A study of food resources in the North Pacific between 1989 and 1996

Dear Friends,

Here is a detailed explanation to this question-

Meaning is crucial to solving this problem:
Understanding the intended meaning is key to solving this question; the intended core meaning of this sentence is that the study revealed that creatures of the seabed were suffering because food supplies were dwindling, and they were dwindling possibly as a result of an increase in surface temperatures.

Concepts tested here: Meaning + Idioms + Awkwardness/Redundancy

• When the word “result” is used as a noun, the correct, idiomatic usage is “result + of”, and when “result” is used as a verb, the idiomatic construction is “result + from”.

A: Trap. This answer choice alters the meaning of the sentence through the phrase "suffering from dwindling food supplies"; the construction of this phrase illogically implies that the sea creatures were suffering because of the food supplies; the intended meaning is that the sea creatures were suffering because the food supplies were dwindling. Further, Option A incorrectly uses the unidiomatic construction "result (noun) from"; please remember, when the word “result” is used as a noun, the correct, idiomatic usage is “result + of”, and when “result” is used as a verb, the idiomatic construction is “result + from”.

B: Correct. This answer choice uses the phrase "revealed that creatures of the seabed were suffering because food supplies were dwindling", conveying the intended meaning - that the study revealed the fact that creatures of the seabed were suffering because food supplies were dwindling. Further, Option B correctly uses the idiomatic construction "result (noun) + of". Additionally, Option B is free of any awkwardness or redundancy.

C: This answer choice alters the meaning of the sentence through the phrase "suffering from dwindling food supplies"; the construction of this phrase illogically implies that the sea creatures were suffering because of the food supplies; the intended meaning is that the sea creatures were suffering because the food supplies were dwindling. Further, Option C uses the needlessly wordy and indirect phrase "which were dwindling possibly as a result of increasing", leading to awkwardness and redundancy.

D: This answer choice alters the meaning of the sentence through the phrase "revealed creatures of the seabed"; the construction of this phrase incorrectly implies that the study revealed the existence of creatures of the seabed that were suffering because food supplies were dwindling; the intended meaning is that the study revealed the fact that creatures of the seabed were suffering because food supplies were dwindling. Moreover, Option D further alters the meaning of the sentence through the phrase "suffering from dwindling food supplies"; the construction of this phrase illogically implies that the sea creatures were suffering because of the food supplies; the intended meaning is that the sea creatures were suffering because the food supplies were dwindling.

E: This answer choice alters the meaning of the sentence through the phrase "revealed creatures of the seabed"; the construction of this phrase incorrectly implies that the study revealed the existence of creatures of the seabed that were suffering because food supplies were dwindling; the intended meaning is that the study revealed the fact that creatures of the seabed were suffering because food supplies were dwindling. Further, Option E uses the needlessly indirect and wordy phrase "which possibly resulted from increasing", leading to awkwardness and redundancy.

Hence, B is the best answer choice.

All the best!
Experts' Global Team

One more for B.

a) that creatures of the seabed were suffering from dwindling food supplies, possibly resulting from increasing - suffering from (a disease).WRONG.

b) that creatures of the seabed were suffering because food supplies were dwindling, possibly as a result of an increase in - suffering because (of a reason)

c) that creatures of the seabed were suffering because of food supplies, which were dwindling possibly as a result of increasing - changes the meaning. the creatures were suffering from a lack of food supplies. WRONG

d) creatures of the seabed that were suffering from food supplies that were dwindling, possibly resulting from an increase in - need that. WRONG

e) creatures of the seabed that were suffering because food supplies were dwindling, which possibly resulted from increasing - need that. WRONG

I think the previous posters are correct that the correct answer is B, and that part of the reason that A cannot be correct is that A says the creatures suffered from dwindling food supplies, which doesn't make any sense.

that said, I'll still try to answer your question about "as a result of" vs "resulting from,"

in this sentence, just look at this segment: "... that creatures of the seabed were suffering from dwindling food supplies, possibly resulting from ..."

now remove "of the seabed" and "from dwindling food supplies," to remove some of the clutter of the sentence, because you want to be able to see clearly what the "possibly resulting from" part of the sentence is referring to. that leaves you with "... that creatures ... were suffering ... , possibly resulting from ..."

now you should be able to see pretty clearly that the phenomenon whose cause the sentence is trying to explain is the creatures' suffering, and not the dwindling food supplies. the dwindling food supplies is a secondary point in the sentence. the main issue is the suffering of the creatures. hopefully you can see that when you remove some of the supporting details?

now the question becomes: do creatures suffer as a result of something, or do they suffer resulting from something? only the first choice is correct, because "resulting from" can only be used with a noun, while "as a result of" is used with verbs. since suffer is a verb, "as a result of" must be used.

let me know if you have any questions about that.

This is one of those questions that the GMAC folks have focused on - namely you come down to 2 answer choices but the correct answer choice is the one that makes sense within the sentence - though gramatically both can be correct.

In this case, C does not make sense because creatures of the seabed were NOT suffering BECAUSE of food supplies. They were suffering because the food supplies were DWINDLING.

How the sentence is structured comes to this reasoning, though in speech you may have heard people talking this way. But on the GMAT exam, it's not a sentence that makes sense.

Hi Metallicafan .

Let me see if I interpret your question correctly. You are asking, I believe, how the participial modifiers work with commas.

1. The sea creatures floated merrily along the water, waving their blubbery flippers.

2. The sea creatures floated merrily along the water waving their blubbery flippers.

In the first case, 'waving their...' refers to the subject of the sentence because of the comma between the participial phrase and the noun water. When I remove the comma, as I did in #2, an illogical comparison arises. Now the water is waving blubbery flippers (which, despite the arresting visual, is clearly nonsensical).

In the original question, in answer choice (A) the participial phrase 'possibly resulting' illogically modifies 'creatures'. You allude to this error. It sounds that the MGMAT folks may have been saying that getting rid of the comma would correct this faulty modification: '...were suffering from dwindling supplies possibly resulting from increasing...'. Nevertheless, this phrase sounds a bit awkward and is not as direct as (B).

Hopefully, that somewhat helps .

Thank you Chriss and daagh!
daagh, I have an additional question: In the case of C, could "as a result of increasing" mean also that the food supplies are increasing the temperature?
Let' see: "...because of food supplies, which were dwindling possibly as a result of increasing temperatures..."
Now, let's see this example: She love me as a result of sending love letters and chocolates to her.

In this case, "sending" is not a modifier of "love letters and chocolates".

What do you think? Probably, choice C (and A and E) could also have that ambiguous meaning. Maybe we could undestand that the food supplies are increasing the temperatures. In other words, "increasing" is not a modifier in those choices.

I fully agree that in your example, the word sending is certainly a gerund; However In the case of increasing temps, the expression increasing of temps, would have made it straighter.

If this sentence is flipped it will read as follows: A study of food resources in the North Pacific between 1989 and 1996 revealed that increasing temperatures (an increase in temperatures) during the same period possibly caused the dwindling of food supplies, which in turn caused the creatures of the seabed to suffer. Perhaps, this would make it clear what caused what. As per this, it looks as if the temperatures were the initiators of the whole phenomenon.

But IMO, the prime purpose of this topic, would be to test whether 1. We can make a distinction between increasing temperatures and an increase in temperature and whether 2. We can elicit the necessity of using the connector ‘that’ in a reported text such as this.

IMO B
SOME THEORIES:
-verb-ing =>when followed by a (clause+comma) either modify -whole clause or -show result .
-which =>this can never refer to whole clause it either refers to noun or noun phrase.

A. that creatures of the seabed were suffering from dwindling food supplies, possibly resulting from increasing
WRONG.
-Dwindling food supplies =>it seems that food supplies were dwindling by itself.=>illigical.
-wrong usage of verb-ing after (clause+comma)=>neither showing result of previous clause nor describing previous clause.

B. that creatures of the seabed were suffering because food supplies were dwindling, possibly as a result of an increase in
RIGHT.

C. that creatures of the seabed were suffering because food supplies, which were dwindling possibly as a result of increasing
WRONG.
-The part starting from WHICH WERE..{...}is acting as a modifier..now if you remove this modifier you can easily see that sentence is incomplete hence a fragment.

D. creatures of the seabed that were suffering from food supplies that were dwindling, possibly resulting from an increase in
WRONG.
-Lack of THAT after revealed..(revealed that ...)
-again same as C its a fragment.

E. creatures of the seabed that were suffering because food supplies were dwindling, which possibly resulted from increasing
WRONG.
-use of which is wrong....as we know which cant refer to a CLAUSE hence it is either refering to FOOD SUPPLIES or DWINDLING(not a noun)..in both cases sentence doesnt makes sense.

hence B

I am able to D and E because of missing that.

C is incorrect because of which, its creating a doubt in logic.

I was confused between A and B. So i went with the shorter sentence and Hence selected A. I couldnt find any reason to select the best answer.

Can you please help me in understanding the modifier concept here and how its applied?

Cheers,
Ankur

With pleasure

When ever you see such hugely worded questions, you can remove prepositional phrases, (modifiers in the non-underlined portion) etc, to easily identify the SV pair.

A study of food resources in the North Pacific between 1989 and 1996 revealed that creatures of the seabed were suffering from dwindling food supplies, possibly resulting from increasing sea surface temperatures during the same period.

A) that creatures of the seabed were suffering from dwindling food supplies, possibly resulting from increasing
creatures of the bed were suffering because of some reason. They don't suffer from dwindling food supplies. (you suffer from/with something abstract. You don't suffer from a proper noun)

B) that creatures of the seabed were suffering because food supplies were dwindling, possibly as a result of an increase in
Why were the creatures suffering? because of dwindling food supplies. How did this happen? As a result of an increase in ..
Perfectly fine.

C) that creatures of the seabed were suffering because of food supplies, which were dwindling possibly as a result of increasing
This sentence means that creatures were suffering because of food supplies. The sentence actually means that the creatures were suffering because food supplies are dwindling.

D) creatures of the seabed that were suffering from food supplies that were dwindling, possibly resulting from an increase in
Lot of issues here. Creatures were suffering from food supplies? Absolutely wrong. The modifier is modifying the preceding clause (wrongly)

E) creatures of the seabed that were suffering because food supplies were dwindling, which possibly resulted from increasing
Creatures were dwindling? This isn't the intended meaning.

Dear Ankur,

Choice A is incorrect because of two things: idiom error and meaning error.

1: Idiom: "suffering from dwindling food supplies" is incorrect. From our common understanding of English, it is correct to say that "he suffers from a disease". We do not say "he suffers from hectic life style". We say "he suffers from exertion caused by his hectic life style". Thus, on similar lines, in this sentence saying "creatures suffered from dwindling food supplies" is incorrect. It should be as Choice B indicates, " creatures were suffering because food supplies were dwindling.

2: Meaning: The sentence indicates that creatures suffered because of dwindling food supplies. Now notice the verb-ing modifier - resulting from increasing sea surface temperature. This modifier is separated with a comma, and hence modifies the preceding clause or the action of suffering. Thus, it modifies or provides reason for why creature were suffering from decreasing food supplies - because of increasing sea temperatures. Now this does not make sense. Essentially - creatures suffered because of dwindling food supplies. We already know the reason for the suffering. Thus, this modification is incorrect.

Ideally as in Choice B, "increasing sea surface temperatures" should be the reason for why the food supplies dwindled.

To summarize, choice A conveys an illogical meaning. But from the different parts of this sentence, we were able to infer the correct meaning and choice B clearly communicates that meaning.

Hope this helps

Regards,
Krishna

Hi,
I am sharing my analysis on mentioned question.Request you to review and confirm, if I am on the right track. I appreciate your support.

1.A study of food resources in the North Pacific between 1989 and 1996 revealed something.
2.They revealed that creatures of the seabed were suffering from dwindling food supplies.
3.The dwindling of food supplies was possibly resulted from increasing sea surface temperatures during the same period.

1. 3:2 split by "that creatures" & "creatures".Does it help in making the right choice.
No.

2. What's the issue with the Q? Modifier issue.
What needs to be modified "the dwindling of food prices".

1."resulting from increasing" in A&D are comma + ing modifier so must modify the clause and make sense with the sub of clause. Here the modifier shall modify "dwindling food supplies".
In option A Sub is "creatures" and in D Sub is "food supplies" so both the options are out.

2.Option C:
creatures .. were suffering because of food supplies, which were dwindling possibly as a result of increasing.
"which" correctly modifies "supplies" but makes it a non essential part whereas it should be essential to complete the meaning of sentence.
I doesn't make sense to say "creatures were suffering because of food supplies" so the other is an essential info.

3.Option E:
dwindling, which possibly resulted from increasing. We need to modify "dwindling food prices" not dwindling. Again "which" issue simillar to C. So out.

Correct answer:
B) creatures of the seabed were suffering
because food supplies were dwindling,[Dependent clause]
possibly as a result of an increase in [prepositional modifier modifying the DC]

Hi JarvisR,

That's a very good analysis I must say. Keep up the good work.

However, I would like to add a few points to your analysis.

Well, Choice D and E CAN be rejected because of the absence of "that" before "creatures". Absence of "that" distorts the meaning because per these choice, the study revealed the creatures and not the fact that the creatures were suffering. So we can clearly eliminate Choice D and E for this major distortion in the intended meaning.

You have done an excellent job in describing every answer choice. It's a very thorough analysis. I would just like to add that in Choice E, "which" has been incorrectly used to modify the entire preceding clause "food supplies were dwindling". Note that "were dwindling" is a Verb.

Nonetheless, great job at this one.
SJ

(A) "possibly resulting from increasing" is ambiguous. When you end a sentence with a participial phrase (resulting from .....), the participle can actually modify anything in the sentence, even things that are merely implied. So it can lead to ambiguity if it could logically modify more than one thing, such as creatures OR food supplies. But (B) has none of that ambiguity.

(C) has clumsy meaning: "suffering because of food supplies". The creatures weren't suffering from food supplies, but from DWINDLING food supplies.

@GMATNINJA, Could you help to explain the answer choice? I am stuck between (A), (B) and (C).

A: Wrong. Comma + present participle is technically a verb modifier referring to the main verb of the previous clause. In option A the present participle modifier "possibly resulting from increasing.." should refer to "dwindling". However this modifier wrongly refers to "were suffering". This option wrongly implies that the suffering resulted from increasing temrature, but the intended meaning is that the suffering was due to dwindling food supply, not increasing temparatiure.

C: Wrong. This option wrongly implies that the suffering was due to food supplies. Keeping the word "dwindling" within a subsequent non-essential modifier does not make it clear that the suffering was caused by the "dwindling" itself, not by the "food suppplies".

B: The prepositional phrase modifier ("possibly as a result....") correctly refers to the verb of the previous clause "were dwindling". (Note: Comma + prepositional Phrase modifier can also act as a verb modifier referrong to the verb of the previous clause)

My first comment is about 'from increasing sea surface temps". This meaning is muddled in this expression. Increasing denotes a phenomenon that keeps on going up and ends at the highest at the end of the notified period. Such an infinite activity cannot exist in practice. If we want to say the temps actually increased overall, then the correct expression would be ' increased temps or 'an increase in temps'. Therefore, I will unhesitantly remove A, C and E. D distorts the meaning as though the study revealed the images of pictures of the creatures. B, on the other hand, uses the idiomatic 'that' after the main clause to report the findings of a study and hence is the best answer.

But MGMAT book lists results from as right in its idiom lists.
However, so we can't say "he is suffering from/bcz of low food supply"?