Sales of wines declined in the 1980s

[RonPurewal]

Fuzzy fuzzy...

What does the which in C refer to? OG says it refers to red wine. Can it refer to the consumption of red wine

"Which" can do either of these things.

New treatments for cancer, which are often prohibitively expensive, are only seldom covered by medical insurance.
("which" = "new treatments for cancer")

New treatments for cancer, which ranks among the leading causes of death in North America, are a high priority for research budget administrators.
("which" = "cancer")

As these examples illustrate, you'll have to use common sense to determine which of the two is modified.

[RonPurewal]

, or modify moderate alcohol consumption (dropping the non-essential modifier0?

"Which" cannot jump over such modifiers. So, no.

[RonPurewal]

In D, can I say in particular red wine is a preposition modifier that describes alcohol consumption?

You can say that if you want to"”as long as you realize that it's an incorrect/nonsense modifier. (Red wine is not a type of consumption.)
You'd need "in particular of red wine". With "of", you're actually talking about a type of consumption.

I always get bogged down in these little issues...

Cheers!

Just make sure to address the big issues first.

This is one of the main reasons why SC is tested on this exam: there are relatively few big issues, and lots and lots and LOTS of small ones"”including a hefty number of irrelevant distractions.

[rustom.hakimiyan]

"and particularly of red wine" is correct
in this case, "and' is used to make "alcohol" parallel to "red wine" . In short, we have

consumption of alcohol and red wine.

more precisely, the parallel structures are "of alcohol" and "of red wine".

"alcohol" is general and "red wine" is specific. why they can be paralel? the word "particularly" shows that "red wive" is the specific case of "alcohol" so they can not be parallel.

first, and most importantly, remember -- don't question the official answers.
if the official answer puts two things in parallel, that means those two things can be parallel!

in any case, here's what's going on:
if the construction just said "...of alcohol and of red wine", then, yes, it would be nonsense.
on the other hand, this sentence includes the word "particularly" -- whose function here is to legitimize this parallel structure.
in other words, the inclusion of "particularly" is basically a way of saying, "yes, these really are the two things i wanted to put in parallel."

there are other constructions that do the same type of thing -- because, after all, sometimes authors actually want to make parallel structures between things that are not "traditionally" parallel.
for instance:
hemingway's books were not as famous as hemingway himself.
--> without "himself", the parallelism in this sentence wouldn't make much sense, as it compares books to an author. however, if your actual intention is to state the idea that hemingway's personal fame eclipsed the notoriety achieved by his books, then the inclusion of "himself" correctly specifies that comparison.

--

most importantly, the official answers are always correct!

Hi Ron,

I was questioning a similar point(not whether the OG is accurate but why it's parallel)

I interpreted A as the following:

...linked moderate consumption of alcohol, and particularly of red wine -- Thought process: Ok, there is a parallel marker. Something is parallel to "particularly (consumption) of red wine" so it has to be "consumption of alcohol". Since "particularly" serves as an adverb, doesn't that break parallelism?

Additional perceived error on my end was "consumption of x and y" - "of alcohol" should be parallel to "of red wine" from a structural standpoint. Doesn't that create a similar issue as above?

Thanks.

[RonPurewal]

Something is parallel to "particularly (consumption) of red wine" so it has to be "consumption of alcohol". Since "particularly" serves as an adverb, doesn't that break parallelism?

As long as the core elements are parallel, it doesn't matter how much decoration is on them. It also doesn't matter if one element is more extensively decorated than the other one.

E.g.,
I have a bicycle and a truck.
I have a bicycle and a big red truck with a rusted-out body, two broken windows, and an engine that's gone 400,000 miles.
Both parallel.

Remember, language is a tool for expressing real-life ideas. In the real world, quite often, we just have more things to say about one thing than about another thing.

Additional perceived error on my end was "consumption of x and y" - "of alcohol" should be parallel to "of red wine" from a structural standpoint. Doesn't that create a similar issue as above?

Thanks.

I'm sorry, but I don't really understand what you are asking here.

[JaneC643]

Hi,
I understand why A is the right choice. But what confuse me is the use of "and" in the choice A. If we put "and", it feels like we are trying to put the consumption of moderate alcohol and the consumption of red wine in parallel. But for me, " particularly red wine" would be better, because it feels like "particularly red wine" works as appositive phrase.
By the way, what's the difference between "particularly" and "in particular"?
Thanks

[rustom.hakimiyan]

Something is parallel to "particularly (consumption) of red wine" so it has to be "consumption of alcohol". Since "particularly" serves as an adverb, doesn't that break parallelism?

As long as the core elements are parallel, it doesn't matter how much decoration is on them. It also doesn't matter if one element is more extensively decorated than the other one.

E.g.,
I have a bicycle and a truck.
I have a bicycle and a big red truck with a rusted-out body, two broken windows, and an engine that's gone 400,000 miles.
Both parallel.

Remember, language is a tool for expressing real-life ideas. In the real world, quite often, we just have more things to say about one thing than about another thing.

Additional perceived error on my end was "consumption of x and y" - "of alcohol" should be parallel to "of red wine" from a structural standpoint. Doesn't that create a similar issue as above?

Thanks.

I'm sorry, but I don't really understand what you are asking here.

Hi Ron,

Your comment -- "As long as the core elements are parallel, it doesn't matter how much decoration is on them. It also doesn't matter if one element is more extensively decorated than the other one." -- answers both my questions.

To clarify this point a little further, it doesn't matter where the "decoration" is located -- does it?

Example:
-I have a bicycle and a truck.
-I have a bicycle and a big red truck with a rusted-out body.

The above two are straightforward. How about the ones below?

-I have a bicycle and a fast moving red truck. -- Even though there is a -ing modifier, which serves as an adjective in this case, this statement is still logically parallel.
-I have a bicycle and also a fast moving truck -- The "and also" doesn't break parallelism but it is less than ideal.
-I like to ride a bicycle and then to swim in the ocean -- The "and then" doesn't break parallelism either because the actual things in parallel are "to swim" and "to ride".

Is my interpretation correct?

Thanks!

[RonPurewal]

for the purposes of this test, that's all on point. (there are some style issues with the last two, but style issues are not tested here.)

so, yes.

[ThangK210]

I don't think that I understand your question. Here, the subject pronoun "they" of the subordinate clause refers to the subject "sales" of the main clause. The prepositional phrases "of wines" and "in the late 1980s" don't affect that.

If you have a main clause and a subordinate clause, this relationship will generally obtain: subject pronouns will have subject antecedents, and object pronouns will have object antecedents. There are exceptions. If the subject pronoun doesn't match the other subject (one is plural the other singular, one is personal the other impersonal, etc.) then the pronoun will have another antecedent. But such subtleties won't often distinguish right from wrong on the GMAT. Ambiguity of pronoun reference is a pretty unusual issue on the GMAT

Were you wondering whether the pronoun "they" might refer to "wines"? No, not unless "sales" were grammatically ineligible. Consider, "The mother of the bride was anxious because she was twenty minutes late." "She" should be understood to refer to the "the mother," because both are subjects. It makes for a pretty lousy sentence though, especially since some people spuriously suppose that a pronoun refers to whatever eligible noun is closest. I've never seen a correct answer on the GMAT that that was that hard to follow. On the other hand, consider, "The father of the bride was anxious because she was twenty minutes late." "She" can't very well refer to the "the father," and so must refer to "the bride." That would be fine.

I dont quite follow why this sentence would be deemed correct:
"The father of the bride was anxious because she was twenty minutes late."

Isn't 'she' can only refer to subject/object of the sentence - in this particular case - 'father of the bride'. How come 'she' can refer to 'bride'?

[RonPurewal]

if the noun is present in the sentence, and matches the pronoun (in terms of singular/plural), then the pronoun is fine.

evaluating pronouns is simple. keep it that way!
don't invent unnecessary complexity.

[HemantR606]

My doubt with this question is regarding the use of 'and' in the right answer choice.

Red wine is an alcoholic drink. How can we seperate consumption of red wine from the consumption of alcohol with an 'and'?

For example, consider this sentence:

"Kate never liked sports and long jump."
I think that this is not a right construction since 'long jump' is a sport.


Please explain.



------------------
Thanks,
Hemanth

[RonPurewal]

right, but, when "and" is paired with a connector, the meaning of "two separate things" no longer holds.

e.g.,

Today there was a traffic jam and I was late to work.
(here, "and" implies that these incidents are NOT related. "Here are 2 bad things that happened today.")

Today there was a traffic jam and so I was late to work.
(cause-effect relationship)

in this example, the addition of "so" produces a meaning that's not only different, but in fact specifically excluded by the first formulation.

[RonPurewal]

^^ the point:
"particularly" plays the same role, in the problem at hand, that "so" plays in the example above.

if this sentence were written with "and" WITHOUT "particularly", then it would be nonsense for exactly the reason you've articulated.

[SandeepC340]

Hello Tutors!

OG in giving explaination to the C option of this question says that Parallelism between the phrases 'particularly of red wine' and ' moderate alcohol consumption' is not available.

Please explain what sort of parallelism does OG is expecting here.

I am clear about why the two phrases won't work together but not clear about the parallelism expected by OG. Please guide.

[RonPurewal]

this sentence doesn't contain any two things that should be parallel. (the OG explanations are wrong from time to time; they were not written by the same people who write the problems.)