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Re: The bowerbirds of Australia derive their name from the fact [#permalink]
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Can someone disect answer choice D, and comment on why it is good or bad. I think D is fine as is.
B suggests that they derived their name from bowers, which is incorrect.

Is Having acting as an adjective describing "bowers" or is it a verb ?

d) the fact that the males build elaborate bowers of sticks and twigs, having decorated them with flowers and other vegetation, to attract females
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Re: The bowerbirds of Australia derive their name from the fact [#permalink]
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b) the elaborate bowers of sticks and twigs that the males build and decorate with flowers and other vegetation in order to attract females


e) the elaborate bowers of sticks and twigs that are built by the males and decorated with flowers and other vegetation to attract females

Boils down to B vs E but E uses passive voice. So I choose B.
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Re: The bowerbirds of Australia derive their name from the fact [#permalink]
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bsd_lover can you plz post OE.
I am stuck between B and C. Thanks
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Re: The bowerbirds of Australia derive their name from the fact [#permalink]
i am going with B too on this..

in A..the problem is "them" seems to modifying females..not the bowers..
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Re: The bowerbirds of Australia derive their name from the fact [#permalink]
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saravalli wrote:
bsd_lover can you plz post OE.
I am stuck between B and C. Thanks



I think C is wrong..cause it implies as if the bowers are created by themselves and that the males only use flowers and vegetation to attract the females..

B is best..
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Re: The bowerbirds of Australia derive their name from the fact [#permalink]
fresinha12 wrote:
saravalli wrote:
bsd_lover can you plz post OE.
I am stuck between B and C. Thanks



I think C is wrong..cause it implies as if the bowers are created by themselves and that the males only use flowers and vegetation to attract the females..

B is best..

I am not able to decide to what does 'that' in B pointing to. (bowers or twigs) why?
Thanks
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Re: The bowerbirds of Australia derive their name from the fact [#permalink]
B seems best for me, C has a modifier error. It looks like flowers and vegetations is used to attract females, where as the twigs are used to attract them. Hence the meaning changes.

In D , bower birds dont derive their name from the "fact " . It is wordy...

In E , attract females in a display of courtship.. changes the meaning.
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Re: The bowerbirds of Australia derive their name from the fact [#permalink]
IMO B. I thought it was E but it uses a passive voice that the GMAT does not prefer.
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Re: The bowerbirds of Australia derive their name from the fact [#permalink]
+1 B. Is this from the GMAT practice test ?
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Re: The bowerbirds of Australia derive their name from the fact [#permalink]
the elaborate bowers of sticks and twigs that the males build and decorate with flowers and other vegetation.....

I am confused here, though I chose the right answer in the test(MGMAT), while reviewing it I am not convinced that this option is parallel, kindly explain if parallelism applies here?
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Re: The bowerbirds of Australia derive their name from the fact [#permalink]
bsd_lover wrote:
The bowerbirds of Australia derive their name from the fact that the males build elaborate bowers of sticks and twigs to attract females, decorating them with flowers and other vegetation in a display of courtship.

a) the fact that the males build elaborate bowers of sticks and twigs to attract females, decorating them with flowers and other vegetation

b) the elaborate bowers of sticks and twigs that the males build and decorate with flowers and other vegetation in order to attract females

c) the elaborate bowers of sticks and twigs, decorated with flowers and other vegetation that the males use to attract females

d) the fact that the males build elaborate bowers of sticks and twigs, having decorated them with flowers and other vegetation, to attract females

e) the elaborate bowers of sticks and twigs that are built by the males and decorated with flowers and other vegetation to attract females



Cd somebody explain the question? I can't understand the OA?
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Re: The bowerbirds of Australia derive their name from the fact [#permalink]
B) the elaborate bowers of sticks and twigs that the males build and decorate with flowers and other vegetation in order to attract females

I have no queries with regard to the question as clearly option B is the best of the lot.

I really hope if someone could help me with understanding this meaning error with respect to option B.

the elaborate bowers of sticks and twigs that the males build and decorate with flowers and other vegetation in order to attract females.

In the first read, i rejected this option primarily because i read it like Bold face and then the highlighted part which implies that the bowers and twigs males build and decorated.............with flowers and vegetation.
That changed the meaning for me.

I would be grateful, if someone could clear that out for me.
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The bowerbirds of Australia derive their name from the fact that the males build elaborate bowers of sticks and twigs to attract females, decorating them with flowers and other vegetation in a display of courtship.

a) the fact that the males build elaborate bowers of sticks and twigs to attract females, decorating them with flowers and other vegetation – ‘Them’ is ambiguous here, it has no clear referent. Verb+ing modifier ‘Decorating’ is actually modifying preceding clause i. e. the fact that…….

b) the elaborate bowers of sticks and twigs that the males build and decorate with flowers and other vegetation in order to attract females – Concise, Parallel, and in-order-to is correctly placed.

c) the elaborate bowers of sticks and twigs, decorated with flowers and other vegetation that the males use to attract females – ‘That’ modifies vegetation and not bowers.

d) the fact that the males build elaborate bowers of sticks and twigs, having decorated them with flowers and other vegetation, to attract females – ‘Having’ makes a sentence passive and passive constructions are generally not desirable on GMAT. Also -ing are not favorite to GMAT.

e) the elaborate bowers of sticks and twigs that are built by the males and decorated with flowers and other vegetation to attract females – Passive construction. Who is doing ‘Decorating’ ?

Experts please correct or add if something wrong or missing.
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Re: The bowerbirds of Australia derive their name from the fact [#permalink]
Hello

I do not fully align with B here, though we cannot find a better option. The problem I see in B is the use of "That" which reflects back on sticks and twigs. Ideally it should be used in replacement for bowers.

Please correct me if I am wrong.


bsd_lover wrote:
OA is B

The original sentence contains the pronoun "them" but it is not grammatically clear whether the pronoun's antecedent is "bowers of sticks and twigs" or "females." Logically, we know that the antecedent is "bowers", so we need to find a replacement that makes this clear. Moreover, the bowerbird does not derive its name from the fact that it builds bowers, but from the bowers themselves.

(A) This choice is incorrect as it is the same as the original sentence.

(B) CORRECT. This choice rewrites the sentence to make it clear that the name derives from the bowers and not from the fact of building them, and it also eliminates the pronoun "them" and instead refers to "structures" to make the relationship clear.

(C) This choice does not make it clear that the males build the bowers and decorate them. Instead, it seems to suggest that the bowers exist on their own and that the male uses only the flowers and vegetation to attract females.

(D) This choice uses the phrase "having decorated them" improperly. It is not necessary to use "having" in this context because the sentence describes an ongoing event, not one that occurred in the past.

(E) This choice is in the passive voice, which is not preferable to active voice when a grammatical active version (such as B) is also offered. Moreover, the choice implies that the males only build the bowers. Since the original sentence clearly indicates that the males also decorate the bowers, this choice changes the meaning unacceptably.
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Re: The bowerbirds of Australia derive their name from the fact [#permalink]
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rsaahil90 wrote:
Hello

I do not fully align with B here, though we cannot find a better option. The problem I see in B is the use of "That" which reflects back on sticks and twigs. Ideally it should be used in replacement for bowers.

Please correct me if I am wrong.


bsd_lover wrote:
The bowerbirds of Australia derive their name from the fact that the males build elaborate bowers of sticks and twigs to attract females, decorating them with flowers and other vegetation in a display of courtship.

b) the elaborate bowers of sticks and twigs that the males build and decorate with flowers and other vegetation in order to attract females



Here "THAT" acts as a relative pronoun. A pronoun can refer to NOUN PHRASE also.

Here "That" refers to "Bowers of sticks and twigs".

and "THAT" is acting as the object of the sentence.

"Male birds build and decorate bowers of sticks and twigs with flowers in order to attract female" -- this is the meaning here.

"THAT" can be a subordinate conjunction when two ideas can stand alone on its own. But here since we are talking about the prolonged idea ("THAT" act as an object here), "THAT" act as a relative pronoun in this example.
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rsaahil90 wrote:
Hello

I do not fully align with B here, though we cannot find a better option. The problem I see in B is the use of "That" which reflects back on sticks and twigs. Ideally it should be used in replacement for bowers.

Please correct me if I am wrong.


bsd_lover wrote:
OA is B

The original sentence contains the pronoun "them" but it is not grammatically clear whether the pronoun's antecedent is "bowers of sticks and twigs" or "females." Logically, we know that the antecedent is "bowers", so we need to find a replacement that makes this clear. Moreover, the bowerbird does not derive its name from the fact that it builds bowers, but from the bowers themselves.

(A) This choice is incorrect as it is the same as the original sentence.

(B) CORRECT. This choice rewrites the sentence to make it clear that the name derives from the bowers and not from the fact of building them, and it also eliminates the pronoun "them" and instead refers to "structures" to make the relationship clear.

(C) This choice does not make it clear that the males build the bowers and decorate them. Instead, it seems to suggest that the bowers exist on their own and that the male uses only the flowers and vegetation to attract females.

(D) This choice uses the phrase "having decorated them" improperly. It is not necessary to use "having" in this context because the sentence describes an ongoing event, not one that occurred in the past.

(E) This choice is in the passive voice, which is not preferable to active voice when a grammatical active version (such as B) is also offered. Moreover, the choice implies that the males only build the bowers. Since the original sentence clearly indicates that the males also decorate the bowers, this choice changes the meaning unacceptably.


The modifier touch rule may have some exceptions. One of the exceptions is that a mission critical prepositional phrase comes in between the modifier and the noun it modifies. This is such a case:

....bowers of sticks and twigs that.....: it would be very difficult to place the mission critical prepositional phrase of sticks and twigs somewhere else in the sentence - hence such usage is generally accepted.
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One can find a good explanation for the correct use of ‘that and which’ in EducationAisle’s book "Nirvana", which has a chapter on those pronouns.
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