In the historical novel The Surrender Tree, Cuban American author Margarita Engle uses poetry rather than prose ________ the true...
GMAT Standard English Conventions : (Grammar) Questions
In the historical novel The Surrender Tree, Cuban American author Margarita Engle uses poetry rather than prose ________ the true story of Cuban folk hero Rosa La Bayamesa.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?
tells
told
is telling
to tell
Let's begin by understanding the meaning of this sentence. We'll use our understanding of pause points and segment the sentence as shown - understanding and assimilating the meaning of each segment bit by bit!
Sentence Structure
- In the historical novel The Surrender Tree,
- Cuban American author Margarita Engle
- uses poetry rather than prose
- (?) the true story of Cuban folk hero Rosa La Bayamesa.
- uses poetry rather than prose
- Cuban American author Margarita Engle
Understanding the Meaning
Let's start reading from the beginning:
- 'In the historical novel The Surrender Tree'
- This tells us where something happens - in a particular novel.
- 'Cuban American author Margarita Engle'
- This is our subject - the person doing the action.
- 'uses poetry rather than prose'
- This is the main action!
- Engle USES poetry (instead of prose) - this is what she does.
Now here's where we need to fill in the blank:
- 'uses poetry rather than prose ______ the true story of Cuban folk hero Rosa La Bayamesa'
Let's look at our choices:
- A. tells (present tense verb)
- B. told (past tense verb)
- C. is telling (present progressive verb)
- D. to tell (infinitive form)
What do we notice about the structure here?
- We already have our complete main action: 'uses poetry rather than prose'
- Subject: Margarita Engle
- Verb: uses
- Object: poetry rather than prose
- But the sentence continues - it needs to show us WHY she uses poetry rather than prose.
- What's her purpose? What's she trying to accomplish?
- When we want to show the PURPOSE or REASON for doing something, we use the infinitive form (to + verb).
- She uses poetry rather than prose TO TELL the true story.
- "To tell" expresses why she makes this choice - her goal or intention.
So we need: to tell
The complete meaning is: In her novel, Margarita Engle chooses to use poetry instead of prose, and her purpose in doing so is to tell the true story of Rosa La Bayamesa.
GRAMMAR CONCEPT APPLIED
Using Infinitives to Express Purpose
When you want to show WHY someone does something - the purpose or goal behind an action - you use an infinitive form (which is "to" plus the base form of a verb):
Pattern: [Subject] + [main action] + [infinitive showing purpose]
Example 1:
- She exercises daily to stay healthy
- Main action: exercises daily
- Purpose: to stay healthy (why she exercises)
Example 2:
- The city built new parks to improve residents' quality of life
- Main action: built new parks
- Purpose: to improve quality of life (why they built the parks)
In our sentence:
- Margarita Engle uses poetry rather than prose to tell the true story
- Main action: uses poetry rather than prose
- Purpose: to tell the true story (why she chose poetry over prose)
The infinitive "to tell" clearly expresses her intention or goal in making this stylistic choice.
tells
✗ Incorrect
- This creates a structural problem because we'd have two main verbs right next to each other: "uses poetry rather than prose tells"
- This doesn't work grammatically - you can't just place two verb phrases in sequence like this
- It also fails to show the relationship between using poetry and telling the story
told
✗ Incorrect
- "Uses poetry rather than prose told" is grammatically incorrect
- You can't connect two main verbs this way without proper conjunction or punctuation
- It also creates confusing tense mixing: present tense "uses" with past tense "told"
is telling
✗ Incorrect
- "Uses poetry rather than prose is telling" doesn't work grammatically
- Again, this tries to connect two verb phrases without proper structure
- The progressive form "is telling" doesn't express the purpose/intention relationship we need
to tell
✓ Correct
- Correct as explained in the solution above.