Drawing on her roots in a society that has a strong traditio

[jyothi h]

I got this question in GMATPREP today . http://postimg.org/image/5en8jhcrb/

Drawing on her roots in a society that has a strong tradition of story-telling and oral renditions of the past, Indian writer Suniti Namjoshi incorporates many types of literature into her writing: including historical texts, legends, and even nursery rhymes from both Indian as well as European sources.

A.writing: including historical texts, legends, and even nursery rhymes from both Indian as well as
B.writing: historical texts, legends, and even nursery rhymes from both Indian and
C.writing: these include historical texts, legends, and even nursery rhymes from both Indian and
D.writing, which includes historical texts, legends, and even nursery rhymes both from Indian as well as
E.writing that includes historical texts, legends, and even nursery rhymes both from Indian and

OA : B

I picked option C .
wanted to confirm my analysis of all answer choices.

A: incorrect Idiom : both X as well as Y ... Eliminate A and D
the succeeding sentence after colon should just list the things he is talking about , in the first part of the sentence. So "including" after colon is incorrect .

C: the part after the colon , should just list/examples of the things he talks about in sentence before the colon . I did not realize this when I picked this to be the answer.

D : idiom issue . both X as well as Y . Also X and Y are not parallel.
Is there anything else wrong with D ?

E: Same issue as D : both X and Y . X and Y are not parallel .

Request any of the experts to point out any errors that I am missing in analyzing the answer choices .

Thanks,
Jyothi

[arthi9487]

Can someone please explain why B is correct over C? In looking up rules for colons, there can be a full sentence after the colon, so I don't understand the difference between the two?

[RonPurewal]

To the original poster:
* Your analysis is mostly correct.
* Your analysis of D and E is correct, but there's another problem: "that"/"which" doesn't indicate that historical texts, legends, and nursery rhymes ARE the "types of literature" mentioned earlier in the sentence.

E.g.,
I donated several books to the library, which carries volumes in French, Russian, and Spanish.
--> This sentence contains no information about the language(s) of the books I donated.

I donated several books to the library: volumes in French, Russian, and Spanish.
--> I donated books in these three languages (and no others) to the library. There's no information about whether the library has any other books in those languages.

As long as we're talking about it...
I donated several books to the library, including volumes in French, Russian, and Spanish.
--> I donated books in these languages, as well as other books. ("Including" implies a partial listing. If everything is listed, "including" is incorrect.)

[RonPurewal]

Can someone please explain why B is correct over C? In looking up rules for colons, there can be a full sentence after the colon, so I don't understand the difference between the two?

If a colon is used to specify things -- as it's used here -- then everything must be specified.
"Include"/"including" specifically implies that NOT everything is specified.
Oops. Can't have it both ways.
(Either meaning would be reasonable -- those 3 things could be an exhaustive list, or they could well be just 3 out of 100 literary forms this author uses -- but they can't both be true.)

[momo32]

Dear Ron，

You mean that we cannot use colon and including or include at the same time？

THX

[RonPurewal]

Dear Ron，

You mean that we cannot use colon and including or include at the same time？

THX

as i wrote above:
• the colon implies that everything is listed.
• "including..." implies that NOT everything is listed.
mutually exclusive.

[rustom.hakimiyan]

Can someone please explain why B is correct over C? In looking up rules for colons, there can be a full sentence after the colon, so I don't understand the difference between the two?

If a colon is used to specify things -- as it's used here -- then everything must be specified.
"Include"/"including" specifically implies that NOT everything is specified.
Oops. Can't have it both ways.
(Either meaning would be reasonable -- those 3 things could be an exhaustive list, or they could well be just 3 out of 100 literary forms this author uses -- but they can't both be true.)

Hi Ron,

Wondering if you could help clarify a few things for me:

1) B states ".... many types of literature into her writing: historical texts, legends..." -- doesn't this mean that the items in the list are actually referring to the "writing" and not the various forms of literature? That was the main reason why I didn't pick B.

2) Both x as well as y -- is that not acceptable?

3) In choice E -- "... many types of literature into her writing that includes historical texts, legends, and even nursery rhymes both from Indian and " -- can "that" refer to literature(skip "writing") or does it refer to the first thing it touches?

Thanks

[RonPurewal]

1) B states ".... many types of literature into her writing: historical texts, legends..." -- doesn't this mean that the items in the list are actually referring to the "writing" and not the various forms of literature? That was the main reason why I didn't pick B.

the items following a colon are not a modifier, so they needn't obey such a strict protocol. as long as their significance is clear, everything is generally ok.

it's possible to write "incorporated into her works several types of literature".
but...
i/ there's no such choice, so, oh well;
ii/ with "works" (as written here) this is pretty easy to read; with "writing", on the other hand, it would probably be rather confusing, since it would be too easy to misread the noun after "writing" as an object;
iii/ again, there's no such choice, so, oh well.

[RonPurewal]

2) Both x as well as y -- is that not acceptable?

yes, that is unacceptable.

[RonPurewal]

3) In choice E -- "... many types of literature into her writing that includes historical texts, legends, and even nursery rhymes both from Indian and " -- can "that" refer to literature(skip "writing") or does it refer to the first thing it touches?

Thanks

that construction wouldn't really make any sense.
you'd have to process it as "types of literature that includes x, y, and z".
in other words, here's a type of literature that includes x, y, and z; here's a second type of literature that includes x, y, and z; etc. that's clearly not what is meant here.

[RonPurewal]

more generally, you pretty much aren't going to see "types of X that does Y" at all, since, in standard usage, "type" can subsume the role of the noun itself.

for instance, it's perfectly acceptable to write A certain type of aircraft can fly without risk of radar detection.
"type" is the subject; "type" is allowed to play the role of the aircraft itself.
the same courtesy is not extended to most other words; for instance, A certain size of aircraft can fly... is a nonsense sentence, since sizes don't fly. (this sentence could be rewritten as Aircraft of a certain size can fly...)

[RonPurewal]

by the way, the same usage convention extends to other words that mean essentially the same thing as "type" (kind, style, version, etc.)

if you have the OG verbal supplement, check out problem #57 for an example in which "style of X" subsumes the role of X itself in the meaning of the sentence.

obviously they're not going to split this (it's a stylistic convention), but you should know that it's a thing.

[krutiks511]

hey Ron, in choosing B over C is the logic mentioned below correct-
both options state ' and even nursery rhymes'. The use of word even helps us know that everything mentioned is included.
So use just a colon and list of things AND NOT colon followed by 'these include'.

[RonPurewal]

'colon + these include' is impossible in any circumstance, because it contradicts itself.

if a list follows a colon, the implication is that the list is COMPLETE.
if i say that some group 'includes' a certain list, then that list is INCOMPLETE.

your logic is perfect, by the way: in this sentence there is ample context from which to infer that the list is COMPLETE.
however, you don't even need to think that much to eliminate C.
to eliminate C you merely need to realize that it contains two mutually contradictory structures.

[qianruS779]

Hi Ron,

Merry Christmas.

In the option C- "these include", these cannot be used as a pronoun except an adjective like this, alright? Does the rule apply to those and that?

For example, these/those are three bananas (wrong)

Thank you very much for your confirmation.

Best, Song