Split the Pair in Sentence Correction
“If the option is there, split the pair…”
In the game of Black Jack the odds are tilted in favor of the dealer. One of the things that the player can do to try to improve her odds is to “split the pair.” For example, if the player is dealt two aces – not a very promising hand in Black Jack- she can “split the pair” and get dealt a second a card for each ace thereby greatly improving her odds of winning the hand. No experienced Black Jack player would fail to take advantage of the opportunity to split a pair of aces. As an experienced GMAT test-taker you should follow their lead and remember to split the pair to improve your odds on sentence correction.
In sentence correction, you are sometimes presented with a pair of nouns, usually the names of people, followed by a modifier. For example, “ Susan and Stacey, whose hair is blonde, own 17 acres of farmland.” The question is:“whose hair is blonde?” Clearly Stacey’s hair is blonde, but is Susan’s hair also blonde? The sentence is ambiguous.
What if one or more of the answer choices offers you another option? “Stacey, whose hair is blonde, and Susan, own 17 acres of farmland. “ This sentence may sound a little choppy, but it has the virtue of specificity. It is clear that Stacey’s hair is blonde. The modifier is specifically applied to one of the two people. On the GMAT this is preferred. But what if they both, in fact, have blonde hair? That is not your concern, specificity is. They will not give you the option to split the pair if it is not accurate.
Consider the following example from the Veritas Sentence Correction Book 2:
Originally called ‘Back Rub’, the founders of Google were two Stanford PhD students, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, whose father Dr. Carl Victor Page earned his doctorate in computer science from the University of Michigan.
A)Originally called ‘Back Rub’, the founders of Google were two Stanford PHD students, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, whose father Dr. Carl Victor Page earned his doctorate in computer science from the University of Michigan.
B)Originally called ‘Back Rub’, two Stanford PhD students, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, whose father Dr. Carl Victor Page earned his doctorate in computer science from the University of Michigan, were the founders of Google.
C)Originally called ‘Back Rub’, Google was founded by two Stanford PHD students, Larry Page, whose father Dr. Carl Victor Page earned his doctorate in computer science from the University of Michigan, and Sergey Brin.
D)Google was founded by two Stanford PHD students, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, whose father Dr. Carl Victor Page earned his doctorate in computer science from the University of Michigan, and was originally called ‘Back Rub’.
E)The founders being two Stanford PHD students, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, whose father Dr. Carl Victor Page earned his doctorate in computer science from the University of Michigan, Google was originally called ‘BackRub’.
The question is similar to one in the Official Guide 12th Edition. It illustrates the logic of splitting the pair. The first modifier “Originally called Back Rub” is misplaced in answer choices A and B. This is the modifier error that draws the attention of most test takers. However, the modifier that I want to focus on is “whose father Dr. Carl Victor Page earned his doctorate in computer science from the University of Michigan.” In answer choices A, B, D, and E this modifier might be applied to both Sergey Brin and Larry Page or it might be applied to Larry Page only. (Before you tell me that Carl Victor Page cannot be the father of both of these men because they have different last names think of Emilio Estevez and Charlie Sheen – look it up).
Only in answer choice C do they split the pair. In this choice it is clear that the modifier applies only to Larry Page. This is the preferred form on the GMAT and when it is offered you should look to profit from splittingthe pair of nouns in the same way that a Black Jack player profits from splitting her pair of aces.