Even though her career was cut short

[aliassad]

Thanks Ron.

[jlucero]

Glad he was able to help!

[jha.madhavi85]

Hi Ron ,

Can you please check my reasoning ?
Even though her career was cut short when she was in her prime and the fifteen recordings she made were disappointing artistically as well as technically, Olive Fremstad (1871-1951) has never been entirely forgotten by opera aficionados.

A. though her career was cut short when she was in her prime and the fifteen recordings she made were

B. though her career was cut short while in her prime, with the fifteen recordings she made

--With is misplaced modifier , Can we say we don't know if its referring to the dependent clause or the main clause .
Anyway in both the situations usage of with is wrong as in the case of main clause it would mean Olive Fremstad was with fifteen recordings and the fifteen recordings doesnt describe how her career was cut in case of dependent clause.

--with the fifteen recordings she made disappointing artistically as well as technically
she made disappointing sounds weird .

C. as her career had been cut short when she was in her prime, with the fifteen recordings she had made

--Same issue with 'with'
--she had made disappointing sounds weird

D. with her career having been cut short when she was in her prime, and the fifteen recordings she made were

-- having been is ugly here

E. with her career cut short while in her prime, and that the fifteen recordings she made were

with clause and that clause are not in parallel

Thanks,
Madhavi

[RonPurewal]

B. though her career was cut short while in her prime, with the fifteen recordings she made

--With is misplaced modifier , Can we say we don't know if its referring to the dependent clause or the main clause .
Anyway in both the situations usage of with is wrong as in the case of main clause it would mean Olive Fremstad was with fifteen recordings and the fifteen recordings doesnt describe how her career was cut in case of dependent clause.

I don't know the terminology, but your comments about the modifier are accurate.

C. as her career had been cut short when she was in her prime, with the fifteen recordings she had made

[color=#FF0000]--Same issue with 'with'

Yes.

D. with her career having been cut short when she was in her prime, and the fifteen recordings she made were

This choice tries to put a modifier (with...) in parallel with a complete sentence (the recordings were...)
Can't do that.

E. with her career cut short while in her prime, and that the fifteen recordings she made were

[color=#FF0000]with clause and that clause are not in parallel

Correct.
Note that choice D has exactly the same issue.

[thanghnvn]

Dear moderators and friends,

Even though her career was cut short when she was in her prime and the fifteen recordings she made were disappointing artistically as well as technically, Olive Fremstad (1871-1951) has never been entirely forgotten by opera aficionados.

A. though her career was cut short when she was in her prime and the fifteen recordings she made were

B. though her career was cut short while in her prime, with the fifteen recordings she made

C. as her career had been cut short when she was in her prime, with the fifteen recordings she had made

D. with her career having been cut short when she was in her prime, and the fifteen recordings she made were

E. with her career cut short while in her prime, and that the fifteen recordings she made were

Are BCDE all wrong because there is no appropriate noun to be modified after the first comma?

Thanks
KH

in the pattern

"with+noun+adjective, +main clause" or
"main clause+ with+noun+adjective"

the "with ..."phrase is an adverb which modifier the main clause and do not refer to a specific noun in the main clause.

this adverbial can show REASON, DETAIL of main clause.

in b and c, "with..." grammatically can modify the main clause but can not do so logically

[RonPurewal]

Correct -- "her 15 recordings were bad" and "her career was cut short" are separate ideas. Neither one is a description of the other.

[gmatkiller_24]

Hi, Ron:

can I eliminate choice D & E because "with" does not convey a sense of contrast,

but per the meaning of sentence, we need the maintain the contrast as stated in choice A.

[inc.manni]

In my opinion, we should see the original sentence and only if it is wrong then find the correct one.

Now this sentence clearly says:

Though her career was cut short and recordings were disappointingly --- and ----, --------

This sentence is parallel and grammatically correct.

Now there is no issue with the original sentence then why choose another.

Also the closest other answer choice is B - why create a relation between career was cut short because of 15 recordings when the original sentence does not mean that.

So stick to the original if its correct in Meaning and in Grammar.

Experts advise welcome.

Regards

[RonPurewal]

i can't tell exactly what you're trying to say and/or ask here.

it does seem, however, that you're treating choice A as though it were somehow 'special'.
if that's how you're treating choice A, then... nope.
choice A is no more 'special' than any other answer choice.

to put the point another way—if you switch choice A with some other choice, the answer will NEVER change.
there will be one correct answer, and four wrong ones.

as far as "the original meaning", you should judge that by exactly the same standard you should use for everything else:
• you should already know the intended meaning (from common sense).
• if a choice agrees with the intended meaning, it's good.
• if it doesn't, it's bad.

[aflaamM589]

Hello Ron,
Can C and D be crossed out because of modifier starting with with?
It can technically modify what comes after it as well as what comes before it, and thus ambiguous, ( i suppose this kind of an error is called two way looking modifier)

B. though her career was cut short while in her prime, with the fifteen recordings she made

C. as her career had been cut short when she was in her prime, with the fifteen recordings she had made

[RonPurewal]

there's no "ambiguity"—that modifier is nonsense.

those are TWO COMPLETELY SEPARATE FACTS:
• her career was cut short while she was still in her prime
• the recordings were disappointing

neither of these is DESCRIBING the other in any meaningful way, so they should be connected with "and".
the use of ANY modifier here is nonsense.

[wong.dee1987]

Hi, RON.
I have a question about the usage of disappointing in choice B.
I reason that it is wrong as follows:
1.if disappointing is used as adj. then the adj modifier must precede the noun. So it should be the fifteen disappointing recordings artistically as well as technically,...OR the disappointing fifteen recordings artistically as well as technically,... Right?
2.if disappointing is used as verb-ing, then the structure "with+noun+verb-ing" with the fifteen recordings she made disappointing artistically as well as technically,.. is a little weird. We need something(noun), such as the public, as object to follow the disappointing, Right?
SO either way1 or way2, we can't justify disappointing, Am I right?
Thanks so much.

A very similar doubt [redacted]

[RonPurewal]

1/
not necessarily. that's the typical word order, but—like nearly all word orders—it can be reversed if the thing that normally comes first (= the adjective) is FOLLOWED by stuff.
e.g.,
an unforgettable performance
a performance unforgettable in our time
(both correct)

remember—word order is not tested on this exam, but, you DO have to know that MOST word orders can be inverted for the purpose of putting the longest phrases last.

__

[RonPurewal]

2/
again... not necessarily.
"with + noun + __ing" is a legitimate construction.
i wrote about it here:
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/foru ... ml#p102568

you're totally overthinking this, though.
the use of ANY MODIFIER AT ALL here is TOTAL NONSENSE, since these two things ("her career was cut short" and "her recordings were disappointing") are COMPLETELY UNRELATED to each other.
...thus it's a waste of time and effort to think at all about the finer points of these modifiers. you can eliminate B by just saying "modifier; therefore wrong."

[RAHULS852]

Hi Sage/ Manhattan Expert,

Apart from all mentioned errors in (C) is use of "had been" also wrong ?
It means that her career was cut short before her prime .

Regards,
Rahul Singh