About 5 million acres in the United States have been invaded by leafy spurge, a herbaceous plant from Eurasia with milky sap that gives mouth sores to cattle, displacing grasses and other cattle food and rendering rangeland worthless. (A) States have been invaded by leafy spurge, a herbaceous plant from Eurasia with milky sap that gives mouth sores to cattle, displacing grasses and other cattle food and rendering (B) States have been invaded by leafy spurge, a herbaceous plant from Eurasia, with milky sap, that gives mouth sores to cattle and displaces grasses and other cattle food, rendering (C) States have been invaded by leafy spurge, a herbaceous plant from Eurasia having milky sap that gives mouth sores to cattle and displacing grasses and other cattle food, rendering (D) States, having been invaded by leafy spurge, a herbaceous plant from Eurasia with milky sap that gives mouth sores to cattle, displaces grasses and other cattle food, and renders (E) States, having been invaded by leafy spurge, a herbaceous plant from Eurasia that has milky sap giving mouth sores to cattle and displacing grasses and other cattle food, rendering https://www.nytimes.com/1998/06/09/science/rootin-shootin-raiders-conquer-native-ground.html LEAFY SPURGE . About five million acres in 26 states, including New York, have been invaded by leafy spurge, an herbaceous plant from Eurasia with milky sap that gives mouth sores to cattle and displaces grasses and other cattle food, rendering range land worthless. Ranchers tried putting sheep on spurge-infested range. Although they eat the plant, they do not kill it and there is not enough of a market for sheep wool and meat. So about 13 insects have been imported to help control it. Dr. Neal Spencer, an entomologist at a Department of Agriculture research laboratory in Sidney, Mont., said flea beetles had been most effective. The adult beetles feed on the leaves and their larvae mine the roots. Leafy Spurge (A) Modifier / Meaning ( displacing ) (B) CORRECT (C) Modifier ( displacing ) (D) Subject-Verb / Meaning ( displaces, renders ) (E) Structure; Parallelism ( X and Y ) First glance The opening split is between States have been and States, having been. In the former, the verb is in main-verb form; in the latter, the verb form is a modifier. Examine sentence structure and modifiers. Issues (1) Modifier / Meaning: displacing Structure; Parallelism: X and Y First, a warning: This is an extremely difficult problem. If you were able to eliminate a couple of answer choices before you guessed, you can feel good about this problem. The underlined portion consists of a series of modifiers. The original sentence contains a pair of parallel comma –ing modifiers: displacing … and rendering . These should modify the main action of the clause to which they are attached—in this case, the sap that gives mouth sores to cattle . The fact, however, that the plant’s sap … gives mouth sores to cattle is not what displaces grasses and other cattle food . Rather, this plant is invasive—it grows everywhere and takes over. That is why it has displaced other grasses. Eliminate choice (A) for faulty modifier meaning. Choices (C) and (E) also use the –ing word displacing so check them for similar issues. Answer (C) uses the parallel structure having … and displacing . The having portion disguises the later issue; remove it and look at just the second part of the parallel structure: (C) a plant from Eurasia … displacing grasses and other cattle food, rendering rangeland worthless The first –ing form, displacing , is no longer preceded by a comma, so it is a noun modifier in this sentence. That part might be okay. The word rendering , though, is still a comma –ing , so it still needs to refer to a clause. Displacing is not a verb, though; it’s a modifier. To what clause is the rendering modifier referring? The main clause says that 5 million acres have been invaded by leafy spurge ; it could be acceptable to say that this is what rendered the rangeland worthless, though the modifier is awfully far from the clause to which it refers. Typically, modifiers should be placed close enough to what they’re modifying that you don’t have to think so hard about it. Compare this to choice (B): in that choice, the spurge displaces grasses and other cattle food, rendering rangeland worthless . This structure is much more specific and clear: if you get lose grasses and cattle food, then rangeland (meant to feed cattle) definitely does lose its value. Eliminate choice (C) for an ambiguous comma –ing modifier. Answer (E) has two issues jumbled together. First, and displacing needs some other parallel word to match before the and . There are two possible –ing words ( having or giving ), but this highlights an even bigger issue: where is the main verb for the subject 5 million acres ? Having is not a main verb, nor is giving , displacing , or rendering . Has milky sap describes the plant , not the 5 million acres . There is no main verb for the main subject of the sentence. Eliminate choice (E) because it is a sentence fragment . (2) Subject-Verb / Meaning: displaces, renders The issues described above for choice (E) may help you to spot the error in choice (D). What is the main verb for 5 million acres in this choice? The only verbs that could qualify are displaces and renders , but these are both singular verbs, while the subject 5 million acres is plural. Eliminate choice (D) for faulty subject-verb agreement . The Correct Answer Correct answer (B) fixes the modifier issues in other choices by having the comma –ing modifier rendering … refer to the clause that … displaces grasses and other cattle food . Gives and displaces are properly parallel. The with milky sap phrase seems very odd. On hard questions, it’s not uncommon for there to be an element that seems wrong or sounds funny; the test writers are trying to give you a reason to cross off the correct answer. As mentioned earlier, this is an extremely difficult problem. If you were able to eliminate some choices, particularly (D) and (E), before you guessed, you can feel good about this problem even if you did not guess correctly. Just be careful not to spend too much time on a problem like this one; guess and move on.

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About 5 million acres in the United States have been invaded by leafy

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Hi MartyTargetTestPrep DmitryFarber - I asked another verbal expert this question. I was just curious about your thoughts as well (if you perhaps have another perspective. If not, thats fine as well)

In option B - Would you agree that the X marker (yellow highlight in my image) and the Y marker (green higlight in my image) do NOT point back logically point back to the same noun ?

The X marker (yellow highight) refers to Milky Sap obviously

The Y marker (Green highlight) SHOULD NOT refer to Milky Sap. The Y marker logically points back to the subject [a herbaceous plant] instead based on logic (Reason:
[ Milky Sap by itself CANNOT displace grass nor can Milky Sap by itself displace other cattle food NOR can the act of Milky Sap giving cows mouth sores result in anyway in the act of displacing grass]

So you have an X marker referring to one noun (milky sap) and the Y marker referring to another noun (a herbaceous plant)

Isn't that from a construction perspective, strange when it comes to parallelism ?

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jabhatta2

Hi jabhatta2.

Since both "gives" and "displaces" appear in the same relative clause, the subject of both of them is "that."

The pronoun "that" must refer to one referent, not to different referents at different times.

Because only a plant, not milky sap, would displace grasses, the only logical referent of "that" is "herbaceous plant."

Accordingly, it is the "herbaceous plant" that "gives mouth sores" and "displaces."

So, all good.

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egmat

Hi Shraddha Thanks for clarification.

I have one question for choice B. "that" after the non-vital modifier "with milky sap" what does it refer to?
Because in one of my questions, when i choose a choice that had "that" modifier separated from the noun by a non-vital modifier (as with choice B for the questions), i was marked wrong, So i rejected choice B for this question.
"that" also needs to be repeated before "displace grasses...."

Can you please help clarify the doubt/concept.

Thanks

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Adi280728

Hello Adi280728,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, "that" refers to the noun "leafy spurge"; remember, when “that” is preceded by a comma, it refers to the noun that precedes the earlier comma.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
Experts' Global Team.

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Hi experts,

I understand??the discussion around Choice B per empowergmatverbal's words that "rendering" doesn't need to be parallel to the other two here because it is being used to indicate that #1 and #2 on the list lead to #3 happening, so it's okay to keep it the way it is.

However, for Choice A:??Why can't "displacing grasses and other cattle food and rendering rangeland worthless" dually modify "a herbaceous plant from Eurasia with milky sap that gives mouth sores to cattle" together?????

I can see how #1 and #2 lead into "rendering rangeland worthless", but is there a rule around two -ing modifiers together joined by a connector word (e.g., and) not being able to modify a clause before the comma???

I am still also slightly confused by the difference in meaning here between Choices A and B. How do we know that points #1 and #2 definitely??lead to #3???

Thank you for bearing with me

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woohoo921

The key thing to notice here is that what the (A) version conveys doesn't make sense.

Here's the (A) version:

About 5 million acres in the United States have been invaded by leafy spurge, a herbaceous plant from Eurasia with milky sap that gives mouth sores to cattle, displacing grasses and other cattle food and rendering rangeland worthless.

Now, let's break out the part you're concerned with:

a herbaceous plant from Eurasia with milky sap that gives mouth sores to cattle, displacing grasses and other cattle food and rendering rangeland worthless

To see why this is incorrect, notice that "milky sap that gives mouth sores to cattle, displacing grasses and other cattle food" doesn't make sense because it conveys that, by giving mouth sores to cattle, milky sap displaces grasses and other cattle food. After all, milky sap would not displace grasses by giving cattle mouth sores.

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MartyTargetTestPrep

Thank you so much for your response.
To clarify, if the sentence read as follows: "States have been invaded by leafy spurge, a herbaceous plant from Eurasia, with milky sap, displacing grasses and other cattle food and rendering rangeland worthless." Would "displacing...worthless" modify "with milky sap"? Essentially, are you allowed to have two -ing mods offset by one comma modifying this part of the sentence?

Thank you again.
Why can't "displacing grasses and other cattle food and rendering rangeland worthless" dually modify "a herbaceous plant from Eurasia with milky sap that gives mouth sores to cattle" together??

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RonPurewal

a student recently asked me about this question.

this question serves well to illustrate one of the most important features of GMAT SC: if you stay focused on FUNDAMENTALS — and stay aware of the common-sense INTENDED MEANING of the sentence (which you should always figure out as the very first step of any SC problem), you'll be able to solve the vast majority of SC problems — even the "hard" ones — without needing to consider anything beyond those basics.

for this problem, all we need is overall structure, parallelism, and the usage of comma + __ing modifiers (= the single most commonly tested type of modifier in GMAT SC).

.

OVERALL STRUCTURE:

the cue to think about overall structure is the difference between "HAVE been invaded" (a VERB), in choices A/B/C, and "HAVING been invaded" (a MODIFIER), in choices D/E.
(if you see this kind of difference, then one version MUST be wrong. if the verb works, then the modifier will create a sentence fragment with no verb; if the modifier works, then the verb will create a run-on sentence with two verbs "stuck together".)

here, choices D/E are not sentences — they're fragments, with no main verb.
eliminate these.

choices A/B/C, on the other hand, ARE constructed as legitimate complete sentences.

.

PARALLELISM & COMMA __ING modifiers:

each of choices A/B/C puts different elements in parallel. these choices also construct the comma + __ing modifier differently.
to decide which version is correct, we'll need to appeal to common-sense meaning.

CHOICE A:
in this choice, the comma + __ing modifier has two parts (which are written in parallel): "displacing grasses and other cattle food and rendering rangeland worthless".
this modifier implies that BOTH of these __ing's modify "gives mouth sores to cattle" (the action of the preceding clause).
this is NONSENSE — it's clearly not possible for "displacing grasses and other cattle food" to be any sort of reasonable description or immediate consequence of the mouth sores.
eliminate.

CHOICE B:
this choice puts two actions in parallel: "gives mouth sores to cattle and displaces grasses and other cattle food". also, comma + "rendering rangeland worthless" modifies "displaces grasses and other cattle food" (= the preceding action).
all of this MAKES SENSE!
• the parallel verbs are two DIFFERENT/SEPARATE things that leafy spurge does;
• "rendering rangeland worthless" is an IMMEDIATE CONSEQUENCE of the displacement of food, and thus makes sense as a modifier of that action.
CORRECT ANSWER

CHOICE C:
this choice puts two modifiers in parallel: "having milky sap that gives mouth sores to cattle and displacing grasses and other cattle food".
this is NONSENSE.
in this sentence, the parallel elements SHOULD be the TWO ADVERSE ACTIONS of leafy spurge:
• it gives mouth sores to cattle,
• it displaces cattle food.
these items are NONparallel here. instead, this choice uses a parallel structure to connect two items that just don't make any sense as "two bullet points".
eliminate.

RonPurewal
Thanks for the amazing explanation.
Can I have few official examples where we can apply this rules, please?

fyi, I did not see any answer options like the highlighted part in C!

Here you go for the official questions, please...

Quote:

About 5 million acres in the United States have been invaded by leafy spurge, a herbaceous plant from Eurasia with milky sap that gives mouth sores to cattle, displacing grasses and other cattle food and rendering rangeland worthless.

(A) States have been invaded by leafy spurge, a herbaceous plant from Eurasia with milky sap that gives mouth sores to cattle, displacing grasses and other cattle food and rendering
(B) States have been invaded by leafy spurge, a herbaceous plant from Eurasia, with milky sap, that gives mouth sores to cattle and displaces grasses and other cattle food, rendering
(C) States have been invaded by leafy spurge, a herbaceous plant from Eurasia having milky sap that gives mouth sores to cattle and displacing grasses and other cattle food, rendering
(D) States, having been invaded by leafy spurge, a herbaceous plant from Eurasia with milky sap that gives mouth sores to cattle, displaces grasses and other cattle food, and renders
(E) States, having been invaded by leafy spurge, a herbaceous plant from Eurasia that has milky sap giving mouth sores to cattle and displacing grasses and other cattle food, rendering

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NinetyFour

I have a question regarding the "milky sap" modifier here. In answer choice A, it seems like the milky sap is the one that causes mouth sores, but in answer choice B, the meaning changes and it is now the plant that causes the mouth sores. Because of this meaning choice I selected A, could someone briefly go over why my thought process was incorrect?

Sorry, I'm maniacally late to the party here, but I'll throw in my two cents anyway, even though it's probably too late to be useful.

You're certainly right that (B) changes the meaning of the sentence, but this is not a reason to eliminate an answer choice. You can eliminate an answer choice if it creates an illogical meaning, but just “changing” the meaning isn’t necessarily a crime.

In this case, the question-writer doesn't expect us to come in with any prior information about leafy spurge, so the question about whether it's the plant or the sap that causes the sores can't be the deciding factor. We need to look for other, more concrete decision points.

Take another look at (A):

Quote:

…states have been invaded by leafy spurge, a herbaceous plant from Eurasia with milky sap that gives mouth sores to cattle, displacing grasses and other cattle food and rendering…

As several smart people have noted, this construction makes it sound as though "displacing grasses" is a consequence of the milky sap giving mouth sores to cattle. How would giving mouth sores to cattle make grass disappear? This makes no sense. And because this modification is illogical, (A) is out.

Takeaway: if one of the answer choices changes the original meaning, but it's better, that's a good thing.

I hope that helps!

GMATNinja, I was just crazy before seeing this explanation, now I am calm. I as a non-native speaker did not see the words like 'leafy spurge', 'milky sap' in any text books in my study life! So, GMAC is not crazy at all-they will not force us to choose on the basis of these terms, I guess. I thought so this sorta things can't be a deciding factor.
Thank you sir.

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KarishmaB GMATNinja
would be so appreciative for an expert's response

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woohoo921

Thank you so much for your response.
To clarify, if the sentence read as follows: "States have been invaded by leafy spurge, a herbaceous plant from Eurasia, with milky sap, displacing grasses and other cattle food and rendering rangeland worthless." Would "displacing...worthless" modify "with milky sap"? Essentially, are you allowed to have two -ing mods offset by one comma modifying this part of the sentence?

Thank you again.
Why can't "displacing grasses and other cattle food and rendering rangeland worthless" dually modify "a herbaceous plant from Eurasia with milky sap that gives mouth sores to cattle" together??

KarishmaB GMATNinja
would be so appreciative for an expert's response

There is one main point that helps us arrive at the correct answer here - the 'ing modifier' separated by a comma at the end of a clause modifies the ACTION of that clause.

Consider the structure of option (A):

A is done by B, a plant with sap that does C, displacing ... and rendering ...
Here 'displacing' and 'rendering' must modify the action of the preceding clause - 'that does C.' It does not modify 'A is done by B'.
So 'displacing and rendering' are the effects of 'sap does C'. But that is not logical.

The effect of 'milky sap gives mouth sores to cattle' cannot be 'displacing grasses and other cattle food.' We could debate that 'rendering wasteland worthless' could be the result of 'milky sap gives mouth sores to cattle' but certainly not 'displacing grasses ...'

That makes option (A) incorrect.

Now, it makes more sense to me to say 'milky sap that gives mouth sores to cattle' but 'a plant that gives mouth sores to cattle' is also acceptable.
So structure of (B) is:
A is done by B, a plant, with milky sap (a non essential modifier so let's remove it), that gives mouth sores and displaces grasses, rendering rangeland worthless.
A is done by B, a plant that gives mouth sores and displaces grasses, rendering rangeland worthless.

The effect of the action(s) of the previous clause is 'rendering rangeland worthless' and that is acceptable. If a plant gives mouth sores to cattle and displaces grasses, it, in effect, renders rangeland worthless.

That is why (B) is better suited.

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egmat GMATNinja

Is it safe to ignore/cross-out the modifiers? In this case, if ignoring/crossing-out the modifiers is safe, I can ignore the modifier "a herbaceous plant from Eurasia with milky sap that gives mouth sores to cattle", which seems to modify the leafy spruge. Hence, displacing... and rendering... can correctly modify leafy spurge. Please guide me.

Thank You

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Sahil2208

It's often useful to temporarily ignore the modifier(s) in order to analyze the sentence structure, etc.

But once you've done that, you HAVE to put the modifier(s) back in and make sure the sentence is logical. In other words, you can never completely ignore or "cross out" modifiers.

Plenty of posts in this thread explain why (B) is better than (A), but let us know if you're still having trouble!

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Tanchat

Dear Experts,

I read all posts in this forum. But I am still confused (C) and (B).

I can eliminate D & E because
D - It doesn't make sense that an area displaces by itself
E - Fragment
A - Eliminate because displacing and rendering

But I don't understand why C is incorrect. For me, C is better than B

I understand what the sentence intends to convet.
US have been invaded by leafy spurge. Leafy spurge has milky sap. milky sap gives mouth sores to cattle. This leafy spurge displaces grasses and other cattle food. Therefore, These make rangeland worthless

(C) - conveys this meaning.

(B) changes the meaning. Leafy spurge if-self (not milky sap) gives mouth sores to cattle. Also, For me, ", with milk sap, that.... " is awkward.

Could any expert explain me (B) and (C)

Let's take a look at the apparent parallelism in (C). Ignoring the prepositional phrase ("from Eurasia"), we have, "a herbaceous plant from Eurasia (1) having milky sap that gives mouth sores to cattle and (2) displacing grasses and other cattle food..."

Let's jump right to the second part: "[a herbaceous plant] displacing grasses and other cattle food..."

So leafy spurge is a plant displacing grasses and other cattle food? What exactly does that mean?
In this context, the -ing form of displacing seems to suggest that this action is going on only temporarily -- that the plant is currently displacing grasses/other cattle food but that this doesn't happen all the time.
If that doesn't make sense, think of this example: "The man yelling in the street has attracted a lot of attention." Here, "yelling in the street" is not a characteristic of the man; the man is not always yelling in the street. Instead, the man is currently yelling in the street and will presumably stop at some point.
But is the plant only displacing grasses/other cattle food right now? Will it stop displacing grasses/other cattle food sometime in the near future??
That doesn't make much sense. "Displacing grasses and other cattle food" is a characteristic of the plant -- something the plant constantly does. If you put that plant anywhere with grasses, the plant will presumably start displacing those grasses. That's what the plant does.
So it makes more sense to say, "a herbaceous plant THAT displaces grasses." This construction properly suggests that displacing grasses is something that the plant does by nature.

The first part ("a herbaceous plant having milky sap") isn't great, either. I don't see why we would want to use the "-ing" form of "to have" here. You wouldn't say, "I bought a computer having 8GB of RAM." Instead, you would say, "I bought a computer that has 8 GB of RAM." Again, the "-ing" form seems to suggest that the "having" is temporary condition instead of a lasting characteristic, and that doesn't make sense in this context.

Now, please don't misinterpret that as some sort of made-up rule that "-ing" modifiers can ONLY be used to describe temporary conditions -- that's certainly not true.

Consider this example:

facing southeast

This is fine because the reader KNOWS that this is not a temporary action -- a house doesn't face southeast one moment and then suddenly rotate! (Well, maybe Elon Musk has a rotating house, but most houses stay put.)

On the other hand, "displacing grasses" might be a temporary action or a permanent characteristic of the plant. So IN THIS CONTEXT, the "-ing" modifiers aren't ideal. The parallel structure in (C) might LOOK okay, but it creates a couple of weird meaning issues.

Also, notice that in (C) we have an "-ing" modifier ("rendering") that modifies the parallel set of "-ing" modifiers ("a herbaceous plant having milky sap and displacing grasses and other cattle food"). This causes additional confusion because the reader might initially think that the third "-ing" modifier ("rendering") is part of that parallel list ("having {...} and displacing...").

(B) avoids all of those issues, making the meaning much clearer. (C) might not have any clear-cut grammar mistakes, but (B) is definitely the better choice.

I hope that helps!

This is what I was wondering, thanks.

The official exam review gives the reason for this being incorrect that 'Having and displacing should not be expressed in parallel form since the first is a permanent characteristic of leafy spurge and the second refers to an effect of the plant's invasion.' My understanding of parallelism didnt include this. I thought we first assess the grammatical function, and then we can apply the root method i.e. look at each parallel item adjacent to the root. To my mind C passes both these checks. But I did not know if the two things in parallel are different in their purpose this means they cannot be parallel.

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23 May 2023, 05:07

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Hi experts!

I'm convinced that B is a perfect sentence itself, but as GMATNinja pointed out, the relative clause 'that gives...' now modifies 'a herbaceous plant...' instead of 'milky sap'. It would make more sense, indeed, but it is changing the original meaning, isn't it

I'm quite confused about this...

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23 May 2023, 05:47

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Elodie00die

I'm quite confused about this...

Original sentence says:

..that gives mouth sores to cattle, displacing grasses...

Now, if you think that "that" is intended to modify "milky sap" in the original sentence, then the original sentence is basically conveying that "milky sap" displaces grasses. This doesn't make sense; it is the "herbaceous plant" that displaces grasses.

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18 Jun 2023, 09:44

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Elodie00die

I'm quite confused about this...

One small thing that might be part of the issue: there's nothing special about answer choice (A), and we are absolutely NOT required to maintain to the "original" meaning suggested by choice (A). You're looking for the answer choice that does the best job of conveying a logical meaning -- and that's it. If (B) is more logical than (A), it's your winner.

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RonPurewal

CHOICE B:
this choice puts two actions in parallel: "gives mouth sores to cattle and displaces grasses and other cattle food". also, comma + "rendering rangeland worthless" modifies "displaces grasses and other cattle food" (= the preceding action).
all of this MAKES SENSE!
• the parallel verbs are two DIFFERENT/SEPARATE things that leafy spurge does;
• "rendering rangeland worthless" is an IMMEDIATE CONSEQUENCE of the displacement of food, and thus makes sense as a modifier of that action.
CORRECT ANSWER

RonPurewal, GMATNinja, AjiteshArun, GMATGuruNY, HaileyCusimano, MartyMurray,
Hello Sir, It would be great help if you clarify the issue, please.
Does the comma + "rendering rangeland worthless" modifies only "displaces grasses and other cattle food" or it modifies ''gives mouth sores to cattle and displaces grasses and other cattle food'' simultaneously as the and connects both gives and displaces?

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