Renoir's flowers

[nm11_13]

The artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir's last word was "flowers", spoken as a bouquet consisting of roses just picked from his garden were arranged in a vase on his bedroom windowsill.

A) as a bouquet consisting of roses just picked from his garden were arranged
B) as a bouquet of roses, just picked from his garden, were arranged
C) as a bouquet or roses just picked from his garden was being arranged
D) during the arrangement of a bouquet or roses, just picked from his garden
E) while they arranged a bouquet of roses that had just been picked, from his garden

OA: C
Source: GMATPrep

I cannot understand why the OA is C because [was being arranged] implies that it was the 'bouquet' that was being arranged in a vase

You cannot arranged a bouquet in vase, you arrange flowers i.e. the roses in a vase. This is why I picked B. Thanks

[RonPurewal]

Read these words:

OA: C
Source: GMATPrep

Then read them again.

If GMAC says that you can arrange a bouquet of roses, then you can arrange a bouquet of roses.

Don't fight the official answers. It's a waste of your time. If you "disagree" with GMAC, then GMAC is right, and you are wrong.

[nm11_13]

Ok, I should have said, what makes C better than B?

C) The artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir's last word was "flowers", spoken as a bouquet of roses just picked from his garden was being arranged

B) The artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir's last word was "flowers", spoken as a bouquet of roses, just picked from his garden, were arranged

From what I can surmise: in B, 'were' refers to the flowers which is the object of a preposition; is that an illegal operation?

I remember reading an explanation somewhere in the OG that pronouns cannot refer to object of prepositions... but then later saw examples of correct answers where that was fine. Is this a similar instance?

[RonPurewal]

Ok, I should have said, what makes C better than B?

C) The artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir's last word was "flowers", spoken as a bouquet of roses just picked from his garden was being arranged

B) The artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir's last word was "flowers", spoken as a bouquet of roses, just picked from his garden, were arranged

From what I can surmise: in B, 'were' refers to the flowers which is the object of a preposition; is that an illegal operation?

I remember reading an explanation somewhere in the OG that pronouns cannot refer to object of prepositions... but then later saw examples of correct answers where that was fine. Is this a similar instance?

I don't know why you're thinking about pronouns here. The only pronoun in either choice is "his", which is not in any way problematic.

The verb is "were". The subject is "a bouquet" (with "of roses" attached as a modifier). Those don't agree.

[bruno.shinjo]

Can someone please explain what is the problem with Answer D?

Thanks,

[thanghnvn]

The artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir's last word was "flowers", spoken as a bouquet consisting of roses just picked from his garden were arranged in a vase on his bedroom windowsill.

A) as a bouquet consisting of roses just picked from his garden were arranged
B) as a bouquet of roses, just picked from his garden, were arranged
C) as a bouquet or roses just picked from his garden was being arranged
D) during the arrangement of a bouquet or roses, just picked from his garden
E) while they arranged a bouquet of roses that had just been picked, from his garden

OA: C
Source: GMATPrep

I cannot understand why the OA is C because [was being arranged] implies that it was the 'bouquet' that was being arranged in a vase

You cannot arranged a bouquet in vase, you arrange flowers i.e. the roses in a vase. This is why I picked B. Thanks

do you type correctly? I think C should be " bouquet of roses" not "bouquet or roses"

[RonPurewal]

Can someone please explain what is the problem with Answer D?

Thanks,

You may be able to tell that C is a better choice just because D is clunky and indirect.

The actual mistake in choice D is the word "arrangement". "Arrangement" doesn't refer to the process of arranging something; it refers to the arrangement that results from that process.
(Similarly, "as I was judging xxxx" makes sense. "During my judgment of xxxxx" doesn't, because a judgment is a conclusion, not the process of arriving at that conclusion.)

[madhu1989]

Hi Ron,

I agree with your explanation regarding the use of "arrangement" in choice D. But I picked D based on POE and eliminated C (the right answer) as it uses "being". MGMAT SC book also mentions that use of "being" in GMAT is mostly incorrect. Now I can see an exception to this. So under what circumstances is the use of "being" tolerated in the GMAT? Kindly shed some light. Apologies if you have already explained this elsewhere.

Thanks,
Madhu

[RonPurewal]

If something says "mostly", then you should never use it except as a last-ditch guessing method. I.e., it's better than random guessing, but worse than anything else.

I wrote about "being" here:
post91486.html#p91486

[abhasjha]

Can someone please explain what is the problem with Answer D?

Thanks,

You may be able to tell that C is a better choice just because D is clunky and indirect.

The actual mistake in choice D is the word "arrangement". "Arrangement" doesn't refer to the process of arranging something; it refers to the arrangement that results from that process.
(Similarly, "as I was judging xxxx" makes sense. "During my judgment of xxxxx" doesn't, because a judgment is a conclusion, not the process of arriving at that conclusion.)

Dear Ron,

A bouquet is an ARRANGEMENT of flowers

so choice D -"the arrangement of a bouquet is redundant.

is it good enough to eliminate D ?

[RonPurewal]

In the U.S., "arrangement" is, indeed, sometimes used in that way. (Not sure about other countries.)

In this sentence, though, "arrangement" refers to the actual act of physically arranging the flowers.
You can establish this meaning by noting the word "during". (If "arrangement" meant a physical bouquet of flowers, then you'd have "during a bouquet""”in other words, you'd have total nonsense.)
So, not redundant.

A form of "arrange" also appears in the correct answer, with the same meaning.

[Tadashi]

Hi Ron,

may I know the differences among 1/ "as a bouquet or roses just picked from his garden was being arranged" , 2/ "as a bouquet or roses which was just picked from his garden was being arranged" and 3/ "as a bouquet or roses which had been just picked from his garden was being arranged"

I know 2/ differs from 3/ because of the verb tense maybe.
I wonder if 1/ has the same intended meaning as 2/ does? or if 1/ has the same intended meaning as 3/ does?

Thanks
Tadashi.

[RonPurewal]

#1 and #3 are the same.

#2 doesn't work. You need "had just been picked" here, because the completion of that action is directly relevant (and essential) to the context.
For more on this whole "completion" idea, read this:
post58397.html#p58397

By the way, this difference is too slight to be the primary issue in a GMAC problem. If you see a difference like this one, you're almost certainly being distracted from some bigger issue!

[Tadashi]

Thanks for providing me with that link.
As you mentioned, #1 and #3 are the same.

so why GMAC choose to use #1 instead of #3 ? why sometimes NYT choose to use sentences like #3 instead of #1?

I mean I want to know what's the differences between "a noun. which are/is/was/have been/had been/ + verb-ed " and "a noun. verb-ed" ?

IMO, the former structure can convey a idea of verb tense, while the latter can not.

Need your comments.
DOMO ARIGATO
Tadashi.

[RonPurewal]

Thanks for providing me with that link.
As you mentioned, #1 and #3 are the same.

so why GMAC choose to use #1 instead of #3 ? why sometimes NYT choose to use sentences like #3 instead of #1?

I mean I want to know what's the differences between "a noun. which are/is/was/have been/had been/ + verb-ed " and "a noun. verb-ed" ?

IMO, the former structure can convey a idea of verb tense, while the latter can not.

Need your comments.
DOMO ARIGATO
Tadashi.

This is largely an issue of style, so, for this exam, you needn't concern yourself with it.
Remember, no two writers write in exactly the same way (and there are millions and millions and millions of writers, so that's a profound realization!). Almost any idea worth writing can be written in many different ways.

As far as this specific example, though, there's no need for any additional "sense of verb tense", since we're talking about a bouquet of flowers just picked from the garden. So, in this context, the additional verb would be unnecessarily wordy.