Sentence Correction

Dear Experts,

Please help me with this SC question.

A male musician can find a career as a solo performer, an orchestra member, or a music teacher after he graduates from college with a degree in music, depending on this talent.

a) A male musician can find a career as a solo performer, an orchestra member, or a music teacher after he graduates from college with a degree in music, depending on this talent.

b) After graduating college with a degree in music, depending on his talent, a male musician can find a career as a solo performer, an orchestra member, or a music teacher.

c) After graduating college with a degree in music, a male musician's talent will determine if he can find a career as a solo performer, an orchestra member, or a music teacher.

d) Talent determines whether a male musician, after graduating from college with a degree in music, can find a career as a solo performer, an orchestra member, or a music teacher.

e) The talent of a male musician, after graduating from college with a degree in music, will determine whether he can find a career as a solo performer, an orchestra member, or a music teacher.

From the above question, please help me with below concepts also:

- Can a subject have more then one modifiers in the beginning on the sentence. For ex, see option b above
- Usage of -ing form of verb after comma and after a word without comma.

Thanks in advance for the help.

Its B.

Answer is D

The answer is D.

Option A - pronoun 'this' has no antecedent to refer to.

Option B and C use an incorrect structure, 'After graduating college with a degree in music..'

Option E - the modifier 'after graduating from college with a degree in music' incorrectly modifies the noun talent instead of the noun male musician

A is wrong: depending on his talent ....this talent refers to music which is a correct modifiers for music but not exactly gives a meaning to the given sentence.
B is wrong: depending on his talent doesn't refer to music and hence not a correct modifier.
C is wrong: depending on his talent doesn't refer to music and hence not a correct modifier.
D seem to be correct: since after graduating from college correctly modifies musician and gives a somewhat correct meaning to a sentence.
E also seem to be correct : with the same reason ..

What is the correct answer btw...It should be either D or E.

Dear All,

Thanks for the help...Can some one please help me with my queries as well,

- Can a subject have more then one modifiers in the beginning on the sentence. For ex:

After graduating from college with a degree in music, depending on his talent, a male musician can find a career as a solo performer, an orchestra member, or a music teacher

In this, should i understand that "After graduating from college with a degree in music" and "depending on his talent" both are modifying the noun "a male musician" or in this, "after graduating from college with a degree in music" is modifying "depending on his talent"...which is incorrect...please explain here.

- Usage of -ing form of verb after comma and after a word without comma

Also, in lot of questions -ing form of verb is used to modify the noun. I always get confused how to interpret that to which noun the -ing form of verb is referring to. For ex:

The pharmaceutical company should add many new strains of the disease to Prevnar, making the vaccine much more effective than it was ten years ago. - Here making referring to what?


Thanks in advance.

hi monusangeeta

as for you question. if you have MG sentence correction, apply to the page 86 chapter 6,you will find the answer.
in case you have no one book
in short: one noun can have two modifiers it is not mistake, but they must be separated with the noun they modify, but not stand in in line touching each other
noun modifier -----noun-------- noun modifier- it is correct construction, but not
noun modifier----- noun modifier---noun-it is wrong

for this reason you can get rid off B

After graduating from college with a degree in music, depending on his talent, a male musician can find......
the better version must looks like
After graduating from colledge, a male musician can find, depending on its talent.....

i hope it makes scence

monusangeeta wrote: A male musician can find a career as a solo performer, an orchestra member, or a music teacher after he graduates from college with a degree in music, depending on this talent.

a) A male musician can find a career as a solo performer, an orchestra member, or a music teacher after he graduates from college with a degree in music, depending on this talent.

b) After graduating college with a degree in music, depending on his talent, a male musician can find a career as a solo performer, an orchestra member, or a music teacher.

c) After graduating college with a degree in music, a male musician's talent will determine if he can find a career as a solo performer, an orchestra member, or a music teacher.

d) Talent determines whether a male musician, after graduating from college with a degree in music, can find a career as a solo performer, an orchestra member, or a music teacher.

e) The talent of a male musician, after graduating from college with a degree in music, will determine whether he can find a career as a solo performer, an orchestra member, or a music teacher.

a) A male musician can find a career as a solo performer, an orchestra member, or a music teacher after he graduates from college with a degree in music, depending on his talent. -->INCORRECT: depending on this talent should modify career as per intended meaning, however it seems to modify musician.

b) After graduating college with a degree in music, depending on his talent, a male musician can find a career as a solo performer, an orchestra member, or a music teacher. -->INCORRECT:"Modifier , Modifier , subject" a less preferable structure in GMAT. More over "depending on his talent" should mean musician choose career, depending on his talent NOT graduate depending on his talent...

c) After graduating college with a degree in music, a male musician's talent will determine if he can find a career as a solo performer, an orchestra member, or a music teacher. -->INCORRECT: musician's talent is not graduating. Wrong Modifier

d) Talent determines whether a male musician, after graduating from college with a degree in music, can find a career as a solo performer, an orchestra member, or a music teacher. -->CORRECT: This clearly explains the intended meaning of the author. "after graduating from..." is placed closed to male musician. Role of "depending on Talent" modyfying is clear.

e) The talent of a male musician, after graduating from college with a degree in music, will determine whether he can find a career as a solo performer, an orchestra member, or a music teacher. -->INCORRECT: Talent of male musician is not graduating, which is the implied meaning here

monusangeeta wrote: From the above question, please help me with below concepts also:

1 Can a subject have more then one modifiers in the beginning on the sentence. For ex, see option b above
2 Usage of -ing form of verb after comma and after a word without comma.

Thanks in advance for the help.

1: NO, in such situation the second modifier very often becomes ambiguous. As noted in Option B.

2: In "Comma + VerbING", VerbING modifes the subject of the previous clause.

Hope that helps!

Thanks to monusangeeta for the question(s) and to the other folks for their explanation.

Two lessons that I have learnt are : 1. Not to practice GMAT questions past 1:00 am , especially on a friday night, and 2. Not to be lured by better answers by reading all the questions.

Your questions make a good practice and please share the source so that I can do more of them.

D is the best one.

And loveusonu's reason is wonderful.

D maybe correct.