adkikani wrote:
Hi
GMATNinjaI am totally confused with modifiers in option C/D, I am unable to get to OA: C
I selected option D with below understanding:
a four-and-a-half-inch animal that is found in the Philippine is my first independent clause with
that as a subject and
is found as verb
Moving on
and it resembles it correctly refers to 4.5 inch animal (no pronoun ambiguity here) and with
it as subject and
resembles as verb, this also forms
another independent clause (IC)
Both ICs are correctly joined by AND as connector since there are only two elements in this list. I feel meaning wise and grammatically this option sounds good.
Further as you mentioned in your post
the underlined portion is part of a modifier, and I have no idea why we would stick a full, independent clause inside that modifierare you considering
that is found in the Philippines as modifier? Further in option C, can found act as verb-ed modifier which modifies Lisa's sunbird by jumping over animal? Note here there is no helping verb associated with
foundWR,
Arpit
Hello
adkikani /Arpit,
Thank you for the query. This is in response to your PM.
Let's begin from the beginning. The meaning of the sentence is pretty clear and easy to understand. The sentence presents a lot of information about this bird named Lina's sunbird.
Let's take a look at the structure of this sentence:
First discovered more than 30 years ago, Lina's sunbird, a four-and-a-half-inch animal
found in the Philippines and
that resembles a hummingbird,
has
shimmering metallic colors on its head;
a brilliant orange patch, bordered with red tufts, in the center of its breast;
and a red eye.
As you can see, there are two SV pairs in the sentence. The SV pair
Lina's sunbird has makes the IC and the SV pair
that resembles makes the DC.
Since
found in the Philippines and
that resembles a hummingbird modify
a four-and-a-half-inch animal =
Lina's sunbird, they form a parallel list, evident by the connector
and. But this list is not grammatically parallel because
found in the Philippines is verb-ed modifier while
that resembles a hummingbird is a clause. They both have the same function in the sentence, i. e., they both modify the same noun entity. But a phrase modifier cannot be parallel to a clause modifier. Hence, the original sentence is incorrect.
Now, let's take a look at the sentence with the correct answer choice C:
First discovered more than 30 years ago, Lina's sunbird, a four-and-a-half-inch animal
found in the Philippines and
resembling a hummingbird,
has
shimmering metallic colors on its head;
a brilliant orange patch, bordered with red tufts, in the center of its breast; and
a red eye.
Per this choice, both the modifiers
found in the Philippines and
resembling a hummingbird form the perfect list. Both the modifiers are phrases.
It is true that
found in the Philippines is a verb-ed modifier and
resembling a hummingbird is a verb-ing modifier and hence, they do not look similar. But "looks" do not matter. Both the modifiers perform the same function in this sentence, i. e., they both modify the same noun entity and appear as phrases. Therefore, these two noun modifiers are perfectly parallel.
You can perform the same analysis with all the other answer choices to spot the errors with the remaining three answer choices.
Hope this helps.
Thanks.
Shraddha
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