Emily Dickinson’s letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson were

[jlucero]

thank you, Tim, I understand the problem

because in question 48 og 13, "earth" is eligible to be modified by "which" A and B are wrong.

can I summarize as following

if we have
X of Y, which

if Y is eligible to be modified by "which", "which" modifies Y
if Y is not eligible and if Y modies X and can not be placed elsewhere, "which" modifies X

if Y is not eligible and dose not modifies X, we have pattern wrong on gmat. for example:

I learn English in a good method, which is a beautiful language.

is not acceptable on gmat.

pls, confirm

The problem in 48 is not that "which covers more..." is modifying Earth. It could be modifying the largest lake on Earth. Both are incorrect. That phrase should be modifying Caspian. Notice the difference:

The Caspian, which is blue, is the largest lake on Earth. (the Caspian is the largest lake on Earth)

The Caspian is the largest lake on Earth, which is blue. (the Caspian is the largest blue lake on Earth)

[thanghnvn]

Thank you Lucero. I am confused in #48 og13.

you are right that og explanation considers that both "earth" and "the largest lake on Earth" can not be referent of "which" logically.

I quite understand that why "earth" can not be referent of "which" logically

I do not understand why "the largest lake on Earth" can not be referent of "which", pls explain this point. I am confused here. I already post my this question on beatthegmat and gmatclub forum but do not get full explanation. So, your explanation is great to me.

pls, explain fully with example

Thank you Lucero

[tim]

no. there is no reason at all to give an "example". you have GOT to read our replies to your posts if you expect us to continue responding to you. the answer to your question has been explained thoroughly above. if you ask the same question yet again, we will ignore it..

[xyq121573]

could you confirm my thoughts on the use of "X of Y,which.." as follows?
BACKGRAOUD: the door is stern & the room is big
exmaples: the door of the room,which is stern,can't be opened.
the door of the room,which is big,can't be opened.
are both the clauses above correct?please confirm~thks in advance~

[jlucero]

could you confirm my thoughts on the use of "X of Y,which.." as follows?
BACKGRAOUD: the door is stern & the room is big
exmaples: the door of the room,which is stern,can't be opened.
the door of the room,which is big,can't be opened.
are both the clauses above correct?please confirm~thks in advance~

It comes down to potential ambiguity in meaning:

OK: the door of the room, which is stern (only can be talking about the door), can't be opened.
Wrong: the door of the room, which is big (could be a big door or big room), can't be opened.

[niitsm]

Hi instructors

Regarding choice B

I am confused why can't we compare that begins and ended as parallel prospective candidates
is it because that is not repeated in "that ended " ?
Or it should be "that began " and that ended .

Can you please clarify ?

[RonPurewal]

Hi instructors

Regarding choice B

I am confused why can't we compare that begins and ended as parallel prospective candidates
is it because that is not repeated in "that ended " ?
Or it should be "that began " and that ended .

Can you please clarify ?

well, technically, all verbs are parallel to all other verbs (i.e., verb tenses are not a parallelism issue). so, you have somewhat of a point here.

on the other hand, it should be absolutely clear that "begins" (present tense) is nonsense here, because you're talking about something that began well over 100 years ago.

[RonPurewal]

It makes no sense for that modifier to describe any of those three actions.

There's no point in trying to decide among 3 nonsense interpretations. Just eliminate.

[lsyang1212]

occasionally, when it is completely unambiguous, "which" can refer to a whole NOUN PHRASE that immediately precedes the comma.
in this case, this noun phrase is "X's letters to Y". (note that this noun phrase, as a unit, does immediately precede the comma.)

also, note the complete lack of grammatical ambiguity: "which" can't refer to dickinson, who is a person, and it's also followed by a plural verb. both of these pieces of evidence point to the noun phrase "X's letters to Y".

I'm probably beating this one to the ground, but I thought the whole point of sentence correction was to get rid of "nonsensical" comparisons/modifiers/etc. "Which" here is nonsensically referring back to "Dickinson". I get that the verb afterwards "were" is plural, so it's logically trying to refer back to "letters" and not "Dickinson", but how are we supposed to make this judgement call of correcting nonsensical meaning/grammer vs an exception to this "which" rule?

I think I saw post somewhere else about when is a pronoun like "it" is actually considered ambiguous if there are two possible antecedents. Sometimes "it" with two possible antecedents is not ambigous, sometimes "it" is ambiguous. I feel like this "which" question is the same issue.

Need some clarification.

Thanks.

[tim]

This is not an exception. You mentioned yourself that it is clear what the "which" is supposed to refer to. The rule, which is 100% adhered to in this case, is that "which" refers to the closest noun before the comma that it can refer to. Ron and I often refer to this as the "closest eligible noun". "which" cannot refer to a person, so we keep going until we find "letters".

[ZoeZ42]

Dear All,
i have a question here, anybody can clarify :
why not outnumbered here, the past tense of outnumber shouldn't be outnumbered,
(E) uses "outnumber" as main verb, i think it should be "outnumbered"

thanks in advance

have a nice day

>_~

[RonPurewal]

if the letters still exist, then the present tense ("outnumber") is the correct tense.

"outnumber" would work only if the letters no longer exist.
(that's also a reasonable possibility -- we are, after all, talking about letters that are more than 100 years old -- but you'll never have to choose between reasonable meanings.)

[ZoeZ42]

thanks RON.

have a nice day
>_~

[RonPurewal]

you're welcome.

[drn354]

your post here is sort of like the riddle of the sphinx: the answer is actually hidden inside your own writing.

let me show you: (the blue highlight is mine)

Some people say that using a present participle phrase to express the (direct/indirect) result of the preceding clause is not allowed when the preceding clause is in a passive voice.

this is exactly the problem: the phrase in question, "outnumbering ...", is NOT, in any way whatsoever, a "(direct/indirect) result" of the time period over which the letters were written. these are tw completely independent and unrelated observations about the letters, and so they can't be placed into the sort of construction that appears in choice (a). this is thus not a grammatical problem so much as a problem of clarity, but it's still a problem.

examples:
my brother, who ate bagel bites for breakfast every single day of his high school career, graduated in 1994. --> correct; his eating bagel bites had no impact on his graduation date.
my brother ate bagel bites for breakfast every single day of his high school career, graduating in 1994. --> incorrect; these are two unrelated observations, but this construction erroneously implies some sort of relationship.

Hi，RON，I don't know whether posting a sentence in OG violates the rule or not, but I really have a question about this sentence and about the "ing" modifier you said above.

To get rid of violation, I change the sentence a little bit without changing the core.

"As an actress, Stella Adler was one of the most influential artists in the American theater, training several generations of actors whose ranks included Marlon Brando and Robert De Niro."
This sentence is correct, but i don't know how the "training..." works, it this a result of the previous clause?