This question is from this previous thread:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/forums/in-addition-to-her-work-on-the-miocene-homicide-fossil-t499.html

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#15 Because she knew many of the leaders of colonial America and the American Revolution personally, Mercy Otis Warren was continually at or near the center of political events from 1765 to 1789, a vantage point combining with her talent for writing to make her one of the most valuable historians of the era

(A) same as above

(B) a vantage point, when combined with her talent for writing, that made

(C) a vantage point that combined with her talent for writing, and it made

(D) and this vantage point, which combined with her talent for writing to make

(E) and this vantage point, combined with her talent for writing, made

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I crossed out A and D because of tense (made vs make). C seems like it has an unnecessary 'it'.

I understand that the OA is E. Between B and E, I picked B because there are other questions, for example this one:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/forums/a-group-of-paleontologists-recently-announced-that-a-site-t556.html
where a noun is used after the comma for clarity. Also, I have not seen many many correct answers that have the form , and (i.e. comma followed by and). In fact, see the paleontologists link for examples of this.

With respect to the paleontologists question and this question, can you confirm when it is reasonable to use the two different forms:
, and ...
, <noun> ...
Is there a "rule"?

I think I've figured out the problem. B reads:

... Mercy Otis Warren was continually at or near the center of political events from 1765 to 1789, a vantage point, when combined with her talent for writing, that made her one of the most valuable historians of the era

Which implies 1765 to 1789 is the vantage point. 'When' might then refer to 1765 to 1789 also.

nope.

the noun modifier 'a vantage point' can stand for the entire concept of at or near the center of political events from 1765 to 1789. the gmat is surprisingly flexible with the use of noun modifiers; check out the correct answer to #79 in the verbal (purple) OG for another example. (i'm not allowed to reproduce that example here, so go look it up.)

you are thinking of the rule for RELATIVE PRONOUNS ('which', 'who', and the like) following a comma. that rule does indeed specify that the relative pronoun must refer to whatever follows the comma - but that rule does not apply to noun modifiers.



actually, in choice b, 'when' doesn't refer to anything - there's no time period to which it could logically refer - and that's the main issue with choice b. (if you interpret it literally, as you must, then it implies that (1) sometimes the vantage point was combined with the writing and sometimes it wasn't, and (2) it only made her valuable when it was combined with the writing talent. that doesn't make sense.)

Hi Ron...

center of political events from 1765 to 1789,a vantage point
large concentrations of X in the river Rhine,findings

would it be safe to say...we can remove the middleman for such constructions ???

if you're calling the parts you italicized 'middlemen', then, no.
no, and no.

those aren't middlemen; those are part of the main clause!
the modifier is the part starting with 'a vantage point...' or 'findings...'. you can just lop that part off the end of the sentence and you'll be left with the main clause (which is a sentence in its own right), although of course that won't help if the modifier itself is the issue.