As...As; & "and" questions

[lkzhang]

Hi
I read this sentence from one of the articles in Time magazine.

As Erica Benton, a smart, attractive woman whose life is upended when her husband leaves her, Jill perfectly captured a range of emotions as expansive as it was real

I have two questions:

Q1: as expansive as, compare which two items? It seems that "emotions" is the subject of the comparison. But does "a range of emotions as expansive as it was real" parallel? If "it refers to "range", does the sentence needs to be written as "a range of emotions that was as expansive as it was real"?

I am always confused on the parallelism on the comparison idioms such as "as...as", "more...than", &etc.

Q2: a smart, attractive woman, does "and" need to be placed between "smart" and "attractive"?

Thank you very much for your help!

[hiphopdidi7623]

Hi
I read this sentence from one of the articles in Time magazine.

As Erica Benton, a smart, attractive woman whose life is upended when her husband leaves her, Jill perfectly captured a range of emotions as expansive as it was real

I have two questions:

Q1: as expansive as, compare which two items? It seems that "emotions" is the subject of the comparison. But does "a range of emotions as expansive as it was real" parallel? If "it refers to "range", does the sentence needs to be written as "a range of emotions that was as expansive as it was real"?

I am always confused on the parallelism on the comparison idioms such as "as...as", "more...than", &etc.

Q2: a smart, attractive woman, does "and" need to be placed between "smart" and "attractive"?

Thank you very much for your help!

to me
Q1. "expansive range" is meanful rather than "expansive emotion".
I'd like to know whether we can replace the sentence that "Jill perfectly captured a range of emotions as expansive as it was real"
to the sentence that "Jill perfectly captured a expansive range of emotions as it was real".
Q2. I've ever seen the usage in the sc, but forget its origin.
just waiting for some one to prove.

[tim]

Q1: expansive is being compared to real. the range of emotions is both expansive and real..

Q2: it can go either way..

BTW be careful pulling sentences from newspapers and magazines; you'll find they often violate the rules of GMAT grammar because they are using different rules.. :)