Hans Christian Andersen wrote fairy tales, which have been some of the most frequently translated works in literary history, while he wrote plays, novels, poems, and travel books, as well as several autobiographies, which remained almost unknown outside his native Denmark.

(A) Hans Christian Andersen wrote fairy tales, which have been some of the most frequently translated works in literary history, while he wrote plays, novels, poems, and travel books, as well as several autobiographies, which remained
(B) Hans Christian Andersen wrote fairy tales, which, while among the most frequently translated works in literary history, his plays, novels, poems, and travel books, as well as several autobiographies remain
(C) Even as Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales have been among the most frequently translated works in literary history, still his plays, novels, poems, and travel books, as well as several autobiographies, remain
(D) Unlike the fairy tales written by Hans Christian Andersen, which are some of the most frequently translated works in literary history, he wrote plays, novels, poems, and travel books, as well as several autobiographies, which remained
(E) Although Hans Christian Andersen wrote fairy tales that are among the most frequently translated works in literary history, his plays, novels, poems, and travel books, as well as several autobiographies, remain

GMAT PREP number: 30445-!-item-!-188;#058&004235
Someone please explain the problem of C. Is it because 'Still'?

I will choose E as the right answer.

a. second 'which' refers to autobiographies only.
b. doesn't make sense.
c. Even as...still Never seen this idiom before
d. first 'which' refers to Chris Andersen.
e. looks correct.

hmm.

well, "still" is in an awkward position - it should come before the verb - but the real problem lies in the unidiomatic use of "even as".

"even as" is a transition used to imply simultaneity, and is usually used with parallel tenses (i.e., same tense in both parts of the parallel structure).

here's an example
even as his income has increased, joe has continued to feel less and less satisfied with his life

i can't really think of a legitimate example in which the tenses aren't parallel, so, off the top of my head, i'll say that they should be.

but yeah, that's a tough one.

I think tense is another aspect in which E beats C

(C) Even as Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales have been among the most frequently translated works in literary history, still his plays, novels, poems, and travel books, as well as several autobiographies, remain

(E) Although Hans Christian Andersen wrote fairy tales that are among the most frequently translated works in literary history, his plays, novels, poems, and travel books, as well as several autobiographies, remain

yes, this is a good point.
* first, the tenses should be parallel, since the descriptions are meant to be simultaneous.
* second, they should be the present tense, since the sentence is stating facts that are statistical truths.

Can someone explain what's wrong with (A) please?
Thanks in advance.

Word “while” after the second time implies that he did all the things following the word “while” when his work was frequently being translated. I think this makes “A” wrong

choice (a) contains two modifiers blocked off by "comma + WHICH". these are nonessential modifiers, meaning that the sentence must still be sensible even if they are removed. .let's try that and see what happens to choice a.



note that the nonessential modifiers have been colored yellow in the above text, rendering them effectively invisible. if we read the text that remains, we find that it doesn't fit the required context for the use of "while".
in particular:
"while" should be used in one of two circumstances: (1) if the first act takes place during the second act, or (2) if there is some sort of contrast between the two acts. since neither of the above applies to choice a, it is inappropriate to use "while" in that case.

by contrast, note that the two main acts contrasted in choice (c) do possess the contrast required for the use of "even as".

Thanks Ron.

sure.

by the way, this problem is from GMATPREP, but was listed in the original post by some mysterious classification number.

does this mean that there is an archive, out there somewhere in internet-land, of all the gmatprep sentence correction problems?
that would be a really wonderful thing to have.

Hi Ron,

There is actually a huge 300+ KB document of all GMATPREP SC problems. It has 186 problems.

Cannot upload it here though :(

Let me see if there is a link that you can access to get it. :)

I disagree with you though that it would be 'wonderful' - it might be good to have it all in one but would have to keep redirecting here for every problem to check for your explanations ;)

Hi,

It'd be wonderful for us instructors to have so we could quickly check sources and comply with intellectual property rights of others :)

Please post a link if you can.

Thanks,
Chris

_________________
Chris Brusznicki
MGMAT Instructor
Chicago, IL