Margaret Courtney-Clarke has traveled to remote dwellings in the Transvaal to photograph the art of Ndebele women, whose murals are brilliantly colored, their geometrical symmetries embellished with old and new iconography and in a style that varies from woman to woman and house to house.
(A) whose murals are brilliantly colored, their geometrical symmetries embellished with old and new iconography and in a style that varies from woman to woman and house to house
(B) whose murals are brilliantly colored, their geometrical symmetries are embellished with old and new iconography, and their style is varying among women and houses
(C) whose murals are brilliantly colored, their geometrical symmetries are embellished with old and new iconography, and they are in styles that vary from woman to woman and house to house
(D) with murals brilliantly colored, their geometrical symmetries embellished with old and new iconography, and their style varies among women and houses
(E) with murals that are brilliantly colored, their geometrical symmetries embellished with old and new iconography, and their styles vary among women and houses


Great confusion with whose. I totally ignored A,B,C as it uses whose for dwellings. D and C are obviously incorrect. SO i got lost:)

out of A, B and C i understand that A is the best choice ( B has illogical construction with among, C uses they).

My question is for use of whose in this sentence. can any instructor please commnet. It is driving me bananas

here r my thoughts.

A - ............,their geometrical symmetries ........and in a style that - is not parallel.
B - usage of present continuous tense (varying) is incorrect.
C - .............,their (posessive pronoun) ........, and they (subject pronoun).... - not parallel.
D - ......murals brilliantly colored,..... - awkward construction.

hence IMO E.


Thanks!

i went with C. but the OA is A

can someone please explain the usage of whose in this context.

also the modifier "with" is modifying the subject or remote dwellings?

Thanks

We want to discuss the murals. The murals belong to the women. The word "whose" is a relative pronoun (like "who"), but it is also possessive. "Whose murals" connects back to the women.

Ron could you explain why D and E are wrong?

B: run on
C: run on
D&E: dangling modifier of "with murals that bla bla"

Please help correct me if I am wrong.

Thanks.

Yes. You could eliminate D and E right away by asking yourself if the correct modifier is the noun modifier "whose", with the words following "whose" referring back to the noun immediately before "whose", "women", or if the modifier should be the adverbial modifier "with . . . ." . Adverbial modifiers are used to modify verbs or entire clauses. In this case the phrase is clearly describing the women, so we need to use the noun modifier "whose".

_________________
Jamie Nelson
ManhattanGMAT Instructor

I thought that C was correct as well. Though I agree that their is not parellel to they but i dont know if they have to parellel because here both "they" and "their" are acting as pronouns to Murals....makes sense?

the issue here is parallelism; that's why you're not finding anything wrong with the pronouns. take a look at the things that C is trying to make parallel and you'll see the problem..

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Tim Sanders
Manhattan GMAT Instructor

What is 'their' referring back? It can’t be the women ,as "women's geometrical symmetries " doesn’t make sense .

This cant refer back to the 'the art' or to 'dwellings' - as there is a used as human pronoun .. Please help me to understand.

Thanks,
PM.

here, "their geometrical symmetries" is actually referring to the murals' geometrical symmetries. It can't be human beings that have geometrical symmetries but rather murals. Since "murals" exists in the sentence as a noun we are fine here.

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Jamie Nelson
ManhattanGMAT Instructor

Hi Jamie ,
I fail to understand the explanation . I undersstand that the 'whose' clause is modifying the women but then how the next clause is modifying the subject of the subordinate clause and not the main clause . Is it because of noun modifer which should touch the nown and that rules apply to their , which modify back the murals . Please explain .

Thanks,
PM.

Why C is wrong?

Ranjeet, i already explained on December 27 that C is wrong because of parallelism. Please read the entire thread before posting..

Pranab, yes the "their" refers to the murals. It sounds like you do understand the explanation! :)

_________________
Tim Sanders
Manhattan GMAT Instructor

hi I have read the complete post , Could you pls let me know whether my understanding below is correct?

Structure of B -
clause , clause , and clause - Needs a conjuction between 1 and 2nd clause hence worng---> right?
Structure of C -
clause , clause , and clause - Needs a conjuction between 1 and 2nd clause hence worng ---> right?
Structure of D -
Prep pharse (as it starts with "with"), pharse, and clause ----> Not parallel WORNG
Structure of E -
Prep pharse (as it starts with "with"), pharse, and clause ----> Not parallel WORNG

That leaves us with A

Structure of A -
Pharse1, Pharse2 (perp pharse and prep pharse) - both Phrase1 and Pharse2 are Absolute modifers with no verb mofiying the subject of previous clause correct??

Cheers