S.C : Thelonious Monk, who was a jazz pianist

[akhp77]

I mean; sentence is incomplete. It does not have verb.

Jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk, -> Only Subject
who ..., -> non-restrictive clause
yet ... -> another clause in contrast

"who" is correctly referring to "Jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk" but we need to check sentence as a whole.
Where is the verb for "Jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk".

[bhanupra]

Thank You akhp77 !!

I mean; sentence is incomplete. It does not have verb.

Jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk, -> Only Subject
who ..., -> non-restrictive clause
yet ... -> another clause in contrast

"who" is correctly referring to "Jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk" but we need to check sentence as a whole.
Where is the verb for "Jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk".

[mschwrtz]

Yes, thanks akhp77. Looks all clear then.

[aps_asks]

Hi Instructors , Can you please explain how can we eliminate choices A ) and C) ?

[tim]

A violates parallelism: "both rooted ... and Duke Ellington"

C does not have an independent clause to the left of ",yet": "...Thelonius Monk, who produced a body of work..." has no actual verb attached to it.

[jane.ni]

Ron, in E, that is omitted. Is it why E is wrong?

no, "rooted in..." is a perfectly good modifier, so that part is fine.

the problem is faulty parallelism:
both
in the stride-piano tradition of Willie (The Lion) Smith
and
Duke Ellington

this is not a problem in the correct answer, since there's no "both" to lock in all of those words. in the correct answer, the parallelism is just "Willie (The Lion) Smith and Duke Ellington".

what if i use:
both
in the stride-piano tradition of Willie (The Lion) Smith
and
in that of Duke Ellington

[tim]

technically parallel, although i can't recall seeing that degree of redundancy in the parallel elements of correct GMAT sentences..

[jyothi h]

I dont understand in sentence d why we dont write :

"Jazz pianist and composer, Thelonious Monk" or " The Jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk".

this is a special idiom. if you preface someone's name with a noun describing their occupation (or other word describing what that person does), WITHOUT 'A'/'AN', you DO NOT use a comma.

if there's an article, you DO use a comma.

if it's an adjective, you DO use a comma.

example:
Jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk ... --> correct
A jazz pianist and composer, Thelonious Monk ... --> correct
Creative and original, Thelonious Monk ... --> correct

because without the "," it seems strange like saying : "Writer and British Shakespeare wrote good books."

well, "writer" is a noun, and "british" is an adjective. that's nonparallel, and so is wrong no matter what country you come from.

Wow ... You have such an elegant explanation and answer for every question and concept. And it makes so much sense.

[tim]

:)

[HemalT607]

is there anything wrong with option B apart from the word 'both'?

[tim]

Nothing grammatically wrong once you remove the "both". I would be wary of the characterization of Thelonious Monk as "THE jazz pianist and composer" though, as I happen to know that there are many jazz pianists and composers. :)

[HemalT607]

Thank you :)

[RonPurewal]

More importantly, remember that the presence or absence of "a"/"an"/"the" is never tested on this exam.

[ZHUJ908]

A violates parallelism: "both rooted ... and Duke Ellington"

C does not have an independent clause to the left of ",yet": "...Thelonius Monk, who produced a body of work..." has no actual verb attached to it.

Hi, Ron

Grammatically, choice B should be writen as"both rooted in ...and in", but you did not mention why "both"should be omited meaningly. The sentence talks about where TM's work stemmed from, it is one topic, so “both” seems redundant.

Plz verify my opinion.

Thanks a lot !

[RonPurewal]

"both rooted in... and in..." would still be non-parallel.
if "both" is followed by "rooted", then "and" MUST be followed by something parallel to "rooted".