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

[Meerak869]

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.

so letss consider first example

Jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk ... --> correct

In above example composer is the noun which prefaces the noun Monk.
Then what is Jazz pianist referring to.
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

[tim]

so letss consider first example

Jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk ... --> correct

In above example composer is the noun which prefaces the noun Monk.
Then what is Jazz pianist referring to.

"Jazz pianist and composer" is the noun that prefaces "Thelonious Monk". It's a compound noun (notice the "and"?). Does this help explain things?

[CrystalSpringston]

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

Hi Ron , when you were talking about "article" above, did you mean definite article "the" as well?
If so, can I say it like this?

Thelonious Monk, the jazz pianist and composer

[RonPurewal]

i edited the earlier posts for greater clarity.

with 'the' you normally won't see a comma, as you have noted.

if the sentence is talking about someone/something mentioned earlier, then you CAN see 'the xxxx' with commas:
This picture shows a blond boy and a redheaded boy. The blond boy's identity is unknown. The redhead, Tim Reilly, went on to become a multimillionaire.

this sort of thing, of course, is very unlikely to appear in a GMAT SC sentence (because it depends on prior context).

[CrystalSpringston]

i edited the earlier posts for greater clarity.

with 'the' you normally won't see a comma, as you have noted.

if the sentence is talking about someone/something mentioned earlier, then you CAN see 'the xxxx' with commas:
This picture shows a blond boy and a redheaded boy. The blond boy's identity is unknown. The redhead, Tim Reilly, went on to become a multimillionaire.

this sort of thing, of course, is very unlikely to appear in a GMAT SC sentence (because it depends on prior context).

Thank you! It is pretty clear now:)

[tim]

Glad to hear it! Let us know if there are any further questions on this one.

[RonPurewal]

Thank you! It is pretty clear now:)

you're welcome.

[SandeshM859]

Hey @Ron,

In the Manhattan SC guide, I found this construction -
"Too Short" Pattern 1: Keep the Prepositional Phrase if You Need To

1. Too Short: I talked to the BOSTON SOLDIER.
2. Better: I talked to the SOLDIER FROM BOSTON .

Here, BOSTON is a noun-adjective modifying SOLDIER. So 1. is incorrect coz it seems to indicate a kind of soldier i.e BOSTON SOLDIER rather than to indicate where he is from
So my question here, assuming the points made in the guide are right, is that why are we using "Jazz pianist and composer Theo Monk .....blah blah "????
The bold text is noun-adjective modifying Theo Monk.


Please advise!

[RonPurewal]

that ^^ is EXACTLY the kind of thing that's included in these problems purely as a distraction, to punish test takers who don't pay attention to MAJOR PROBLEMS.

in this problem, you can eliminate choices A, B, and E because of non-parallelism, which is the most commonly tested issue in GMAT SC.
all three of those choices contain "both ____ and ____", with clearly mismatched constructions in the blanks.

with A and B are gone, this becomes a non-issue, since the other choices all start with the same construction. so, this is a complete non-issue. if you examine the MAJOR ISSUE (parallelism) FIRST—as you ALWAYS should—then you can't even consider this issue, because this part of both remaining choices is identical.

[SandeshM859]

that ^^ is EXACTLY the kind of thing that's included in these problems purely as a distraction, to punish test takers who don't pay attention to MAJOR PROBLEMS.

in this problem, you can eliminate choices A, B, and E because of non-parallelism, which is the most commonly tested issue in GMAT SC.
all three of those choices contain "both ____ and ____", with clearly mismatched constructions in the blanks.

with A and B are gone, this becomes a non-issue, since the other choices all start with the same construction. so, this is a complete non-issue. if you examine the MAJOR ISSUE (parallelism) FIRST—as you ALWAYS should—then you can't even consider this issue, because this part of both remaining choices is identical.

Thanks Ron for the explanation.

Please correct me if I am wrong here - in choices A, B , E construction "both rooted/rooted both in the stride-piano tradition of Willie (The Lion) Smith and Duke Ellington...." both italic text and italic text dont make any sense and hence we are eliminating.
Between C and D, option C is a sentence fragment and we are left with D.

Also, I want to know if GMAT tends to test MAJOR ISSUES first and then MINOR ISSUES -as the one in my earlier post- and not just the nuances of grammar but the major 7 issues on GMAT SC


Thanks in advance

[RonPurewal]

Please correct me if I am wrong here - in choices A, B , E construction "both rooted/rooted both in the stride-piano tradition of Willie (The Lion) Smith and Duke Ellington...." both italic text and italic text dont make any sense and hence we are eliminating.
Between C and D, option C is a sentence fragment and we are left with D.

^^ accurate.

Also, I want to know if GMAT tends to test MAJOR ISSUES first and then MINOR ISSUES -as the one in my earlier post- and not just the nuances of grammar but the major 7 issues on GMAT SC

Thanks in advance [/quote]

just stay aware:
if you are thinking about subtleties or tiny little nuances -- ESPECIALLY if they're things that would have to be memorized (i.e., they can't be decided on the basis of logic, and/or by just thinking carefully about what the words mean) -- then, you're almost certainly being distracted from something that is a much bigger deal and is much easier to decide.

if something is a "minor topic" BUT is easily decided with just careful logical thinking and/or attention to the meanings of words, then it's still fair game.
(the construction at the beginning of choices C/D/E here is an example of something that CANNOT be evaluated with simple logic and/or meaning. so, you should know that it's not going to be essential to solving the problem.)

[YuC257]

I eliminate B and D , because they use " that ls rooted", in which l think " that is“ is redundant, so I want to know if there is a situation that "that is" or " that are" should be eliminated? Thank you in advance.

[RonPurewal]

^^ no, not "redundant".

a "redundant" construction EXPLICITLY expresses the same idea more than once.
annual salary per year (—> "annual salary" or "salary per year")
added bonus (—> "bonus")
continue on (—> "continue" or "go on")
etc.

in this problem, there's an absolutely black-and-white issue of non-parallelism. if you're ignoring the parallelism issue (which, do remember, is the single most commonly tested problem in GMAT SC) and instead trying to eliminate choices on the basis of something that isn't even incorrect... then you should definitely realign your priorities.

[MdAbuAsad]

What if the sentence is written as bellow?
A Jazz pianist and the composer Thelonious Monk produced a body of work that was rooted in the stride-piano tradition of Willie (The Lion) Smith and Duke Ellington, yet in many ways he stood apart from the mainstream jazz repertory.

Is it legit sentence?

[dmitryknowsbest]

No, this it doesn't make sense to add these articles unless we are talking about two different people. Both of these terms should apply to Monk, so we don't want to use different articles. If we said THE at all, it would need to be at the beginning: "The jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk."