Emily Dickinson’s letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson were

[hmgmat]

Emily Dickinson’s letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson were written over a period beginning a few years before Susan’s marriage to Emily’s brother and ending shortly before Emily’s death in 1886, outnumbering her letters to anyone else.
A. Dickinson were written over a period beginning a few years before Susan’s marriage to Emily’s brother and ending shortly before Emily’s death in 1886, outnumbering
B. Dickinson were written over a period that begins a few years before Susan’s marriage to Emily’s brother and ended shortly before Emily’s death in 1886, outnumber
C. Dickinson, written over a period beginning a few years before Susan’s marriage to Emily’s brother and that ends shortly before Emily’s death in 1886 and outnumbering
D. Dickinson, which were written over a period beginning a few years before Susan’s marriage to Emily’s brother, ending shortly before Emily’s death in 1886, and outnumbering
E. Dickinson, which were written over a period beginning a few years before Susan’s marriage to Emily’s brother and ending shortly before Emily’s death in 1886, outnumber

The OA is E.

I just wonder why A is not correct. Is there a grammatical/meaning/logical error in A?

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. But I found such claim invalid because I have seen the same patterns in other GMATPrep questions.

Thanks in advance.

[RonPurewal]

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.

[ehimeme]

Hi Ron,

Please, I need further clarifcation on this question. I thought the "which" in (E) was supposed to refer to the noun before it?? But in this case it is referring to the letters. Also, please I would really appreciate u point out the errors in the other answers for me.

Thanks.

[sinhavis]

Hi Ron,
I also thought which is referring to Dickenson and not to the letters. Please explain if there is any new rule for it.

[RonPurewal]

Hi Ron,

Please, I need further clarifcation on this question. I thought the "which" in (E) was supposed to refer to the noun before it?? But in this case it is referring to the letters. Also, please I would really appreciate u point out the errors in the other answers for me.

Thanks.

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".

--

here's the basic summary:
if you have "X of Y, which..."
then:
* if Y works as the antecedent of "which", then "which" should stand for Y.
* if Y doesn't work as the antecedent, but "X of Y" DOES work, then "which" can stand for "X of Y".

--

i feel your pain, though. this problem is definitely a case of "learn surprising lessons from the correct answers, but never question the officially correct answers."

[RonPurewal]

brief synopsis of problems with other choices:

(a) is explained above

(b)
this choice tries to put were written and ended in parallel.
this parallelism implies that the letters "ended" or "were ended", neither of which makes sense.
the verb "outnumber" also makes this not a valid sentence, for the same reason why i can't write "he was born in 1858, left the country in 1874".

(c)
this is a sentence fragment; there's no main verb at all. remember that "-ing" constructions are NOT verbs by themselves.
also, there's bad parallelism between "beginning" and "that ends".

(d)
false parallelism between "beginning", "ending", and "outnumbering". the period of time didn't outnumber anything.
this is also a sentence fragment, with no main verb. the only actual verb in the whole thing is "were written", which is trapped in a subordinate clause.

[sonu_gmat]

Ron,

Should not this part be restrictive clause.
"which were written over a period beginning a few years before Susan’s marriage to Emily’s brother and ending shortly before Emily’s death in 1886"

[RonPurewal]

Ron,

Should not this part be restrictive clause.
"which were written over a period beginning a few years before Susan’s marriage to Emily’s brother and ending shortly before Emily’s death in 1886"

heh, i actually had to go look up "restrictive clause".
DO NOT concentrate on names such as this; it's a waste of time. see below.

for other readers of this thread:
the question is whether there should be commas around this clause.

the answer:
yes, there should be commas.
(to the original poster: no, it's "nonrestrictive". to other posters: don't worry about this terminology.)

here are 2 ways to realize this.

the easy way:
* the clause starts with WHICH. you CANNOT, EVER, use "which" without a comma beforehand.
if there's no comma, then you'd use "that" instead of "which".

the harder way:
* the original sentence, even though it's grammatically incorrect, makes it clear that ALL of the letters were written in the given period.
therefore, the clause doesn't restrict the meaning of anything, so it's nonessential. you should thus enclose it in commas.

--

my point from earlier:
don't worry about linguistic terminology such as "restrictive clause".
trying to know linguistic terminology will actually HURT your progress on the test, because it's a pointless detour - it adds a completely unnecessary step to your reasoning.
in other words:

BAD study method:
(1) hey, i see commas
(2) therefore, that's called a "nonrestrictive clause"
(3) therefore, it's nonessential and doesn't alter the meaning

GOOD study method:
(1) hey, i see commas
(2) therefore, it's nonessential and doesn't alter the meaning

you see my point. trying to name things just isn't productive.

[haoyang_qu]

Ron,

Going back to the idea that the "which" should refer to the noun before it, do we refer to the "letters" as what is being referred to because "to Susan Huntington Dickinson" is a preposition and therefore can be ignored?

Thanks

[RonPurewal]

Ron,

Going back to the idea that the "which" should refer to the noun before it, do we refer to the "letters" as what is being referred to because "to Susan Huntington Dickinson" is a preposition and therefore can be ignored?

Thanks

did you read this post?
post25211.html#p25211

(it's on this thread, about 4-5 posts or so upthread)

that post contains pretty much the sum total of my received wisdom regarding this situation.

since the "which" in question automatically can't refer to dickinson herself, the complete lack of ambiguity helps.

i would NOT extend this pattern to prepositional phrases in which the object-of-preposition COULD actually be the antecedent of "which".

in other words, as stated above, it's the COMPLETE lack of ambiguity that seems to make this acceptable.

[Mymisc]

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.

Ron,

Regarding the part you quoted from "hmgmat", what about the 'passive voice' part? i.e. your answer seems to stress that the original is wrong because the 'outnumbering...' is NOT a direct result. Is it true that in the case an "-ing" modifier modifies a direct result, but a result from a PASSIVE VOICE, can that kind of whole sentence be correct?

Second, can an "-ing" modifier be used as an accompanying adverbial other than a 'direct result'? Can we interpret the original sentence as the acoompanying type, and in that case the original will make sense?

Third, in "X of Y that ..." where "that" cannot stand for Y but X, and "X of Y, which..." where "which cannnot stand for Y but X, does one form have higher priority than the other?

Thanks!

[RonPurewal]

Regarding the part you quoted from "hmgmat", what about the 'passive voice' part? i.e. your answer seems to stress that the original is wrong because the 'outnumbering...' is NOT a direct result. Is it true that in the case an "-ing" modifier modifies a direct result, but a result from a PASSIVE VOICE, can that kind of whole sentence be correct?

if a grammatical construction can be correct with an active-voice verb, it can also be correct with a passive-voice verb. there is no grammatical difference between the uses of active and passive verbs; the difference between active and passive is strictly an issue of meaning.

so, yes, such sentences can quite easily be correct.
e.g.
john was thrown from the car, sustaining multiple injuries.
that's a correct sentence in which you have a comma -ing modifier modifying a passive-voice clause.

Second, can an "-ing" modifier be used as an accompanying adverbial other than a 'direct result'? Can we interpret the original sentence as the acoompanying type, and in that case the original will make sense?

i'm not quite sure what you mean by "accompanying adverbial".

in general, there are two correct uses of "comma -ing" after a clause:
(1) to describe a direct and immediate consequence of the action in the clause;
ray scored a perfect 100 on his most recent exam, bringing his average for the semester up to 93.
OR
(2) to describe an action that is simultaneous with and subordinate to the action in the preceding clause.
ray ran down the sidewalk, flailing his arms.

so, if by "accompanying adverbial" you're asking about possibility #2 here, then, yes.
if you're asking whether you can use this sort of modifier to introduce something that is basically irrelevant to the action in the preceding clause, then no.

Third, in "X of Y that ..." where "that" cannot stand for Y but X, and "X of Y, which..." where "which cannnot stand for Y but X, does one form have higher priority than the other?

Thanks!

i'm not sure that i understand the question -- are you asking whether one of them is better than the other?
if so, that's not a legitimate question; they aren't alternatives. one of them is an essential (restrictive) modifier, used to introduce a fundamental restriction on the noun; the other is a nonessential modifier, which doesn't narrow the noun at all but just gives more descriptive information.

i.e.,
the meeting is in the third room, which has a brown door
--> this means that the meeting is in the third room, period. the modifier tells us that the third room happens to have a brown door, but, even without this modifier, we know that the meeting is in the third (overall) room.

the meeting is in the third room that has a brown door
--> this means that, if you count only rooms that have brown doors, that the meeting will be in the third such room. you may have to walk past eighty other doors to get that room, but, once you've seen three brown doors, you've got the right room.

i know this is not an example with "X of Y", but the idea is the same.

fortunately, you will not have to choose between these forms in an instance when both of them are valid.
there has NEVER been an official problem, as far as we're aware, that has required the student to decide between essential and nonessential modifiers to get the answer, so we don't expect to see such a problem anytime soon.

[rajivmgmat]

I was split between E and A. Even though from a "ear" perspective I preferred E, I went with A only because I took it as "written in stone" that "which" must refer to the immediate preceding noun. But then like you mentioned, and I am convinced, there are exceptions.

In your next edition of the SC guide you might want to mention the exception.... Especially because the boldface statement and the concluding statement on page 91.. "Do not use your ear. Always test..." make a convincing case to go with A.

It was just a suggestion. I think your SC guide is wonderful.

[RonPurewal]

I was split between E and A. Even though from a "ear" perspective I preferred E, I went with A only because I took it as "written in stone" that "which" must refer to the immediate preceding noun. But then like you mentioned, and I am convinced, there are exceptions.

In your next edition of the SC guide you might want to mention the exception.... Especially because the boldface statement and the concluding statement on page 91.. "Do not use your ear. Always test..." make a convincing case to go with A.

It was just a suggestion. I think your SC guide is wonderful.

thanks for the suggestion -- i'll pass it on.

[RonPurewal]

I think the OA has another error:
"Dickinson, which were written over a period beginning a few years before Susan’s marriage to Emily’s brother and ending shortly before Emily’s death in 1886, outnumber" her letters to anyone else.

Who does "her" refer to now? it can't refer to Emily. we only have Emily's letters as subject. right?
Please explain if I am wrong.

"her", in this case, is a possessive. "emily's" is also a possessive.
good to go.

--

i've always been been horrified to see this "rule" mentioned in our materials. this post, along with many, many others, is a prime illustration of why.
basically:

* this "rule" has so far been necessary in a grand total of ZERO official problems.

* for every one student who seems to understand the "rule" thoroughly, there are several, such as the poster here, who are confused by it.

we are finally purging this rule completely from the upcoming editions of our verbal materials, but i would imagine that we will continue to have to do this sort of damage control for some time.

the "rule" is:
* POSSESSIVE NOUN with NON-POSSESSIVE PRONOUN is NOT OK.
BUT
ALL OTHER COMBINATIONS are ok.
i.e.
possessive noun with possessive pronoun is ok.
non-possessive noun with non-possessive pronoun is ok.
non-possessive noun with possessive pronoun is ok.

that's the complete version of the "rule" -- which, not surprisingly, tends to confuse a lot more than it tends to enlighten. also, although it may let you eliminate one answer choice here and there, it has NEVER actually been required to solve an official problem.

so:
ONLY use this "rule" if you understand it 100.0000%. if there is absolutely any confusion at all, just ignore this rule and pretend that you have never seen it.


what is perhaps most interesting is that gmac itself is starting to distance itself from this rule.
if you look at problem #86 in the FIRST edition verbal supplement (the purple book), the answer key declares, very explicitly, that the pronoun "grammatically ... CANNOT" refer to the possessive noun.
on the other hand, if you open your second edition verbal review (the blue one) to #81, you will find that the explanation has been completely revised -- completely removing all traces of these claims, and replacing them"”eyes darting nervously around the room"”with "grammatically its referent is somewhat unclear".

in other words, even gmac doesn't endorse this "rule" anymore.
ignore.
forever.

your life just got a little easier.