In a crowded, acquisitive world, the disappearance of lifestyles such

Let's start with S-V agreement,
The subject 'the disappearance of lifestyles' requires a singular verb. So, option A & D are out.

Next split,
'inevitable' vs 'inevitably doomed'-- Now, 'the disappearance of lifestyles' could be inevitable or 'lifestyles' can be doomed but not both. Saying 'disappearance' is 'doomed' doesn't make sense as it lends to a double negative sentence.

All this essentially leaves us with 'E' as the best option. Also, the parenthesis modifier has no issues in 'E'- it's parallel and it contains the subject making the sentence unambiguous.

It's kind of hard to say what a modifier applies to when the sentence itself doesn't really work. Clearly, the only meaning that makes sense is for "requiring" to refer to "lifestyles." But comma + -ing modifiers are typically adverbial, so we'd expect to refer back to the main clause: "the disappearance . . . seems doomed." We could complain that this makes no sense, but since the main clause itself doesn't make sense to begin with (How can the disappearance be doomed?), it's fair to say that this modifier doesn't refer clearly to anything at all.
_________________

A & D : Can be eliminated based on incorrect verb (Seem)
C : Relative modifier 'which' is used that incorrectly modifies the preceding noun
B : A) "the disappearance of lifestyles..seems to be inevitably doomed" sentence does not make sense
B) Verb-ing modifier requiring & permitting need to modify Lifestyle. Current Usage is incorrect

Correct option: E usage of noun + noun modifier "lifestyle requiring.." is correct

In a crowded, acquisitive world, the disappearance of lifestyles such as those once followed by southern Africa's Bushman and Australia's aborigines, requiring vast wild spaces and permitting little accumulation of goods, seem inevitably doomed.

IMO inevitably doomed may sound funny to many, however it doesn't have much of bearing on incorrect answer choices as there are various other serious issues in incorrect choices. Will try to highlight major ones:

(A) requiring vast wild spaces and permitting little accumulation of goods, seem inevitably doomed (illogically modifies Africa's Bushman and Australia's aborigines)
(B) requiring vast wild spaces and permitting little accumulation of goods, seems to be inevitably doomed (illogically modifies Africa's Bushman and Australia's aborigines)
(C) which require vast wild spaces and permit little accumulation of goods, seems to be inevitably doomed (which again illogically modifies Africa's Bushman and Australia's aborigines, Africa's Bushman and Australia's aborigines don't require vast wild spaces and permit little accumulation of goods)
(D) life-styles that require vast wild spaces and permit little accumulation of goods, seem inevitable (what does that refer to? Ambigous. Also disappearance of lifestyles is in prepositional phrase, disappearance is the subject thus seem [plural] verb is incorrect)
(E) life-styles requiring vast wild spaces and permitting little accumulation of goods, seems inevitable (correctly mentions lifestyles again to remove ambiguity and maintains parallel structure in requiring - permitting, uses correct S-V, best choice)

Hi
Can anyone explain the modifier issue in B.
What I know is 'ing' modifier modifiers Subject+Verb of the preceding clause. I wanted to know what exactly requiring is modifying in B.
Thank you

Hey!

Yes, verb-ing modifiers after a comma modify the entire preceding clause. In option B (the incorrect choice here), the entire clause 'the disappearance.....Australia's aborigines' seems to be modified by 'requiring'.
Here, 'the disappearance of lifestyles' would be the subject.

On the contrary, if 'requiring' looks like it is modifying 'lifestyles'--> I would say it needs a better sentence construction to remove the ambiguity since 'lifestyles' is part of a clause (the disappearance of lifestyles) here. (Option E takes care of this issue and explicitly uses 'life-styles' with 'requiring').

Hence, option B is wrong.
Also, the last part of the sentence (seems to be inevitably doomed) is nonsensical as 'the disappearance of lifestyles' doesn't go with 'seems to be inevitably doomed'.

Official Explanation

Logical predication; Agreement

In the sentence as written, the singular subject the disappearance of . . . and the plural verb seem do not agree in number. It does not make sense to say that the disappearance is inevitably doomed; presumably the sentence intends to suggest that the lifestyles themselves are inevitably doomed or perhaps that the disappearance of . . . these lifestyles is inevitable.

A. For the reasons explained previously, the sentence as written is incorrect.

B. This choice fixes the verb error: the disappearance of . . . and seems agree in number. However, it retains the problem that the disappearance is what is described as inevitably doomed.

C. In this sentence, the subject the disappearance of . . . and the verb seem do not agree in number. Furthermore, the pronoun which incorrectly refers to Aboriginal people rather than to lifestyles.

D. In this sentence, the subject the disappearance of . . . and the verb seem do not agree in number.

E. Correct. This sentence is well formed. The singular subject the disappearance agrees in number with the singular verb seems. Furthermore, it is clearly the disappearance that seems inevitable.

The correct answer is E.

GmatPrime

Verb+ing modifier is between two commas, so it is a noun modifier. I believe only lifestyles (and the sort of prepositional phrase that follows before the comma) the can be treated as subject/noun that the modifier that is being modified.

Thanks

In a crowded, acquisitive world, the disappearance of lifestyles such as those once followed by southern Africa's Bushman and Australia's aborigines, requiring vast wild spaces and permitting little accumulation of goods, seem inevitably doomed.

(A) requiring vast wild spaces and permitting little accumulation of goods, seem inevitably doomed - subject-verb agreement issue- 'disappearance' is singular and thus requires singular verb 'seems'
(B) requiring vast wild spaces and permitting little accumulation of goods, seems to be inevitably doomed - illogical meaning- 'disappearance' seems to be inevitably doomed
(C) which require vast wild spaces and permit little accumulation of goods, seem to be inevitably doomed- subject-verb agreement issue- 'disappearance' is singular and thus requires singular verb 'seems'
(D) life-styles that require vast wild spaces and permit little accumulation of goods, seem inevitable - subject-verb agreement issue- 'disappearance' is singular and thus requires singular verb 'seems'
(E) life-styles requiring vast wild spaces and permitting little accumulation of goods, seems inevitable- Correct

In options A and B, what does verb-ing modifier 'requiring' modify? Does it modify the entire preceding clause or 'lifestyles'?

AjiteshArun , GMATNinja , MagooshExpert , GMATGuruNY , VeritasPrepBrian , MartyTargetTestPrep , DmitryFarber , VeritasKarishma , generis , EducationAisle , VeritasPrepErika , other experts - please enlighten
_________________

It modifies "the disappearance of lifestyles ... seem inevitably doomed."
_________________

Imo E

A very good question to practice.

The modifier "the disappearance of lifestyles such as those once followed by southern Africa's Bushman and Australia's aborigines" comes in between two commas, so this modifier can be dropped still making sense of the sentence.

So the sentence without the modifier

In a crowded, acquisitive world,requiring vast wild spaces and permitting little accumulation of goods, seem inevitably doomed.
Now we can see the problems with the original sentence. This sentence does not have a noun so basically this sentence is not an independent sentence.

You can ask the question who is requiring? for more clarity. The answer will point to noun.
There is also one more problem with this sentence. The verb used in plural but the verb has to be singular as the subject of the sentence has to be lifestyle, so "seems" is the correct verb.

A out as per above analysis.
B subject missing
C "which" is not correct here. It has to refer to the nearest noun i.e southern Africa's Bushman and Australia's aborigines. It is not correct here. People did not directly required large land rather their lifestyle did.
D plural verb "seem" is wrong here.
E is correct

One could easily eliminate three wrong options, if he/she is able to correctly identify the main Subject-Verb pair.
Subject- The disappearance, Verb- seems

So options A C D out.

Coming to option B- Do we really required 'to be' when their is seems. Dont you think to be is redundant here? Eliminated option B for the same reason.

I did not find anything wrong with option E. So E for me.
_________________

Arvind wrote-


arvind: The actual parsing of the sentence is not as what you have indicated. Here what indicated is the subject of the main clause; its subject lies far away namely ‘seems.
The commas you mention do not belong to the commas to the noun phrase that acts as the subject of the only sentence available in the topic. The first comma before the disappearance – is used to set off the introductory phrase ‘in a crowded, acquisitive world’. The second comma after aborigines is used to start the adverbial modifier ‘requiring’.
If at all you want to isolate the modifier, then you should isolate the phrase “requiring vast wild spaces and permitting little accumulation of goods” together with both the commas before and after.

Pl. see whether the sentence still make sense after you remove the real modifier. It is not the disappearance that is dommed. It is the lifestyles that are doomed

A is essentially wrong because the disappearance is not the doer of the action. So the participle cannot effectively modify the previous clause both in A and B’ in addition to the S-V error in A.

HTH
_________________

GMATNinja VeritasKarishma DmitryFarber MartyTargetTestPrep

confused btw option B & E.

option B: modifier 'requiring' refers to 'the disappearance of lifestyles' whereas it must refer to lifestyles.- is this the reason to eliminate option B?

I marked option B on the basis 'seems to be' in option B vs 'seems' in option E. In former, Presence of 'TO BE' clearly refers to noun: the disappearance of lifestyles , ans so i chose B over E. PLEASE CLEAR THE GAP IN MY UNDERSTANDING.

Secondly, I have seen several question having 'TO BE',concept i am not aware of.Would be great if you can share it's grammatical usage ,when to use and it's significance on the meaning.

Thanks

gmatassassin88 First, let's cut out all the modifiers (in this case, that's most of the sentence!) and look at the basic grammatical cores of B and E:

B) The disappearance seems to be doomed.
E) The disappearance seems inevitable.

We can already see that E must win. The disappearance of something can't be doomed; only the thing itself can be doomed. It would be like if I said "The loss of my job is in danger." I can say that the loss of my job is approaching, or I can say that my job is in danger, but mixing the two together creates a meaningless jumble. The loss is not in danger!

I can't tell you all the ways that "to be" is used, since this is one of the central verbs of our entire language, but here "to be" in particular is not the issue. The idiom we're using is "seems to X." I can say "the machine seems to be broken" or "the company seems to have an unlimited budget" or "the dog seems to require five meals a day." The point is that in this construction, we follow "seems" (or one of many other verbs, such as appears, tends, or claims) with an infinitive verb that describes what action "seems" to happen.

So we can actually cut all of A-D on the basis of sentence core alone. A and C have the same problem as B (disappearance is doomed), but these and D also use the plural "seem," which can't work with "disappearance." For this reason, we don't really need to look at the modifiers at all--this is one of my time-saving secrets! However, as discussed earlier in the thread, "requiring" does seem to modify the main action ("The disappearance . . . seems"), and this would mean that the disappearance itself required these things. For that reason, the correct answer changes the intervening modifier to a noun modifier with the repetition of the clarifying word "lifestyles." This makes it clear that the modifier is intended to apply to "lifestyles" and not "disappearance."
_________________

MartyTargetTestPrep,

Hello Marty,

What is structure of this sentence ? I don't understand structure of this sentence. Could you please help.

Thanks,
Alicia

Here's the correct version of the sentence.

In a crowded, acquisitive world, the disappearance of lifestyles such as those once followed by southern Africa's Bushman and Australia's aborigines, lifestyles requiring vast wild spaces and permitting little accumulation of goods, seems inevitable.

In a crowded, acquisitive world - This is a prepositional phrase that works adverbially to express where the events described by the sentence occur.

the disappearance - This is the subject of the sentence.

seems - This is the main verb of the sentence. So, the foundation of the sentence is "the disappearance ... seems inevitable."

of lifestyles such as those once followed by southern Africa's Bushman and Australia's aborigines - This prepositional phrase modifies "disappearance."

lifestyles requiring vast wild spaces and permitting little accumulation of goods - This is an appositive. It renames "lifestyles such as those once followed by southern Africa's Bushman and Australia's aborigines" and says more about those lifestyles.
_________________

Hi MartyTargetTestPrep,

If instead of the original option A
it was written as this -
requiring vast wild spaces and permitting little accumulation of goods, seems inevitable.

would it be correct ?
i wanted to know if then the ing-modifier will be modifying the clause or not . since it wont make sense to take disappearance as the subject right ?

Hi Taulark1.

The (A) version of the sentence would still be incorrect because the modifier would still modify the clause, and "requiring" and "permitting" would still take "the disappearance" as their agent.
_________________