manhasnoname wrote:
Great explanations mikemcgarry. Many Kudos!!
One clarification question - "particles are persisting" is awkward because particles are not doing anything is what you mentioned above in one of your posts. Does this mean "are verb-ing" structure can be used only with animate objects such as people or animals and not with inanimate objects such as things etc.?
Dear
manhasnonameI'm happy to respond.
First of all, my friend, I am going to give you some advice. Learn the proper names of grammatical forms so that you can ask precise questions. Precise speech leads to precise understanding. Confused speech leads to confusion. Don't use the term "
verb -ing"---an extremely sloppy term. The form of the verb that ends with "-
ing" can have three different roles:
1)
present participle2)
gerund3) part of a
present progressive verbThose three are profoundly different and have completely different roles in sentences. Learn those terms and understand them. If you refer to them all as "
verb -ing," then you inadvertently have set the conditions for a massive amount of confusion. Better to avoid that sloppy term entirely.
The present progressive tense is designed to show actions that are in progress, that are in the process of occurring. The distinction you suggested, about animate vs. inanimate subjects, is not helpful: either could be used with a verb in the present progressive. What matters, instead, is the type of verb.
Many verbs are what I would call
action verb,
doing verbs:
to walk, to talk, to buy, to sell, to eat, to think, etc. When we put a subject in front of one of these verbs, we are saying that this subject is performing some activity.
A few verbs are what I would call
being verb, verbs that describe not an activity but a state of being. Examples are:
to be, to seem, to appear, to persist, etc.
The present progressive makes perfect sense with an action verb:
she is walking, he is talking, she is buying, he is selling, she is thinking, etc.
With at least some being verbs, the verb already denotes an ongoing activity, so use of the present progressive is redundant and awkward:
is being, is seeming, is persisting, etc. Those are always awkward and wrong.
We have to be careful, because this is not a sharp black & white distinction. Some verb (
live, die, continue, survive, etc.) are being verbs but there are conditions in which the use of the present progressive would make sense:
she is living, he is dying, she is continuing to do X, he is surviving by doing Y, etc.
How does one learn which being verbs are permissible in the present progressive and which are not? By reading. There is no shortcut for a thorough and consistent habit of reading. See:
How to Improve Your GMAT Verbal ScoreDoes all this make sense?
warriorguy wrote:
Hi Mike,
Thank you for the explanation. I chose A because i thought we are talking about particles - and due to parallelism we need to choose persists e.g. particles that create ------- and persists. It does miss that to complete the parallelism but I thought we are referring back to particles.
How do i avoid such misses in future?
Dear
warriorguyI'm happy to respond.
What you are asking is an excellent question.
Ultimately, your question is about
meaning. The GMAT SC is not simply a grammar test---the GMAT SC investigates how three important strands,
grammar,
logic, and
rhetoric---all come together to produce meaning. There are no "tricks" for meaning: we always have to penetrate to what the author is trying to say.
This is a particularly tricky question, because the available answer choices limit the grammatical possibilities. Here's the question again.
Astronomers have theorized that the Big Bang governs the behavior of interstellar dust, particles that comprise the atoms and molecules created in the progenitive explosion and persisting in even the emptiest regions of space.
a) persisting
b) persists
c) persisted
d) they persisted
e) are persistingWhen I first looked at this sentence, I thought that the underlined verb would be in parallel with the verb "
comprise"---- the parallelism would be "
particles that comprise ... and persist ...." Notice, though, that "
persist" is not an answer choice.
You chose "
persists." That's a
singular verb, so it would not agree with the
plural subject "
participles." That's a straightforward
SVA error.
The only legitimate plural verb is (E), "
are persisting," which is very awkward, as I just explained to
manhasnoname.
In fact, among the given answer choices, the only legitimate parallelism is that between
participles, "
created ... and persisting." This is a past passive participle in parallel with a present active participle, which is fine: tense does not matter for parallelism. This is the OA, answer choice
(A).
Does all this make sense?
Mike
_________________
Mike McGarry
Magoosh Test PrepEducation is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire. — William Butler Yeats (1865 – 1939)