Unlike other Mayan cities

[mclaren7]

Dear Moderators and friends,

Unlike other Mayan cities, Cancun's commercial power throughout the lowlands seems to be from using its strategic position at the foot of the highlands, which were a source of jade, obsidian, and other valuable commodities.

a.
b. Cancun's commercial power throughout the lowlands seems to have come from using its strategic position at the foot of the highlands, a source of jade, obsidian, and other valuable commodities.

c. the commercial power of Cancun's throughout the lowlands seemed to have come from using its strategic position at the foot of the highlands, a source of jade, obsidian, and other valuable commodities.

d. Cancun seemed to be using its strategic position at the foot of the highlands, which was a source of jade, obsidian, and other valuable commodities, in becoming a commercial power throughout the lowlands.

e. Cancun seems to have used its strategic position at the foot of the highlands, a source of jade, obsidian, and other valuable commodities, to become a commercial power throughout the lowlands.

We can quickly rule out ABC due to modifier error.
Between DE, I am stuck.
I chose D - wrong. Is D wrong due to ...." seemed to be using its....IN BECOMING?" idiom error? to become is the correct idiom?

Thanks
KH

[mclaren7]

Hi

Would like to enquire about a fundamental question, for D:

"at the foot of the highlands, which were a source" - for GMATland, can the "WHICH" refer to "foot of the highlands" OR just strictly "highlands?"

Thank you.
KH

[shrenik]

Hi,

Generally which when used as a modifier should modify the noun preceeding it.Hence in this case it modifies the noun 'highlands' .

[quote="mclaren7"]Hi

Would like to enquire about a fundamental question, for D:

"at the foot of the highlands, which were a source" - for GMATland, can the "WHICH" refer to "foot of the highlands" OR just strictly "highlands?"

Thank you.
KH[/quote]

[RonPurewal]

Hi

Would like to enquire about a fundamental question, for D:

"at the foot of the highlands, which were a source" - for GMATland, can the "WHICH" refer to "foot of the highlands" OR just strictly "highlands?"

Thank you.
KH

i do believe that we've seen examples in which relative pronouns stand for the entire phrase 'X of Y' rather than just the Y immediately preceding the comma, but that situation is rare indeed and should be avoided unless absolutely necessary (= it happens in all the choices, so you can't get away from it).

in this case, then, choice e, which avoids this whole relative-pronoun mess, is certainly preferable to choice d, which doesn't.

still, you can rule out choice d for other reasons:
* 'seemed to be using': unacceptable change of meaning. the past-tense 'seemed' says that that's the way it seemed to the mayans living in cancun long ago, whereas the sentence is clearly designed to say that's the way it seems to us now.
* i don't like 'in becoming', which smacks of what the gmat would call 'idiom error'. there's no answer key for these things, of course, but i do have the feeling that the gmat would label this as an idiom error.

[guest612]

i just wanted to highlight that choices D & E have typos which actually make a big difference for grammatical issues. In both answer choices, the word starts off as Cancun (not Cancun's). Just fyi!

Thanks.

[rfernandez]

Thanks for that clarification. It looks like the "Cancun's" in C should also be "Cancun," unless it was a deliberate error on the part of the question writer.

Rey

[guest]

Dear MGMAT staff:

a question on the introductory modifiers containing pronouns. if the question were worded as:

Unlike those in Mayan cities, Cancun's power plants use their strategic position at the foot of the highlands.

In this case does the pronoun 'those' refer to Cancun's power plants or just power plants.

thanks.

[RonPurewal]

Dear MGMAT staff:

a question on the introductory modifiers containing pronouns. if the question were worded as:

Unlike those in Mayan cities, Cancun's power plants use their strategic position at the foot of the highlands.

In this case does the pronoun 'those' refer to Cancun's power plants or just power plants.

thanks.

first, the purely pragmatic answer: this construction would probably be considered undesirable on the real test, because it's not parallel. when the gmat uses these sorts of constructions in correct answers, the parallelism is usually very exact - i.e., if one part says 'those in mayan cities', then the other part will say something in some other place. the idea here is clear enough, but the sentence fails this test of exact parallelism, making it unsuitable for (what we've seen of) the gmat.

as far as your question goes in general, i think you could probably find usage experts on both sides of the fence. for very formal writing, a description that generally applies to gmat sc sentences, you should be safe and stick with exact parallelism if you're going to use a construction like this one.

--

a bit off-topic, but still relevant: the gmat is so puritanical about this sort of parallelism that it doesn't even allow sentences such as the following:
the logo on the new team's uniform was much more bright and obnoxious than those on the other teams' uniforms.
it's obvious what's meant here, but the gmat insists that 'those' must refer to a plural antecedent. again, exact parallelism is de rigueur.

[guest]

Thanks.

There is a sentence in the OG that has a similar construction. But, I guess comparison takes a
higher precedence than parallelism.

Dear MGMAT staff:

a question on the introductory modifiers containing pronouns. if the question were worded as:

Unlike those in Mayan cities, Cancun's power plants use their strategic position at the foot of the highlands.

In this case does the pronoun 'those' refer to Cancun's power plants or just power plants.

thanks.

first, the purely pragmatic answer: this construction would probably be considered undesirable on the real test, because it's not parallel. when the gmat uses these sorts of constructions in correct answers, the parallelism is usually very exact - i.e., if one part says 'those in mayan cities', then the other part will say something in some other place. the idea here is clear enough, but the sentence fails this test of exact parallelism, making it unsuitable for (what we've seen of) the gmat.

as far as your question goes in general, i think you could probably find usage experts on both sides of the fence. for very formal writing, a description that generally applies to gmat sc sentences, you should be safe and stick with exact parallelism if you're going to use a construction like this one.

--

a bit off-topic, but still relevant: the gmat is so puritanical about this sort of parallelism that it doesn't even allow sentences such as the following:
the logo on the new team's uniform was much more bright and obnoxious than those on the other teams' uniforms.
it's obvious what's meant here, but the gmat insists that 'those' must refer to a plural antecedent. again, exact parallelism is de rigueur.

[Guest]

Sorry, I meant parallel elements in comparison vs exact parallelism.

Thanks.

There is a sentence in the OG that has a similar construction. But, I guess comparison takes a
higher precedence than parallelism.

Dear MGMAT staff:

a question on the introductory modifiers containing pronouns. if the question were worded as:

Unlike those in Mayan cities, Cancun's power plants use their strategic position at the foot of the highlands.

In this case does the pronoun 'those' refer to Cancun's power plants or just power plants.

thanks.

first, the purely pragmatic answer: this construction would probably be considered undesirable on the real test, because it's not parallel. when the gmat uses these sorts of constructions in correct answers, the parallelism is usually very exact - i.e., if one part says 'those in mayan cities', then the other part will say something in some other place. the idea here is clear enough, but the sentence fails this test of exact parallelism, making it unsuitable for (what we've seen of) the gmat.

as far as your question goes in general, i think you could probably find usage experts on both sides of the fence. for very formal writing, a description that generally applies to gmat sc sentences, you should be safe and stick with exact parallelism if you're going to use a construction like this one.

--

a bit off-topic, but still relevant: the gmat is so puritanical about this sort of parallelism that it doesn't even allow sentences such as the following:
the logo on the new team's uniform was much more bright and obnoxious than those on the other teams' uniforms.
it's obvious what's meant here, but the gmat insists that 'those' must refer to a plural antecedent. again, exact parallelism is de rigueur.

[rfernandez]

Guest. not sure what you mean. Can you reference the OG problem number without posting the text of the problem? (I assume this would be considered in compliance with our protocols.)

[alvin8139]

Sorry to pop up old post. However, I have below 2 questions:

1. "seems TO BE" in the original sentence is present tense, while OA is "seems to have used", which is present perfect. Can you tell me why it's allowed in OA?

2. Why ambuiguity of parallesim is allowed in OA, since I may pure gramatically interpret the parallesim of "position", "a source", and "commodities". But this is illogical. Is "a source of jade, obsidian, and other valuable commodities" a modifier to modify "highlands"?

Thanks

[RonPurewal]

Sorry to pop up old post. However, I have below 2 questions:

1. "seems TO BE" in the original sentence is present tense, while OA is "seems to have used", which is present perfect. Can you tell me why it's allowed in OA?

actually, you MUST change at least one of the tenses in the original sentence; "seems to be" (which indicates that the mayan city of cancun still has commercial power) is incompatible with "were a source of" (past tense, indicating that the highlands are no longer a source of the mentioned items).

if the original sentence doesn't make sense, it's your duty to change that original sentence.

2. Why ambuiguity of parallesim is allowed in OA, since I may pure gramatically interpret the parallesim of "position", "a source", and "commodities". But this is illogical. Is "a source of jade, obsidian, and other valuable commodities" a modifier to modify "highlands"?

Thanks

nope -- that's not a grammatically valid interpretation. if you interpret those four items as a list, then there can't be a comma after "commodities".
the presence of that comma indicates that "commodities" is the last word of some modifier. there is only one such modifier that can be blocked off in a grammatically valid way -- namely, the correct modifier ("a source of jade, obsidian, and other valuable commodities").

[ya1ya2]

Ron,
So what does which in choice D refer to? Can you please expound on the concept, does it refer to just highlands of the foot of the highlands. Much appreciated!
Thanks

Hi

Would like to enquire about a fundamental question, for D:

"at the foot of the highlands, which were a source" - for GMATland, can the "WHICH" refer to "foot of the highlands" OR just strictly "highlands?"

Thank you.
KH

i do believe that we've seen examples in which relative pronouns stand for the entire phrase 'X of Y' rather than just the Y immediately preceding the comma, but that situation is rare indeed and should be avoided unless absolutely necessary (= it happens in all the choices, so you can't get away from it).

in this case, then, choice e, which avoids this whole relative-pronoun mess, is certainly preferable to choice d, which doesn't.

still, you can rule out choice d for other reasons:
* 'seemed to be using': unacceptable change of meaning. the past-tense 'seemed' says that that's the way it seemed to the mayans living in cancun long ago, whereas the sentence is clearly designed to say that's the way it seems to us now.
* i don't like 'in becoming', which smacks of what the gmat would call 'idiom error'. there's no answer key for these things, of course, but i do have the feeling that the gmat would label this as an idiom error.

[RonPurewal]

Ron,
So what does which in choice D refer to? Can you please expound on the concept, does it refer to just highlands of the foot of the highlands. Much appreciated!
Thanks

it can be taken to refer to "foot of the highlands", since "which was" doesn't go with "highlands".

read this post for further explanation:
post31162.html#p31162

so, that's not the real issue with choice (d); the real dealbreaker there is the past-tense "seemed", which just doesn't make sense (see my explanation in the post that you quoted above).