Question
While most of the earliest known ball courts in Mesoamerica date to 900–400 b.c., waterlogged latex balls found at El Manati and representations of ballplayers painted on ceramics found at San Lorenzo attest to the fact that the Mesoamerican ballgame was well established by the mid-thirteenth century b.c.
Option A
Option B
Option C
Option D
Option E
(This question is from Official Guide. Therefore, because of copyrights, the complete question cannot be copied here. The question can be accessed at GMAT Club)
Solution
Sentence Analysis
Here’s the sentence structure:
- While most of the earliest known ball courts (1st Dependent Clause (DC). Subject: ‘Most…courts’)
- in Mesoamerica (Prepositional phrase modifying ‘ball courts’)
- date to 900–400 b.c., (‘date to’ is the verb of the 1st DC. Please note that ‘date to’ is idiomatically correct since it appears in the non-underlined part.)
- waterlogged latex balls (‘balls’ is first part of the subject of the Independent Clause (IC). ‘waterlogged’ and ‘latex’ are modifying ‘balls’)
- found at El Manati (‘verb-ed’ modifier modifying ‘balls’)
- and representations of ballplayers (‘representations’ is the second part of the subject of the IC. ‘of ballplayers’ modifies ‘representations’)
- painted on ceramics (‘verb-ed’ modifier modifying ‘representations’. Pls note that even though the closest noun to this modifier is ‘ballplayers’, it cannot modify ‘ballplayers’ since it doesn’t make sense to say ballplayers were painted on ceramics. Also, ‘painted’ can easily modify ‘representations’ since the intervening phrase ‘of ballplayers’ is also modifying ‘representations’. A noun-modifier can jump over other noun-modifiers.)
- found at San Lorenzo (verb-ed modifier modifying ‘ceramics’)
- painted on ceramics (‘verb-ed’ modifier modifying ‘representations’. Pls note that even though the closest noun to this modifier is ‘ballplayers’, it cannot modify ‘ballplayers’ since it doesn’t make sense to say ballplayers were painted on ceramics. Also, ‘painted’ can easily modify ‘representations’ since the intervening phrase ‘of ballplayers’ is also modifying ‘representations’. A noun-modifier can jump over other noun-modifiers.)
- attest to the fact (‘attest to’ is the verb of the IC)
- that the Mesoamerican ballgame was well established by the mid-thirteenth century b.c. (This entire ‘that’ clause modifies ‘the fact’. In this clause, ‘ballgame’ is the subject and ‘was established’ is the verb.)
The sentence provides a contrast that while some evidence (ball courts) indicates that ballgame was around 900-400 b.c. old, other evidence (latex balls and representations) indicates that the ballgame existed even in mid-thirteenth century b.c.
The sentence appears to be correct as is.
Option Analysis
(A) Correct.
(B) Incorrect. For the following reasons:
- SV Disagreement – The singular verb ‘attests’ doesn’t agree with the plural subject ‘balls and the painting’.
- Meaning – On reading ‘the painting of xyz on ceramics’, ‘the painting’ seems to refer to the act of painting, not the final product. Clearly, reference to the act of painting will not make any sense here. Besides, if we consider “painting” to refer to the final product, the construction “painting of representations” doesn’t make sense since ‘painting’ itself is a representation of something. We have a painting of ballplayers or a representation of ballplayers. We don’t have a painting of a representation of a ballplayer.
(C) Incorrect. For the following reasons:
- SV Disagreement – The singular verb ‘attests’ doesn’t agree with the plural subject ‘balls and ceramics’.
- Modifier issue – Right now, ‘found’ seems to modify ‘ballplayers’, leading to a non-sensical meaning that ballplayers were found at San Lorenzo. For ‘found’ to modify ‘ceramics’, the sentence should be written as ‘ceramics painted with representations of ballplayers and found at San Lorenzo’ since both ‘painted’ and ‘found’ are verb-ed modifiers modifying the same entity ‘ceramics’.
(D) Incorrect. For the following reasons:
- SV Disagreement – The singular verb ‘attests’ doesn’t agree with the plural subject ‘the finding and the painting’. However, if one reads the option as:
- the finding of
- waterlogged latex balls at El Manati
- and the painting of representations of ballplayers on ceramics found at San Lorenzo
- attests
- the finding of
In this case, the subject is the singular ‘finding’, and thus the verb agrees with the subject. Thus, in a way, we can say that SV disagreement doesn’t exist since the list can be made in a way that ‘painting’ becomes parallel to ‘balls’. Therefore, we can’t reject this option for this reason.
- Meaning – Same as 2nd point of option B
(E) Incorrect. For the following reasons:
- SV Disagreement – The plural verb ‘attest’ doesn’t agree with the singular subject ‘the finding’.
- Slight meaning change – In this option, ‘at San Lorenzo’ modifies ‘painted’, meaning that the representations were painted at San Lorenzo. Per the original sentence, the representations were ‘found’ at San Lorenzo. Please note that I’ve highlighted this meaning change just to bring to your notice; I’d never reject an option for such a small meaning change, especially since the ‘changed meaning’ also makes sense.
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In option B
the painting of representations of ballplayers on ceramics found at San Lorenzo.
The painting is the act of painting (Complex Gerund if i am right) and found is a past participle mod which mods ceramics.
However found can modify slightly far away nouns.
So it can reach up to representations as head noun?
However If i am right it cannot modify upto painting because action of painting cannot be found. Is this interpretation correct.
If so is it right to say that a complex gerund representing action can not be modified by past participles ?
I tried applying this to another phrase for eg.
The discovering of pyramids made by xyz.
discovering cannot be made.
However if i say
The discovery (Action noun) of pyramids made by xyz
Can reach up to discovery as well.
Yes, you are correct. “found” can representations.
Hi CJ,
We discussed in class that two same types of modifiers need to be connected using ‘and’
painted on ceramics found at San Lorenzo
Are not connected using ‘and’.
I am slightly confused about what is correct. :’)
We discussed that when modifiers of the same type are modifying the same entity, then they need to be connected with a conjunction. Here, ‘painted’ is modifying representations, and ‘found’ is modifying ceramics.
But, logically, it can modify representations of ballplayers?
But then we’d have a problem that you pointed out. So, we’ll read it as a version that has no errors.
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