use of comma + and

[ivy]

Hej! :)

When comma+and is used on gmat?

Let me know, if I am going wrong.

1. I fancy buying Buckingham palace, the tower of Big Ben and the London eye. Correct

2. I fancy buying Buckingham palace, the tower of Big Ben, and the London eye. Incorrect

3. I will play guitar and my brother will sing. Incorrect

4. I will play guitar, and my brother will sing. Correct

In what other situations can comma + and can be used?

Thanks a lot!

[jnelson0612]

Hi ivy; my comments are below in blue.

Hej! :)

When comma+and is used on gmat?

Let me know, if I am going wrong.

1. I fancy buying Buckingham palace, the tower of Big Ben and the London eye. Correct

2. I fancy buying Buckingham palace, the tower of Big Ben, and the London eye. Incorrect

Actually, #2 would be preferred. You want to buy three things, and they are properly put in the format "X, Y, and Z". The comma after Y is called the Oxford comma, and the GMAT prefers and uses the Oxford comma.

3. I will play guitar and my brother will sing. Incorrect

4. I will play guitar, and my brother will sing. Correct

In this situation #3 is correct. Again, this is an issue of parallelism:
I will play guitar
AND
my brother will sing.

The "and" connects the two clauses and the construction is "X and Y", not "X, and Y".

In what other situations can comma + and can be used?

The first situation we discussed, in which we have a list with several items ("X, Y, and Z" or "X, Y, Z, and V") should be the only situation you will encounter with "comma + and" on the GMAT.

Thanks a lot!

[thanghnvn]

"comma+and" not "and" is used to connect 2 independent clauses. Question 137 og 13 show this point.

in other cases, we use "and" not " comma+and"

[vivs.gupta]

Hi ivy; my comments are below in blue.

Hej! :)

When comma+and is used on gmat?

Let me know, if I am going wrong.

1. I fancy buying Buckingham palace, the tower of Big Ben and the London eye. Correct

2. I fancy buying Buckingham palace, the tower of Big Ben, and the London eye. Incorrect

Actually, #2 would be preferred. You want to buy three things, and they are properly put in the format "X, Y, and Z". The comma after Y is called the Oxford comma, and the GMAT prefers and uses the Oxford comma.

3. I will play guitar and my brother will sing. Incorrect

4. I will play guitar, and my brother will sing. Correct

In this situation #3 is correct. Again, this is an issue of parallelism:
I will play guitar
AND
my brother will sing.

The "and" connects the two clauses and the construction is "X and Y", not "X, and Y".

In what other situations can comma + and can be used?

The first situation we discussed, in which we have a list with several items ("X, Y, and Z" or "X, Y, Z, and V") should be the only situation you will encounter with "comma + and" on the GMAT.

Thanks a lot!

Hi Jamie,

I don't think list is the only situation in which we can use "comma+and".

"comma+and" can be used to join independent clauses, often when we join long and complex sentences.
Please find below extract from manhattan sentence correction guide - chapter parallelism strategy:
if you join 2 clauses with and, you can put an optional comma before the and.
Doing so is especially recommended when the clauses are long, independent, or both.
List of Clauses
X, andY
Example
I really like candy apples, AND I eat them often.

[thanghnvn]

some gmat course said that we need "comma+and" to connect 2 independent clauses. "comma" is not optional but required. this is the reason choice A in question 137 og 13 is wrong.

for me, I will not think that "comma" is required and will not eliminate a choice fast when I see there is no comma in the choice. But in the 137 question, we have to think of requirement of "comma" . But if we think that "comma" is optional, we can not eliminate the choice A in the quesion 137. pls, read http://e-gmat.com/blogs/?p=410

pls, discuss this question.

[Willy]

some gmat course said that we need "comma+and" to connect 2 independent clauses. "comma" is not optional but required. this is the reason choice A in question 137 og 13 is wrong.

for me, I will not think that "comma" is required and will not eliminate a choice fast when I see there is no comma in the choice. But in the 137 question, we have to think of requirement of "comma" . But if we think that "comma" is optional, we can not eliminate the choice A in the quesion 137. pls, read http://e-gmat.com/blogs/?p=410

pls, discuss this question.

I don't think in question above in the link i.e. question 127 of OG12 there is an issue of comma + and

Main issue is of parallelism. As above said by Jamie in parallel structures i.e. X and Y, we can omit COMMA.

In given question

Joan did 2 things
...turned the tide...
AND
...persuaded Charles VII

we can surely omit COMMA.

Option A is wrong because it distorts parallelism as follows.

Turned the tide
AND
She persuaded

use of SHE is not required here.

[thanghnvn]

French woman turned
and
she persuaded

are parallel.

If "comma" is optional, A is parallel and right.

[Willy]

French woman turned
and
she persuaded

are parallel.

If "comma" is optional, A is parallel and right.

Sorry, I can't type complete sentence. Let me type a bit

Joan of Arc, a young Frenchwoman....., turned the tide..... and she persuaded....

Here, "Joan" is Subject, not 'A young Frenchwoman'

'A young Frenchwoman....' is a description/modifier about 'Joan'

so the things you have make parallel are

Joan
turned the tide...
AND
persuaded Charles...

Of-course Joan is woman but we need not to add SHE infront of 'persuaded'. Adding 'SHE' in the sentence adds nothing to the meaning but makes sentence wordy.

Hope, I am making some sense.

[thanghnvn]

I used to think that "she" or repeatation of the subject is redundant. But in many gmatprep questions, the repeatation of the subject dose exist. Ron said to us that the repeatation is acceptable sometimes and the error is not "hard and fast" rule.

the idea of "comma+and" is correct possiblly.

I am sure that there are many og and gmatprep questions in which the repeatation of the subject dose exist.

[Willy]

I used to think that "she" or repeatation of the subject is redundant. But in many gmatprep questions, the repeatation of the subject dose exist. Ron said to us that the repeatation is acceptable sometimes and the error is not "hard and fast" rule.

the idea of "comma+and" is correct possiblly.

I am sure that there are many og and gmatprep questions in which the repeatation of the subject dose exist.

I agree with you that repeatation or wordiness is not a grammatical error but it is surely an issue of Style error.

In parallel construction, X and Y, I still think COMMA is optional before AND. Lets wait what experts have to say on this.

[Willy]

Ohh, I just found an interesting point in the same question (i.e. Q#127 of OG12) "Joan of Arc..."

"AND" is NOT underlined. So, there is no question of placing COMMA before it as we are not allowed to change the non-underlined part. Neither we can oppose that GMAC didn't use comma here.

Run away from the source that says COMMA must come before AND in this question. :-)

Yes, I also agree that when we are connecting two independent clauses with AND we must use COMMA. But in parallel constructions such as X and Y, COMMA is optional.

E.g. 1. I can run and dance.
2. I am good at SC and DS.

In both above parallel construction examples we can omit COMMA because after AND there is not complete clause in parallelism. Lets see another example

I can run fast, and I can write well.

I believe here we have to add COMMA before AND because we are making/connecting 2 clauses parallel.

[thanghnvn]

no.

the e-gmat explanation is correct. Because "and" is not underlined, we have to choose D, not A.

"comma+and" is used to connect 2 independent clauses. "and" is used to connect 2 entities which are not independent clauses.

the og explanation is not clear because the og is made by gmac but the og explanation is made by others possibly. Why do gmac not make the explanation? if og explains carefully, we do not have to waste time like this.

[Willy]

no.

the e-gmat explanation is correct. Because "and" is not underlined, we have to choose D, not A.

"comma+and" is used to connect 2 independent clauses. "and" is used to connect 2 entities which are not independent clauses.

the og explanation is not clear because the og is made by gmac but the og explanation is made by others possibly. Why do gmac not make the explanation? if og explains carefully, we do not have to waste time like this.

I agree with you. But I still believe one can find the issue of parallelism more efficiently than the issue of Clause.

[jlucero]

Lots of discussion here, but I want to point out 2 things:

1) #137 in OG13 does not combine a comma+and, but rather a comma+but. Different uses altogether.

2) lists of 3+ things will have an oxford comma, and as several of you pointed out, lists of 2 things may have a comma in front of the "and" in order to show parallelism with an item further away in the sentence:

I enjoy going to Starbucks and (drinking coffee and eating pastries).

vs

I enjoy (going to Starbucks and drinking coffee), and eating pastries.

Check out this discussion for a more GMAT-like example:
displays-of-aurora-borealis-t12259.html

[RickyH486]

Lots of great discussion here but I still haven't see any instructor's response on the issue with OG question 127 "Joan of Arc..."
In this question, I am really confused with the structure of choice A vs the structure of choice D (whether we can have a pronoun there or not) and why A is not the answer. At this point, I know A is wrong because GMAC says so but I don't understand why yet.
So please allow me to rephrase this sentence and ask you if you can give me an analysis based on my two versions of the sentence.
A: Donald Trump, an old billionaire who claimed to be really smart, wrote the Art of the Deal and he persuaded former candidates to give him endorsements.
B: Donald Trump, an old billionaire who claimed to be really smart, wrote the Art of the Deal and persuaded former candidates to give him endorsements.

Is A wrong because of the pronoun "he" was there? But why? I could be wrong but I think I remembered seeing a post from Ron that explains we can connect two complete sentences (or some people might call it independent clauses) with "and" with or without a comma (and since GMAT doesn't test us on punctuation I did not pay much attention to this point but it seems to me this point actually comes into play in this question). Thanks in advance for helping clear my doubt.