gmatassassin88 wrote:
AjiteshArunI agree in both the options you mentioned - 1) will develop & 2) Blossoms develop from bud - 'Develop' is a verb.
However my concern is about'Develop-ed'.For example
1) Blossoms are developed from bud- 'are developed' is a verb.
2) Blossoms developed from bud/ Blossoms developed from bud seems healthy.- in this 'Developed' is a past participle/verb-ed modifier as in 'Urban areas developed from...'
Please help with your reasoning
The
-ed form may or may not be a verb, but that doesn't mean that
developed cannot be used as a verb (it could just be the
past tense of
develop).
1.
Blossoms developed from a bud. ← This complete sentence uses the past tense of
develop.
Developed is a verb.
2.
Blossoms developed from a bud... ← Let's assume that this is not a complete sentence, and that
developed is a past participle modifying
Blossoms.
Both are valid interpretations, but (2) is somewhat unlikely, as it means that we think that the author wants to discuss a particular type of "blossoms" (those that developed from a bud) and not "blossoms" in general.
This potential for confusion does not, however, mean that the author is not permitted to go with (1).
Developed is valid as the past tense of
develop, and the fact that the past participle of
develop takes the same form as the past tense of
develop cannot change that. In fact, if we take a different position on this, we will struggle with every single
-ed we come across ("the children played in the park").
Now, I think that the difference between
played and
developed is that the second meaning of
develop in the definition I linked to is not as common as
played, which is a very common word. However, it is still a perfectly acceptable way to use
develop, and (meaning issues aside),
blossoms developed from a bud can be treated as a complete sentence.
In this particular question,
urban areas developed from clusters of houses just means that clusters of houses eventually "grew into" a ~more advanced version/state (urban areas), probably as the result of decisions taken by a large number of people. This sentence doesn't care about those people though. It's focused solely on
urban areas.