RashedVai wrote:
mbunny wrote:
To meet the rapidly rising market demand for fish and seafood, suppliers are growing fish twice as fast as
their natural growth rate, cutting their feed allotment by nearly half and raising them on special diets.
(A) their natural growth rate, cutting their feed allotment
(B) their natural growth rate, their feed allotment cut
(C) growing them naturally, cutting their feed allotment
(D) they grow naturally, cutting their feed allotment
(E) they grow naturally, with their feed allotment
Similar Question : [as fast as] LINKThe first and second choices illogically state that the suppliers are not only growing the fish but are also growing the natural growth rate of the fish.
The third choice elliptically states that
suppliers are growing fish twice as fast as growing them naturally grows them, but when something grows naturally, it is illogical to say anything
grows them. The appropriate contrast is between the rate at which the suppliers are growing the fish and the rate at which the fish grow when allowed to grow naturally on their own.
The fourth and fifth options both express that contrast appropriately. Of these two options, however, only the fourth uses a present participle (
cutting) that is parallel to the other verbs in the sentence (
growing and raising), and therefore the fourth choice is best.
To meet the rapidly rising market demand for fish and seafood, suppliers are growing fish
twice as fast as they grow naturally, cutting their feed allotment by nearly half and raising them on special diets.
LINK In the 1980's the rate of increase of the minority population of the United States was nearly
twice what it was in the 1970's.
An this case, you have a problem of redundancy:
A RATE can't be FAST.
* The
rate can be
high;
* The
increase itself can be
fast.
Similarly,
A
height can't be
tall (a person can be tall, or a height can be greater than...)
A
bank account can't be
rich (a person can be rich, or a bank account can contain a large amount of money)
etc.
Would you please shed some light on "COMMA + WITH modifier". Here, how the meaning changes in answer (E)?
generis RashedVai , sure. (I think this sentence is weird. How to you make fish grow faster by cutting the amount of food they eat?)
When I first read (E), I thought that I had missed something.
Wrong.
The sentence is missing something. A verb. Actually, a verbal.•
their feed allotment by nearly halfcan't be "with" anything because the phrase is not a thing. It has no meaning.
their feed allotment by nearly halfdoes not mean anything.
by nearly half is a phrase that we use after a verb or verbal.
Barring other issues such as parallelism, these alternatives would be okay:
with the feed allotment CUT by nearly half . . .
with the feed allotment DECREASED by nearly half . . .
So the meaning of the sentence changes with E because the phrase "their feed allotment by half" is nonsensical.
I wrote some other examples, all of which sound bizarre to me. I added corrections to most of them.
If the phrase I have highlighted in red does not strike as odd or nonsensical, maybe one of the examples will do so.
Nonsensical:
her piece of chocolate layer cake by nearly half-- her piece of chocolate layer cake
increased by half
Nonsensical:
his lemon ice cream scoop by nearly a third-- his lemon ice cream scoop reduced by nearly a third
Nonsensical: their wine by nearly half
Nonsensical: our quota of cherries by nearly half
Nonsensical: my part of the bed by nearly half
• The non-underlined portion that contains
raising requires a parallel verbal
-- "and" is a parallelism marker
-- what does AND join? Two things that the supplier does to make fish grow quickly
-- the non-underlined portion at the end contains
raising, a present participle (verbING)
-- whatever is on the right hand side of AND must also be on the left side of AND.
The items must be parallel.
To meet the rapidly rising market demand for fish and seafood, suppliers are growing fish twice as fast as
they grow naturally, with their feed allotment by nearly half
and raising them on special diets.
We need "cutting."
. . . suppliers are growing fish twice as fast as they grow naturally,
cutting their feed allotment by half
and raising them on special diets.
I hope that helps.