The growth of the railroads led to the abolition of local times, which

It's a bit tricky to answer these questions sometimes, but the main idea behind whether to choose the -ing form or the -ed form this:

When we reduce a verb to its -ing or -ed form, we must look at one and only one thing: whether the noun that it will modify is the subject or object of that verb.

The -ing form is used for DOING the action, which means SUBJECT, which means ACTIVE voice.

The -ed form is used for RECEIVING the action, which means OBJECT, which means PASSIVE voice.

Before I go further, let me offer two examples that will make things clearer as we go along:

speaking person (the -ing form)
spoken words (the -ed form)

In this type of question, we always have two elements:

a particple, which is either in the -ing or -ed form
a noun that is modified by this participle

So, using the previous examples, speaking modifies person and spoken modifies words.

The next step is to realize that these participles all come from verbs--speaking and spoken both come from the verb speak.

Now, using these examples, and applying them to the rules I mentioned at the beginning, we will notice that if we made a sentence, person would be the subject of the verb speak and words would be the object of the verb speak. Using this procedure, we can figure out whether should use the -ing or -ed form of a participle that modifies a noun.

Of course, this is easy when the vocabulary is easy, and we often get confused when we are using difficult vocabulary because we sometimes don't know whether something is the subject or the object of the verb, but this procedure that I have explained is the only sure way to get the right answer.

In our sentence here, "which" replaces "times", and "times" is the object of "determined", but it is the subject of "differed".

In other words, we have something like this:

...somebody determined times...

but

times differing [not differed...]

I know some of you have learned that we should only use the -ing form only for actions that are ongoing/in progress in the present, but that's simply not true. We do occasionally use them correctly for past actions that were ongoing/in progress.

Finally, everybody gets confused simply because the -ed form appears in the second one, making people think the -ed form should appear again when it's reduced. We need to realize that there is truly no connection between the two; it's pure coincidence that each has the -ed form in it

If you stick to the rules that I just wrote, you'll be okay.

The growth of the railroads led to the abolition of local times, which was determined by when the sun reached the observer's meridian and differing from city to city, and to the establishment of regional times.


(A) which was determined by when the sun reached the observer's meridian and differing

(B) which was determined by when the sun reached the observer's meridian and which differed

(C) which were determined by when the sun reached the observer's meridian and differing

(D) determined by when the sun reached the observer's meridian and differed

(E) determined by when the sun reached the observer's meridian and differing

The growth of the railroads led to the abolition of local times, which was determined by when the sun reached the observer’s meridian and differing from city to city, and to the establishment of regional times.
(A) which was determined by when the sun reached the observer’s meridian and differing
(B) which was determined by when the sun reached the observer’s meridian and which differed
(C) which were determined by when the sun reached the observer’s meridian and differing
(D) determined by when the sun reached the observer’s meridian and differed
(E) determined by when the sun reached the observer’s meridian and differing

How to choose between d&e

can we say then that meaning superseds grammer ?

.........yes indeed, otherwise what is the point of language if we cant convey the right information!

Hi guys,
The growth of the railroads led to the abolition of local times, which was determined by when the sun reached the observer's meridian and differing from city to city, and to the establishment of regional times.



• The growth of the railroads led to
o the abolition of local times, and
o the establishment of regional times.
• Two characteristics of local times have been mentioned in the sentence:
o they were determined by when the sun reached the observer’s meridian, and
they differed from city to city.



In option D and E, don't we have a clause without a subject?

1. Singular verb “was” does not agree in number with plural subject “local times”. SV must agree in number error.

2. Also “was” seem to be the verb for “abolition of local times”, meaning abolition was determined by when the sun reached the observer’s meridian. This is certainly not the intended logical meaning of the sentence. Meaning error.

3. The two characteristics of “local times” must be parallel to each other. Here, “which was determined by when the sun reached the observer’s meridian” (a clause) is not parallel to “differing from city to city” ( a verb-ed modifier phrase). Parallelism error.

POE:

(A) which was determined by when the sun reached the observer's meridian and differing: Incorrect. Errors discussed above.

(B) which was determined by when the sun reached the observer's meridian and which differed: Incorrect. Same SV number agreement and meaning errors as in A.

(C) which were determined by when the sun reached the observer's meridian and differing: Incorrect. Same parallelism error as in A.

(D) determined by when the sun reached the observer's meridian and differed: Incorrect. “determined by when the sun reached the observer's meridian” (a verb-ed modifier) is not parallel to “differed from city to city” (a verb phrase). Notice here that “determined” is not a verb here. It is a verb-ed modifier that is modifying “local times”. If it were a verb, ther would be no comma before it and the subject and the verb would be connected properly.

(E) determined by when the sun reached the observer's meridian and differing: Correct. “determined by when the sun reached the observer's meridian” (a verb-ed modifier phrase) is parallel to “differing from city to city” (a verb-ing modifier phrase). Both the modifiers are correctly presenting the characteristics of “local times”. Refer to OG 12#42 to see how verb-ing and verb-ed modifiers can be parallel to each other.



1. SV pair must always agree in number.
2. SV pair must always make sense together.
3. In a list of parallelism, all the entities must be grammatically as well as logically parallel.

The concepts tested in this sentence have been covered in e-gmat concepts:
1. Level 1 - SV - Agree in Number (This concept features in Level 1 Preview Concepts that are available for free. Just register and learn.)
2. Level 2 - SV - Make Sense
3. Level 1 - Parallelism - Identify and Correct
4. Level 1 - Parallelism - Helpful Tips

You can also review our article on this topic by clicking on the following link:
verb-ed-verb-ing-can-be-parallel-126923.html

Hope this helps.
Thanks.
Shraddha