingly toward autobiographical material and, (C) as Eugene O'Neill's did, has come to terms with a difficult personal history through their

What I understand from this sentence is that :
- Mr. Leonard has turned increasingly toward autobiographical material , as Eugene's plays did (as his/her plays turned increasingly towards autobiographical material?). My question is why is Mr. Leonard being compared to Eugene's plays? Plays did not come to terms with a difficult personal history. Which makes me think that Eugene and Leonard must be compared. This aspect comes neatly with Option (E)

(E) as with Eugene O'Neill, has come to terms with a difficult personal history through his

which I understand means that Leo turned towards autobiographical material as was the case with Eugene.

IanStewart AndrewN can you please help sir?
What did I miss?
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With his last three plays Mr. Leonard has turned increasingly toward a 09 Apr 2022, 11:59
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beeblebrox

I am not satisfied with any explanations:
Show more

I don't think I am either. This question reads like an official problem, but as far as I can tell, no one can find the original source, and I can find only one other mention of it online in a post from 2005 on a different forum. So there's no way to know if it has been transcribed correctly, or even if the 'OA' is right.

The problem I have with C is that it says Mr Leonard has "come to terms with a difficult personal history" through the dramatizations of his plays, and that Eugene O'Neill's plays have "come to terms with a difficult personal history". I suppose you can say that a play comes to terms with something, but if you do say that, you don't mean the same thing as you mean when you say a person has come to terms with something. So I don't see how they can be logically compared.

So I think E is maybe the best answer of the lot, as written, because we can read "as with Eugene O'Neill" as a shorthand for "as was the situation with O'Neill" or "as was true in the work of O'Neill", either of which would have been fine here, but I still don't like E because it's too imprecisely worded, and it's all too easy to read the "with" in E as if it's creating a parallel construction with the "with" earlier in the sentence (and you can read it that way, but you can read it a different way too). Answer C becomes better if you remove the apostrophe and the s after "O'Neill", so perhaps that's how C was originally written, or perhaps the question isn't official and just doesn't have a good answer, or perhaps I'm not looking at it correctly!
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With his last three plays Mr. Leonard has turned increasingly toward a 09 Apr 2022, 13:43
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Note: I have been adding to my response throughout the day, and by the time I finished, IanStewart had already written a quite similar response above. Even so, I am reproducing my response in full.

beeblebrox
Hi,
I am not satisfied with any explanations:

With his last three plays Mr. Leonard has turned increasingly toward autobiographical material and, (C) as Eugene O'Neill's did, has come to terms with a difficult personal history through their

What I understand from this sentence is that :
- Mr. Leonard has turned increasingly toward autobiographical material , as Eugene's plays did (as his/her plays turned increasingly towards autobiographical material?). My question is why is Mr. Leonard being compared to Eugene's plays? Plays did not come to terms with a difficult personal history. Which makes me think that Eugene and Leonard must be compared. This aspect comes neatly with Option (E)

(E) as with Eugene O'Neill, has come to terms with a difficult personal history through his

which I understand means that Leo turned towards autobiographical material as was the case with Eugene.

IanStewart AndrewN can you please help sir?
What did I miss?
Show more
Hello, beeblebrox. In full disclosure, this question has the distinction of being the only official SC question I have missed while pursuing an entirely incorrect line of reasoning, at least if the question has been transcribed correctly or is even official. If we ignore the comparative elements for a moment to focus on the base structure, we get an unassuming sentence. First, for reference:

Quote:
With his last three plays Mr. Leonard has turned increasingly toward autobiographical material and, like Eugene O'Neill's, have come to terms with a difficult personal history through their dramatizations.
Show more
The prepositional phrase is not the subject, so this sentence is about Mr. Leonard. How does the clause round out?

Mr. Leonard has turned toward [something singular]... and [has] come to terms with [something singular].

This part seems easy to follow. It is only when we consider the extra bits and pieces that things get complicated. How about we burn the chaff before we dissect the rest? Answer choices (A) and (D) violate subject-verb agreement, so we are left with (B), (C), and (E).

Quote:
(A) like Eugene O'Neill's have come to terms with a difficult personal history through their
(D) as Eugene O'Neill has done, have come to terms with a difficult personal history through their
Show more
With those out of the way, focus again on the non-comparative ending of each answer choice. We can add a bit more information to inform our interpretation of the overall sentence.

(B)/(E) Mr. Leonard has turned toward autobiographical material and has come to terms with a difficult personal history through his dramatizations.

(C) Mr. Leonard has turned toward autobiographical material and has come to terms with a difficult personal history through their dramatizations.

I doubt anyone would claim that the former two were incorrect while the latter was the sound option. In a basic X and Y construct, if X and Y are to be parallel—and they should be virtually transposable without a comma before and (joining two independent clauses is an entirely different proposition)—then (C) is in a tight spot. But, to be fair, we need to add plays back to the picture. For the sake of simplicity, we can ignore element X to focus on Y in isolation.

(C) With his last three plays Mr. Leonard has come to terms with a difficult personal history through their dramatizations.

(C.2) With his last three plays Mr. Leonard has come to terms with a difficult personal history through [the plays'] dramatizations.

This is, in fact, functional, so we cannot write off answer choice (C), and we need to consider the comparative elements. It will be easier to drive a wedge between (B) and (E), since they adopt the same ending.

Quote:
With his last three plays Mr. Leonard has turned increasingly toward autobiographical material and, like Eugene O'Neill's, have come to terms with a difficult personal history through their dramatizations.

(B) like Eugene O'Neill's, has come to terms with a difficult personal history through his
(E) as with Eugene O'Neill, has come to terms with a difficult personal history through his
Show more
The possessive in (B) should probably be interpreted strictly—like Eugene O'Neill's last three plays—since we want a safe answer and should not readily adapt material to fit what we want to be there. Like should be used in a noun-to-noun comparison, as for a comparison between actions.

(B) With his last three plays Mr. Leonard has turned increasingly toward autobiographical material and, like Eugene O'Neill's [last three plays], has come to terms with a difficult personal history through his dramatizations.

The comparison is improperly drawn. The placement of the information about the plays of Eugene O'Neill fits an as mold: as these plays did, [with his last three plays Mr. Leonard] has come to terms...

Now, we are down to (C) and (E):

Quote:
With his last three plays Mr. Leonard has turned increasingly toward autobiographical material and...

(C) as Eugene O'Neill's did, has come to terms with a difficult personal history through [the plays'] [dramatizations]
(E) as with Eugene O'Neill, has come to terms with a difficult personal history through his [dramatizations]
Show more
I can say that I prefer the usage of his to refer to Mr. Leonard, but I cannot dismiss (C) for their, as discussed above. Thus, there is little to separate (C) from (E) except for the comparison that is drawn. The substitute did in (C) stands for the entire verb phrase came to terms with a different personal history through the plays' dramatizations. Answer choice (C), then, in full:

(C) With his last three plays Mr. Leonard has turned increasingly toward autobiographical material and, as Eugene O'Neill's last three plays came to terms with a difficult personal history through the plays' dramatizations, has come to terms with a difficult personal history through the plays' dramatizations.

That looks awful, and I wonder if did is juggling too much information. Specifically, it seems odd to extract from a possessive Eugene O'Neill's the noun phrase a difficult personal history. O'Neill himself was not mentioned in the same way that Mr. Leonard was in the first half of this sentence. Yes, I am aware that there are official SC questions in which possessives can later take pronouns—e.g., Emily Dickinson's letters... her (in reference to the poet herself)—but a difficult personal history is not a pronoun.

Answer choice (E) compares playwrights, and, just as before, we are going to get our hands dirty.

(E) With his last three plays Mr. Leonard has turned increasingly toward autobiographical material and, as with Eugene O'Neill, has come to terms with a difficult personal history through his dramatizations.

Now, I suppose we can reasonably interpret as with as as was the case with. Is the comparison tenable? In a word, yes. It may not be the best way to draw such a comparison, but we cannot dismiss the answer choice out of hand.

I suppose if I went back and checked my response to the question, I am guessing I had gone for (E). It is a matter of which interpretation is worse, in my view, and I do not think a clear case can be made for (C).

Phew! That was a long response, written over many hours during a workday. Perhaps it will prove useful.

- Andrew
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With his last three plays Mr. Leonard has turned increasingly toward a 14 Jun 2022, 07:13
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Hello,

can someone please clarify why E is wrong? I chose that since i was not convinced with C at all.

I did not understand also why C with "their" is correct. Does it shift the point of view recalling both of them?

Or better yet, in order to save wall of text, since much has already been written (thanks Andrew, Ian and the others): do i have to worry about this question?

Thanks!
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With his last three plays Mr. Leonard has turned increasingly toward a 20 Jun 2022, 14:56
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Rail
Hello,

can someone please clarify why E is wrong? I chose that since i was not convinced with C at all.

I did not understand also why C with "their" is correct. Does it shift the point of view recalling both of them?

Or better yet, in order to save wall of text, since much has already been written (thanks Andrew, Ian and the others): do i have to worry about this question?

Thanks!
Show more
In (C), "their" actually refers to Mr. Leonard's plays, not to the playwrights themselves. In this context, a "dramatization" is the staging of a play (first the play is written, then the play is performed on a stage -- the latter can be called the "dramatization" of the play). You could argue that "his" would work instead of "their" in choice (C), but there's certainly nothing wrong with the pronoun in (C).

This is really old question, so you definitely shouldn't worry about it too much. But if you're interested, you can skim through our four posts on the first page of the thread, addressing the key differences between (C) and (E).

I hope that helps!
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With his last three plays Mr. Leonard has turned increasingly toward a 20 Oct 2022, 10:58
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With his last three plays Mr. Leonard has turned increasingly toward autobiographical material and, like Eugene O'Neill's, have come to terms with a difficult personal history through their dramatizations.

(A) like Eugene O'Neill's have come to terms with a difficult personal history through their ==> Like is perfectly wrong here.

(B) like Eugene O'Neill's, has come to terms with a difficult personal history through his ==> the same as B

(C) as Eugene O'Neill's did, has come to terms with a difficult personal history through their ==> AS EO did or AS EO has done is ok, but we have a correct Subject-Verb Agreement here.

(D) as Eugene O'Neill has done, have come to terms with a difficult personal history through their ==> Mr.Leonardo has turned...and have come, incorrect

(E) as with Eugene O'Neill, has come to terms with a difficult personal history through his ==> as with is very awkward

Many people will raise questions about the pronoun "their". In my opinion, their refers to both Mr.Leonardo's and Eugene O'Neill's'. It's just my opinion. I still need an expert's confirmation for this thought.
I think this looks really good. "Like" doesn't make sense, since we're not directly comparing O'Neill's plays with Leonard's plays, so (A) and (B) are clearly out. (D) has a subject-verb error.

The problem with (E) isn't necessarily that "as with" is awkward. Since we have a comparison using "as", the two phrases being compared need to be structurally parallel -- and they really aren't here. Rearranging (E) a little bit, we get the following comparison: "As with Eugene O'Neill, with his (Leonard's) last three plays..." And that really doesn't make sense: we're comparing "with O'Neill" to "with Leonard's plays." So that takes care of (E).

So what about the pronoun in (C)? Whenever you see "their", you should always look for a plural noun earlier in the sentence, and we only have one option here: "plays." And that actually works! "...though the plays' dramatizations." So (C) is perfectly fine.
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I am not able to understand the meaning of the sentence. What are the things being compared here?
Please help
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With his last three plays Mr. Leonard has turned increasingly toward a 21 Oct 2022, 04:44
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thanhphong01
With his last three plays Mr. Leonard has turned increasingly toward autobiographical material and, like Eugene O'Neill's, have come to terms with a difficult personal history through their dramatizations.

(A) like Eugene O'Neill's have come to terms with a difficult personal history through their ==> Like is perfectly wrong here.

(B) like Eugene O'Neill's, has come to terms with a difficult personal history through his ==> the same as B

(C) as Eugene O'Neill's did, has come to terms with a difficult personal history through their ==> AS EO did or AS EO has done is ok, but we have a correct Subject-Verb Agreement here.

(D) as Eugene O'Neill has done, have come to terms with a difficult personal history through their ==> Mr.Leonardo has turned...and have come, incorrect

(E) as with Eugene O'Neill, has come to terms with a difficult personal history through his ==> as with is very awkward

Many people will raise questions about the pronoun "their". In my opinion, their refers to both Mr.Leonardo's and Eugene O'Neill's'. It's just my opinion. I still need an expert's confirmation for this thought.
I think this looks really good. "Like" doesn't make sense, since we're not directly comparing O'Neill's plays with Leonard's plays, so (A) and (B) are clearly out. (D) has a subject-verb error.

The problem with (E) isn't necessarily that "as with" is awkward. Since we have a comparison using "as", the two phrases being compared need to be structurally parallel -- and they really aren't here. Rearranging (E) a little bit, we get the following comparison: "As with Eugene O'Neill, with his (Leonard's) last three plays..." And that really doesn't make sense: we're comparing "with O'Neill" to "with Leonard's plays." So that takes care of (E).

So what about the pronoun in (C)? Whenever you see "their", you should always look for a plural noun earlier in the sentence, and we only have one option here: "plays." And that actually works! "...though the plays' dramatizations." So (C) is perfectly fine.

I am not able to understand the meaning of the sentence. What are the things being compared here?
Please help
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Hello Sravan95,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, the comparison here is between the action "has come to terms with a difficult personal history" as performed by Mr. Leonard and the same action as performed by Eugene O'Neil.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
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With his last three plays Mr. Leonard has turned increasingly toward a 25 Oct 2022, 19:21
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I am not able to understand the meaning of the sentence. What are the things being compared here?
Please help
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Here's the sentence using the correct answer (C):

    "With his last three plays Mr. Leonard has turned increasingly toward autobiographical material and, AS Eugene O'Neill's did, has come to terms with a difficult personal history through their dramatizations."

    • Mr. Leonard has come to terms with a difficult personal history {...} (just) AS Eugene O'Neill came to terms with a difficult personal history {...}.
    • The "did" is a placeholder -- and since "did" is past tense, we know it represents the past tense form of "to come" ("came").

I hope that helps!
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With his last three plays Mr. Leonard has turned increasingly toward a 11 May 2023, 03:41
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Hi GMATNinja

I was confused between B and C,
from what i understand, like can be used to compare nouns, followed by modifiers but not VERBS.

So in this question are we comparing Eugene O'Neill's plays with Mr Leonard's?

if not then 1) what are we comparing exactly
2) if we were comparing plays of these gentlemen then would it be correct to use like

If yes then why is like incorrect.

Please help me with this
your posts are great
Thanking you in advance!


GMATNinja
thanhphong01
With his last three plays Mr. Leonard has turned increasingly toward autobiographical material and, like Eugene O'Neill's, have come to terms with a difficult personal history through their dramatizations.

(A) like Eugene O'Neill's have come to terms with a difficult personal history through their ==> Like is perfectly wrong here.

(B) like Eugene O'Neill's, has come to terms with a difficult personal history through his ==> the same as B

(C) as Eugene O'Neill's did, has come to terms with a difficult personal history through their ==> AS EO did or AS EO has done is ok, but we have a correct Subject-Verb Agreement here.

(D) as Eugene O'Neill has done, have come to terms with a difficult personal history through their ==> Mr.Leonardo has turned...and have come, incorrect

(E) as with Eugene O'Neill, has come to terms with a difficult personal history through his ==> as with is very awkward

Many people will raise questions about the pronoun "their". In my opinion, their refers to both Mr.Leonardo's and Eugene O'Neill's'. It's just my opinion. I still need an expert's confirmation for this thought.
I think this looks really good. "Like" doesn't make sense, since we're not directly comparing O'Neill's plays with Leonard's plays, so (A) and (B) are clearly out. (D) has a subject-verb error.

The problem with (E) isn't necessarily that "as with" is awkward. Since we have a comparison using "as", the two phrases being compared need to be structurally parallel -- and they really aren't here. Rearranging (E) a little bit, we get the following comparison: "As with Eugene O'Neill, with his (Leonard's) last three plays..." And that really doesn't make sense: we're comparing "with O'Neill" to "with Leonard's plays." So that takes care of (E).

So what about the pronoun in (C)? Whenever you see "their", you should always look for a plural noun earlier in the sentence, and we only have one option here: "plays." And that actually works! "...though the plays' dramatizations." So (C) is perfectly fine.
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With his last three plays Mr. Leonard has turned increasingly toward a 27 May 2023, 10:53
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yeloo
Hi GMATNinja

I was confused between B and C,

from what i understand, like can be used to compare nouns, followed by modifiers but not VERBS.

So in this question are we comparing Eugene O'Neill's plays with Mr Leonard's?

if not then 1) what are we comparing exactly

if we were comparing plays of these gentlemen then would it be correct to use like

If yes then why is like incorrect.

Please help me with this

your posts are great

Thanking you in advance!
Show more
Thank you for the kind words, yeloo!

Check out this post. We're comparing "Mr. Leonard has come to terms with..." to "Eugene O'Neill came to terms with..." -- and since we're comparing clauses, "as" is appropriate.

I hope that helps a bit!
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With his last three plays Mr. Leonard has turned increasingly toward a 23 Jun 2023, 03:11
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Their refers to 3 plays.
The sentence should have” has” not “have”
So the option is D. That’s neat observation.

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With his last three plays Mr. Leonard has turned increasingly toward a 16 Sep 2023, 23:15
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Hi @KarishmaB,

Can you please share your reasoning for selecting C?

Thanks in advance. :)
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Raman109
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With his last three plays Mr. Leonard has turned increasingly toward a 05 Nov 2023, 06:44
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With his last three plays Mr. Leonard has turned increasingly toward autobiographical material and, like Eugene O'Neill's, have come to terms with a difficult personal history through their dramatizations.

Option Elimination - Please don't boil too much blood on this, as we don't know the source. Learn the good things this question teaches and move on. There is much more to cover for the prep.

Option Elimination -

(A) like Eugene O'Neill's have come to terms with a difficult personal history through their - SV disagreement. Mr. Leonard (singular) and have (plural) - wrong.

(B) like Eugene O'Neill's, has come to terms with a difficult personal history through his - "like Eugene O'Neill's" means plays. We can't compare plays (nouns) with the upcoming clause. - wrong.

(C) as Eugene O'Neill's did, has come to terms with a difficult personal history through their - The expanded sentence may sound like this: As Eugene O'Neill's plays turned him towards autobiographical material and helped him come to terms with his past, with his last three plays Mr. Leonard has turned increasingly toward autobiographical material and has come to terms with a difficult personal history through their dramatizations. I know it's too much, but just taking the one verb "come" doesn't make sense. Moreover, when we use "Eugene O'Neill's plays" we must compare them with "Mr. Leonard's plays." Otherwise, "Eugene O'Neill's plays" coming in terms is not the same as Mr. Leonard coming in terms.

(D) as Eugene O'Neill has done, have come to terms with a difficult personal history through their- SV disagreement. Mr. Leonard (singular) and have (plural) - wrong.

(E) as with Eugene O'Neill, has come to terms with a difficult personal history through his - This is a bit complicated. There is nothing wrong with a prepositional phrase after "as" as it can very well mean "as was the case with Eugene O'Neill" but the problem is when we compare "as with Eugene O'Neill" or "as was the case with Eugene O'Neill" with "With his last three plays Mr. Leonard...." - We end up comparing a person with plays. Wrong.
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