AART, a procedure that replicates heart arteries

Hi,

Can someone please explain why 'to be able to participate' is redundant here. Why is it wrong to assume that the device simply makes the person ready or equipped enough to participate, necessitating the use of 'to be able to', and not actually 'making' the person participate in sports activities? Is it because of the presence of 'enables' that we don't need 'to be able to'? Please help...

Thanks

You've got it. "Enables . . . to be able" is what is redundant. It's like saying "There's a chance that it could possibly happen" or "I'm prepared to be ready to go."

There are a few big problems with (B).

First, "which enables" is a noun modifier, so it needs to modify the preceding noun. However, we want to modify AART, so this doesn't work. Even if we wanted to modify "carbon nanotubes," we would then need to say "enable" rather than "enables."

An even quicker way to spot this modifier problem is to notice that the word "which" is preceded by a semicolon. This means that the two parts of the sentence should be independent clauses that can work as sentences on their own. Let's look at them:

AART, a procedure that replicates heart arteries using carbon nanotubes

which enables people with a weak heart to participate in sports to lead a healthy life like a normal person.

Notice that neither of these is a complete sentence. The first one has a subject (AART) with no verb, while the second one is a modifier ("which . . . ") with nothing to modify. This makes the use of a semicolon here incorrect.

In fact, even if we put these two pieces together with a comma, we still wouldn't have a sentence! I see "AART . . . a procedure . . . which . . .," but we still have no verb for AART. This is a big problem. This "sentence" is all subject and modifiers, with no action! (Yes, there are verbs in the sentence, but they are all in the modifiers.)

One last problem is in the modifier itself:

which enables people with a weak heart to participate in sports to lead

We're missing the word "and"! I can't say "this program allows me to teach to learn." We need something to link those items.

Other than that, I love (B).

I hope this helps.

AART, a procedure that replicates heart arteries by using carbon nanotubes, enables people with a weak heart to be able to participate in sports and to lead a healthy life like a normal person.

can we break the sentence like this-- AART, enables
-people with a weak heart to participate in sports and to lead a healthy life like a normal person.
If from (people ---person) is a separate phrase then how to "participate" and "to lead "modify enables. And if not dont you think enables(v) comes on one side of "and "and another side is no verb which is grammatically in correct.

Hi Anshul, it's actually like this:

AART, enables people with a weak heart:

(i) to participate in sports and

(ii) to lead a healthy life like a normal person.

So, parallelism is between two infinitives: to participate and to lead.

Hello from the GMAT Club VerbalBot!

Thanks to another GMAT Club member, I have just discovered this valuable topic, yet it had no discussion for over a year. I am now bumping it up - doing my job. I think you may find it valuable (esp those replies with Kudos).

Want to see all other topics I dig out? Follow me (click follow button on profile). You will receive a summary of all topics I bump in your profile area as well as via email.