Uses of Which

[tushaw]

I came across this question in "thursdays with ron". I noticed in choice D the modifier "which is as long as a handheld computer" is not followed by a comma.

Here is choice D again - "is the world’s smallest network digital camcorder, which is as long as a handheld computer and weighs"

I thought if a modifier appears in the middle of a sentence, then there should be a comma before and after the modifer.eg. abc, modifer, xyz.

When i first saw option D, I eliminated it because which is as long as a handheld computer (modifier) is not parallel to weighs (verb). And the reason I thought these two are parallel is because there is no comma before and weighs.

I do understand why other choices are wrong but please help clear my doubt about choice D.thanks

[RonPurewal]

The modifier isn't followed by a comma because it continues all the way to the end of the sentence. It's
, ...which X and Y
where "X" = "is xxxx" and "Y" = "weighs yyyyy". "Is" and "weighs" are parallel.

[RonPurewal]

Also -- Before looking at the answer choices, you should already have determined that (a) length and (b) weight are two equally important (and equally emphasized) attributes of the same item. So, in any decently written sentence, they MUST appear as parallel elements.

If you come into the answer choices with that knowledge, then this whole "where is the modifier?" thing is a non-issue. The modifier describes both the length and the weight.

Remember!
When you read the original prompt, you should not be thinking about grammar or mechanics. You should focus COMPLETELY and EXCLUSIVELY on what the sentence is actually saying -- i.e., context/meaning.
Determine exactly what the sentence should say, and figure out exactly what all of the words are doing there.

Save the grammar for the answer choices, where you can actually see decision points!

[RonPurewal]

Finally --
If the modifier really were just "which is as long as a handheld computer", the sentence would be nonsense: with that modifier omitted, you'd be left with The company unveiled xxxx and weighs less than 11 ounces.
The company weighs less than 11 ounces? Eh. Hmm. Nope.

[tushaw]

Remember!
When you read the original prompt, you should not be thinking about grammar or mechanics. You should focus COMPLETELY and EXCLUSIVELY on what the sentence is actually saying -- i.e., context/meaning.
Determine exactly what the sentence should say, and figure out exactly what all of the words are doing there.

Save the grammar for the answer choices, where you can actually see decision points!

thanks for pointing it out. I'm definitely following the wrong approach of trying to find grammar mistakes in the first read. So in lengthy sentences I lose track of the meaning.

[RonPurewal]

Yep. Don't do that.

In the original, you wouldn't even know where to look for errors anyway!
When you get to the answer choices, on the other hand, you can find differences between them. Any difference is a place where you can focus your attention.

[gauravkaushik8591]

the truck spilled a tankful of gasoline, some of which spilled into the river, killing a large number of fish.

Ron,

Sorry to bump up this old discussion, but here in this example don't you have to use a working verb with 'some of which'?

I've come across some questions which use 'some of which' and 'some of them', and I always get confused.

[RonPurewal]

What is a "working verb"?

[frankieguo]

How do we deal with the sentence fragment? Is it fine here? I understand it is not needed in eliminating the choices. But say if it would have been the only difference in choices, or say A wouldn't had the blasphemous 'it', then what should have been normal course to deal with such a question.

josh

i'm not sure what you're asking here.

to which sentence fragment are you referring?

even if you remove "it" from choice (a), it's still horribly wrong, because of a complete lack of parallelism: there's nothing in the earlier part of the sentence to be parallel to "...and weighs...".
you would need a construction such as "..., which is as long as... ...and weighs...", which, non-coincidentally, is exactly the structure in the correct answer choice.

Hey Ron, I wonder what's wrong with choice A?
Thank you! @Ron

[RonPurewal]

the part you've quoted contains an explanation of why choice A is wrong.

[gmatkiller_24]

another example of parallelism based on sentence meaning.

from the choice A we know that weight and length are two things to be conveyed by the sentence, so these two attributes should be keep independently yet equally important ( parallelism does this)

therefore, only choice D satisfies this, eliminate the rest

is this thinking valid?

[RonPurewal]

yes.

[garimag807]

by default it would be 'world', which makes choice (c) almost laugh-out-loud funny (the world is as long as a handheld computer? i guess all those people who talk about 'small world' are right!)

if you encounter a problem on which ALL of the answer choices become absurd if you attribute the 'which' in this way, THEN, and only then, should you start assigning the 'which' to the entire noun + prepositional phrase construction. in general, the gmat is not very liberal at all with its use of 'which', so following the 'right next to the comma' rule should get you through most everything.

I am still not clear with usage of which here?
is which is referring to 'digital camcorder in the world' or 'world'?
when should we refer to noun + prepositional phrase construction?

2. if which is referring to 'digital camcorder in the world' then B should be right? isn't it?
because here weighing refers to previous clause subject is which = 'digital camcorder in the world'


please help me here

[RonPurewal]

two big problems there.

1/
in this context, "which" is trying to modify "what it claims is the world's smallest xxxx"... because that's the only thing that actually exists, in context.
nothing can actually modify "the world's smallest xxxx" itself, because the whole point of the sentence is that no one really knows whether that's even true.

2/
perhaps more straightforwardly, you can eliminate B because comma + __ing doesn't work.

remember, comma + __ing has to describe the ACTION, not just the subject.
that's a problem here:
... is as long as a handheld computer, weighing 11 ounces.
the weight of the device doesn't describe/modify its length in any obvious way, so, this modifier is nonsense.
weight and length are 2 different dimensions, so they should be given separately (it is as long as X AND weighs Y ounces), as they are in the correct choice.

[zakkwylde.01]

Well I also marked E my answer. The reason I choose E is that in choice E "is the world’s smallest network digital camcorder, the length of which is that of a handheld computer, weighing" since the underlined part "the length....computer" is separated by commas, it is a non essential clause. So if I remove this non essential clause...

you can't really do that. if you have
clause1, clause2, -ING
then, in most cases, the -ING will modify clause2, not clause1.

here's an example:

the truck spilled a tankful of gasoline, some of which spilled into the river, killing a large number of fish.
--> note that "killing a large number..." modifies the immediately preceding clause, not the first clause.

It will be as follows:

The electronics company has unveiled what it claims is the world’s smallest network digital camcorder weighing less than 11 ounces.

that wouldn't work; you'd need the commas. otherwise, you're qualifying the sentence: you're saying that you're only choosing from camcorders that weigh less than 11 ounces.

for instance:
the world's tallest man weighing under 150 pounds --> this means that you take the tallest man from the collection of men who weigh under 150 pounds, not the world's tallest man overall.

Well Ron,then going by your logic,in the question below option C should be wrong which is the OA.

In the past several years, astronomers have detected more than 80 massive planets, "most of them as large or larger than Jupiter, which circle" other stars.

(A) most of them as large or larger than Jupiter, which circle
(B) most of them as large or larger than Jupiter and circling
(C) most of them at least as large as Jupiter, circling
(D) mostly at least as large as Jupiter, which circle
(E) mostly as large or larger than Jupiter, circling

In this example also, we take the part " most of them...jupiter" as non essential part and the sentence becomes..
In the past several years, astronomers have detected more than 80 massive planets circling other stars .....which is absolutely right.

Please help why this logic is not valid for the question at hand.
.