Studies show that young people with higher-than-average blood pressure and their families have a history of high blood pressure are more likely than others to develop a severe form of the condition.
(A) and their families have a history of high blood pressure
(B) whose families have a history of high blood pressure
(C) and a history of high blood pressure runs in the family
(D) whose families have a history of high blood pressure running in them
(E) with a history of high blood pressure running in their family


why is option e incorrect

Hi there,

Studies show that young people with higher-than-average blood pressure and their families have a history of high blood pressure are more likely than others to develop a severe form of the condition.

Since the meaning is easy to understand, let’s begin the error analysis: In this sentence the verb “have a history…” does not make sense with the subject “young people with higher-than-average blood pressure and their families”. The position of this clause makes the entire structure ungrammatical. As such, the verb “are” is left without any subject that leads to fragment error.

POE:

(A) and their families have a history of high blood pressure: Incorrect for the reason stated above.

(B) whose families have a history of high blood pressure: Correct. Notice that “whose” is a relative pronoun, a noun modifier that is modifying a little far away noun “young people”. This is so because the prepositional phrase preceding “whose” cannot be placed anywhere else in the sentence without affecting the meaning. Hence, the relative pronoun can jump over “with higher-than-average blood pressure” to modify “young people”.
To know, how this modification is possible, read the article by clicking on the following link:
noun-modifiers-can-modify-slightly-far-away-noun-135868.html

(C) and a history of high blood pressure runs in the family: Incorrect. Same fragment error and ungrammatical structure issue as in choice A.

(D) whose families have a history of high blood pressure running in them: Incorrect. The verb-ing modifier “running” is modifying the preceding noun entity “history of high blood pressure”, meaning that the “history of high blood pressure” run in the “young people and their family”. This is illogical.

(E) with a history of high blood pressure running in their family: Incorrect. Use of “running” seems to suggest that “a history” runs in their family. This modification does not make sense.

Hope this helps.
Thanks.
Shraddha
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I'm not sure but I would guess its still not the best choice and my reasoning is that "and" would try and make the phrases parallel but the phrase after the "and"(a history of high blood pressure) would be a prepositional phrase while the phrase before the "and" (higher-than-average blood pressure) is not.

On a different note, Shraddha, isn't 'runs/running in the family an idiomatic phrase?

Hey Shraddha thanks for the input. I do have another question about E though.

Concerning the word "with" in the context of the sentence:

Studies show that young people with higher-than-average blood pressure with a history of high blood pressure running in their family

Does "with" refer back to "young people" or "higher-than-average blood pressure". I don't know if this is a matter of grammar or logic?

Hi macjas,

Studies show that young people with higher-than-average blood pressure with a history of high blood pressure running in their family…

If we write the sentence this way, then the second “with” will modify the preceding noun “blood pressure”. Now noun modifiers can modify a little far away noun. However, the prepositional phrases do not qualify in this category. They generally cannot jump over the preceding prepositional phrase to modify the noun. Hence, sentence written this way will be incorrect.

If the second prepositional phrase with “with” is also meant to modify “young people”, then we can add “and” before the second “with”. This way we will introduce a list and both the prepositional phrases will refer to “young people”.

Hope this helps.
Thanks.
Shraddha
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