The thirteen original British colonies in North America, some formed as commercial ventures, others as religious havens, each had a written charter that set forth its form of government and the rights of the colonists.
A. some formed as commercial ventures, others as religious havens, each had a written charter
B. some being formed as a commercial venture, others as religious havens, all of which had written charters
C. some that formed as commercial ventures, others as religious havens, all had written charters
D. with some being formed as a commercial venture, others as religious havens, all had a written charter
E. with some formed as commercial ventures, while others as religious havens, each had a written charter

It's a GMATPRP question, OA is A.

But I think A is a run-on sentence, E seems more appropriate.

Can any one help to explain?

(a) is not a run-on.
the skeleton of (a) is "The thirteen original British colonies in North America ... each had a written charter that set forth its form of government and the rights of the colonists."
you've added two modifiers to this - in a way that's rather unusual, but certainly legitimate - so this is not a run-on.

(e) is wrong for a couple of reasons.
* first of all, "with" wrongly suggests that "some" refers not to the colonies themselves but to something that the colonies came with. to suggest that you're referring to the colonies themselves (which you are), you need modifiers of the type used in the correct answer (a).
* "while" MUST be used with a clause or participial phrase. it can't be used with a construction that doesn't contain any sort of verb form (such as this one, which is just noun + prepositional phrase).

Ron,

Can you please explain the problem with "with" in E. I couldn't understand your explanation. Maybe an analogy will be helpful.

Thanks,

Vineet

For an analogy, just think of any sentence you've ever heard with the word "with" in it. Take sentence I just wrote as an example: it talks about a sentence WITH a word in it. "with" implies that something is together with something else or contains something else, and this is most definitely not what is happening in answer choice E..

_________________
Tim Sanders
Manhattan GMAT Instructor

Hi Ron,

This is a question based on your reply in this thread : post33338.html#p33338



The thirteen original British colonies in North America each had a written charter that set forth its form of government and the rights of the colonists.

The colonies each - plural
Each of the colonies - singular

Therefore, doesnt it refer to "North America" and not to "the colonies each"

Thanks in advance

You're precisely right. The rule you cite--also cited on page 41 of our SC guide--is one violated here in the OA.

I won't say that I've never seen that rule breached by an expert user, but I am surprised to see it breached on the GMAT. I'll forward this to our curriculum committee.

Thanks for the sharp eye.

Ron..

In (a), shouldn't there be a conjunction between these two modifiers like "and"??

Thanks.

"with..." leads a prepositional phrase used to modify the preceding whole sentence; however, based on option (a), "some" or "others" refers back to the antecedent - British colonies。

LUCAS

That may be a reasonable account of the apparent role of "with" in this context. ( Perhaps I'm not as good at some people at saying what a nonsensical sentence would mean if it made any sense.) But a prepositional phrase beginning with "with" can also modify a noun. For instance, in the phrase the girl with kaleidoscope eyes, the prepositional phrase with kaleidoscope eyes modifies the girl.

Or, for fans of mondegreens, in the clause the girl with colitis goes by, the prepositional phrase with colitis modifies the girl.

Anyway, Vineet, any clearer now?

(e) is wrong for a couple of reasons.
* first of all, "with" wrongly suggests that "some" refers not to the colonies themselves but to something that the colonies came with. to suggest that you're referring to the colonies themselves (which you are), you need modifiers of the type used in the correct answer (a).

Ron, pls, help. I do not understand above explanation. Pls, explain carefully and with an example. Thank you a lot.

explain "carefully"? hmm?
i don't think that means what you think it means.

--

here's an example:
ron has a very full schedule this week, with every one of his available time slots occupied.
--> this sentence works, because "with" actually applies to ron and/or his schedule -- i.e., ron is the person with those occupied time slots, and/or his schedule is actually the thing with those time slots.
in (e), "some" is referring to the colonies themselves, so that sentence is literally talking about "colonies with colonies". that doesn't make sense.

--

[edited] -- the explanation i originally wrote here was in error.

Ron, option A also has the same construction. Its not clear please explain.

Thanx

is this Question Wrong ?

Does its in the question refer to North America or the 13 original British colonies ?

Moreover , i am not able to understand why Choice C) is not a good answer?

these two choices -- one of which is actually the correct answer to this problem -- both use a construction that i may have thought was too informal for the gmat's style of english. namely, they both use the following construction:
the NOUNs each VERB...
before this problem, i would have guessed that this construction was too informal for the gmat; i would have thought that the gmat would require “each of the NOUNs VERB...” instead. but, apparently not.
what makes the use of this construction even more surprising is the presence of two modifiers in the middle; honestly, i just didn't process this sentence correctly when i read through it.

interestingly, it appears that i processed the sentence correctly the first time i saw it, on 7/30/2009 (see my post earlier in the thread).

this time, while reading the sentence, i was looking for a usage of “each” similar to that in, say, OG12 #40, or 2nd ed verbal supplement #19. if “each” is restricted to that kind of usage, then choices (a) and (e) are run-ons.
but, apparently, “each” is not restricted to that kind of usage.

north america is singular (it's only one entity), so “each” can't refer to it. so, definitely the colonies.



the non-underlined part of the sentence contains “its”. in choice (c), there's no singular noun to which this pronoun can correspond.