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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could anyone explain how A is wrong?

Thank you for your brilliant explanation. I have a few questions which I can use your help with. My questions are mainly about verb-ing modifier.
In the wrong answer choice A, you pointed out that both displacing and rendering would refer to the action, in the preceding clause, gives. That leads me wonder why we cannot do the same for the following sentence, for which your team has offered excellent explanation.

As a result of record low temperatures, the water pipes on the third floor froze, causing the heads of the sprinkler system to burst, then releasing torrents of water offices on the second floor.
My question here is that why releasing cannot modify the action, similarly in the preceding clause, to burst. Especially as you mentioned that

"Verb-ing modifiers
1. When separated by comma modifies the preceding clause
2. When not separated by comma modifiers the preceding noun or noun phrase
"

My question is that which action or part of the sentence or which action the verb-ing modifiers refer to?

Looking forward to your reply.

Best regards,
Li

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Is the use of 'having been' always incorrect? If not, where all can we use it ?

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Is the use of 'having been' always incorrect? If not, where all can we use it ?

Nope, it's not always incorrect, though you don't see it in correct answers all that often.

Here's a snippet from one of our old chat transcripts on this topic. Full transcript is available here: https://gmatclub.com/forum/verbal-chat- ... l#p1869642

Quote:

Q: Can you provide an explanation on the usage of 'having + verb'

A: The quick version is that ""having + verb" ("having been", "having studied," "having eaten," etc.) is sort-of just another "-ing" modifier, but the timeline has to be correct.
Just like any other "-ing" modifier, it has to make sense with the noun it modifies. But the added twist is that the timeline has to make sense, too. The "having + -ing" has to occur before some other action. Sort of like past perfect tense.

1) Having been sick all day today, Amber called in sick to work this morning. --> Here’s the problem: the timeline is wrong in #1. The "having + verb" needs to be the first action, followed by another action. That’s not happening here. Logically, she wasn’t sick "all day today" before she called in sick this morning.

2) Having eaten dinner already, Amber immediately began drinking heavily at the dinner party. --> This one actually gets the timeline right. She ate dinner first, and then started drinking at the dinner party. That’s perfectly fine logically.

To be honest, I can’t think of any official questions that use this "having + verb" construction in a correct answer. It’s not inherently wrong, but GMAT doesn’t seem to use it much. In that sense, it’s sort of like "being" -- mostly used in wrong sentences, but there’s no reason why it couldn’t be used correctly.

I hope this helps!

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sobby

In B , it seems like "that" is pointing to Eurasia not milky sap..
If B is correct,can some please justify usage of that here..

Comma + that is worrying me in option B ...

Posted from my mobile device

Hello sobby,

I would be glad to help you resolve your doubt.

Let me bring in here the sentence with Choice B:

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 and displaces grasses and other cattle food, rendering rangeland worthless.

In the above-mentioned sentence, it is the phrase with milky sap that has been enclosed between two commas. If we were to remove this phrase from the sentence, we would also remove the comma before with and the comma after sap. Hence, it is not so that the that clause is preceded by a comma.

The placement of the phrase with milky sap between the two commas implies this is just an additional information. The milky white sap does not necessarily give mouth sore to the cattle. It is the plant that does so.

Now let's talk about how that correctly modifies the noun entity a herbaceous plant. There is no issue in that modifying a herbaceous plant because the phrase from Eurasia modifies a herbaceous plant and cannot be placed anywhere else in the sentence. Here we see the case of a noun modifier modifying a slightly far away noun. We have a detailed article named Noun Modifiers can Modify slightly far away noun that deals with this concept. This article can be reviewed in the following link:
https://gmatclub.com/forum/noun-modifiers-can-modify-slightly-far-away-noun-135868.html

Hope this helps.

Thanks.
Shraddha

Hi Shraddha,

Nice to read your answer. I also chose B because I have same logic with you, except the modifier " that gives mouth sores to cattle and displaces grasses and other cattle food". IMO, this modifier modifies for milky sap.

I don't understand why above modifier modifies for "leafy spurge". If we summarize the sentence, it should be "About 5 million acres in the United States have been invaded by leafy spurge with milky sap that gives mouth sores to cattle and displaces grasses and other cattle food, rendering...".

Please correct if I'm wrong. Thanks.

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hellosanthosh2k2

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, logically it should refer to leafy spurge. Because in one of my questions, when i chose a choice that had "that" modifier seperated 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. I am kind of mis-guided.

Can you please help clarify the concept.

Thanks

Hello hellosanthosh2k2,

I apologize for answering this question so late. But as they say better late than never,

The noun modifier that in the correct answer choice refers to a little far-away noun entity leafy spurge. Take a good look at the structure of Choice B. Whenever that is used to modify the immediate preceding noun entity, it is NEVER separated with that entity with a comma.

But in this choice, here is a comma between milky sap and that. Basically, both the modifiers - a herbaceous plant from Eurasia and with milky sap - are enclosed between commas because they just provide some additional information about the leafy spurge that are not crucial to core meaning of the sentence.

Hence, the noun modifier that jumps over the preceding modifiers and modify leafy spurge.

Please review our very famous article Noun Modifiers can Modify slightly far away noun to learn when noun modifiers can modify a slightly far-away nouns by clicking on the following link:
https://gmatclub.com/forum/noun-modifiers-can-modify-slightly-far-away-noun-135868.html

Hope this helps.

Thanks.
Shraddha

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egmat
I have a question. You wrote " The comma + verb-ing modifier displacing has been turned to simple present tense verb displaces. The comma + verb-ing modifier rendering correctly modifies the preceding action displaces, presenting the result of this action. Because the leafy spurge displaces grasses and other cattle food, it renders rangeland worthless. "
But I thought in correct ssentence "rendering" modifies its previous clause's two actions that are "gives mouth.. " and "displaces". However, from your sentence it seems to me that only "displaces" is the reason.So I feel confused. If two verb are jointed by and, will modifier only modify last verb?!

Posted from my mobile device

Hello rma26,

I apologize for answering this question so late. But as they say better late than never.

Per the rule, the comma + verb-ing modifier modifies the IMMEDIATE preceding action. So if there are two verbs associated with and, as we see in this official sentence, the comma + verb-ing modifier will modify the closest action.

This is the reason why in this official correct sentence, comma + rendering... modifies the closest action displaces.

Following correct official sentence is another example of the same usage:

To map Earth's interior, geologists use a network of seismometers to chart seismic waves that originate in the earth's crust and ricochet around its interior, traveling most rapidly through cold, dense regions and more slowly through hotter rocks.

Hope this helps.

Thanks.
Shraddha

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26 Dec 2017, 15:15

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gwaitforitmat

Hello gwaitforitmat,

I apologize for answering this question so late. But as they say better late than never,

Usage of the word then is very important in Choice D.

It seems to suggest that some entity first caused something and then released torrents of water. This the reason why comma + releasing... does not modify to burst.

Hope this helps.

Thanks.
Shraddha

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thingocanhnguyen

Hello thingocanhnguyen,

I would be glad to help you with this one.

Please pay attention the meaning of the sentence.

Per he context of the sentence, we may think that the milky sap gives mouth sores to cattle. However, there is no confusion in understanding that leafy spurge displaces grasses and other cattle food.

Now look at the structure of Choice B. The verb gives and displaces are parallel and must belong to the same subject. The subject for these two verbs is that.

So logically, that must refer to leafy spurge because both the verbs make sense with this subject. It is absolutely logical to say that leafy spurge gives mouth sores to cattle, may be because of the milky sap it has.

In addition, whenever that is used to modify the immediate preceding noun entity, it is NEVER separated with that entity with a comma.

But in this choice, there is a comma between milky sap and that. Basically, both the modifiers - a herbaceous plant from Eurasia and with milky sap - are enclosed between commas because they just provide some additional information about the leafy spurge that are not crucial to core meaning of the sentence.

Hence, the noun modifier that jumps over the preceding modifiers and modify leafy spurge.

Hope this helps.

Thanks.
Shraddha

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Updated on: 04 Jun 2018, 08:09

Originally posted by mcelroytutoring on 19 Apr 2018, 18:06.
Last edited by mcelroytutoring on 04 Jun 2018, 08:09, edited 2 times in total.

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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

This is perhaps the worst official GMAT SC question I have ever seen: the OA of B is still the best choice due to verb parallelism / meaning issues, but it is wordy and horribly punctuated.

Sometimes on the GMAT, the "best" choice is pretty darn far from the perfect version.

My perfect version: About 5 million acres in the United States have been invaded by leafy spurge, a herbaceous plant from Eurasia with milky sap, which gives mouth sores to cattle, displaces grasses and other cattle food, and renders rangeland worthless.

Also, in the 2018 OG the phrase "a herbaceous plant from Eurasia" is in italics in Choice B for some reason.

-Brian

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Full disclosure: I totally got punked by this one during our last verbal chat. Join us for the next one! https://gmatclub.com/forum/verbal-chat- ... 78-20.html I mean, it's fun to see a guy with an 800 get embarrassed, right?

As some others have pointed out, this one is all about the intersection of structure and meaning. (And there are already some excellent explanations here, but, well, I promised to write one as penance, so here you go.)

Quote:

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

I really only notice two things in (A). "That gives mouth sores to cattle" seems to modify "milky sap", and I guess that's OK.

But then at the end of the sentence gives us a pair of parallel "-ing" modifiers, "displacing grasses... and rendering rangeland worthless." And what do they modify?

Hold that thought. We'll come back to that in a second.

Quote:

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

OK, so the added commas around "with milky sap" change things just a tiny bit: "that gives mouth sores to cattle and displaces grasses..." now clearly modifies "a herbaceous plant from Eurasia." Hm, that makes a lot of sense.

And now "rendering" clearly modifies the preceding clause, "that gives mouth sores to cattle and displaces grasses and other cattle food." That also makes a lot of sense: rangeland is rendered useless by this evil plant that gives mouth sores to cattle and displaces their food sources.

Back to (A), then:

Quote:

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

So wait: in (A), it's the milky sap that gives the mouth sores to cattle -- not the leafy spurge itself, as (B) would indicate. In that sense, (B) seems to be a slightly better choice. It's a bigger problem, presumably, if the entire plant gives mouth sores to cattle.

More importantly: "displacing grasses and rendering rangeland useless", would generally modify the preceding clause. And that's pretty illogical in (A): "that gives mouth sores to cattle" has absolutely nothing to do with "displacing grasses." And in that sense, (B) is much clearer.

So (A) is gone. And the rest are easier to eliminate:

Quote:

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

Parallelism in (C) is clearly wrong: "... and displacing grasses" is parallel to what, exactly? "Having milky sap", I guess? That's a mess. We can comfortably eliminate (C).

Quote:

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

I really don't love "having been invaded" in this case. In general, "having + verb" needs to be the first of two actions, and that's just not happening here. (For more on this topic, see our last chat transcript.)

Also, the parallelism at the end of the sentence isn't ideal: "... with milky sap that gives mouth sores to cattle, displaces grasses..., and renders rangeland worthless." The sap displaces grasses? That doesn't make sense. (D) is gone.

Quote:

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

(E) is similar to (D): "having been" doesn't seem quite right, and "giving mouth sores to cattle" is parallel to "displacing grasses", suggesting that the milky sap displaces grasses -- and that doesn't make sense. (E) is gone, too, and (B) is our winner.

egmat

Hello hellosanthosh2k2,

I apologize for answering this question so late. But as they say better late than never,

Thanks.
Shraddha

egmat

Hello rma26,

I apologize for answering this question so late. But as they say better late than never.

Per the rule, the comma + verb-ing modifier modifies the IMMEDIATE preceding action. So if there are two verbs associated with and, as we see in this official sentence, the comma + verb-ing modifier will modify the closest action.

This is the reason why in this official correct sentence, comma + rendering... modifies the closest action displaces.
Following correct official sentence is another example of the same usage:

To map Earth's interior, geologists use a network of seismometers to chart seismic waves that originate in the earth's crust and ricochet around its interior, traveling most rapidly through cold, dense regions and more slowly through hotter rocks.

Hope this helps.

Thanks.
Shraddha

mcelroytutoring

This is perhaps the worst official GMAT SC question I have ever seen: the OA of B is still the best choice due to verb parallelism / meaning issues, but it is wordy and horribly punctuated.

Sometimes on the GMAT, the "best" choice is pretty darn far from the perfect version.

My perfect version: About 5 million acres in the United States have been invaded by leafy spurge, a herbaceous plant from Eurasia with milky sap, which gives mouth sores to cattle, displaces grasses and other cattle food, and renders rangeland worthless.

Also, in the 2018 OG the phrase "a herbaceous plant from Eurasia" is in italics in Choice B for some reason.

-Brian

AjiteshArun , GMATNinja , mikemcgarry , egmat , sayantanc2k, RonPurewal , DmitryFarber , MagooshExpert , ccooley , GMATNinjaTwo , mcelroytutoring , daagh , other experts -- please enlighten.

1.In OA - B , that modifies a herbaceous plant from Eurasia or leafy spurge? I understand that "THAT" CAN'T refer to "with milky sap" since its enclosed between commas.

2. The below is the perfect version stated by mcelroytutoring -
About 5 million acres in the United States have been invaded by leafy spurge, a herbaceous plant from Eurasia with milky sap, which gives mouth sores to cattle, displaces grasses and other cattle food, and renders rangeland worthless.
Is the parallelism here okay?

3. In OA- B, the verb-ing modifier rendering modifies the preceding verb displaces or both the verbs gives and displaces that are parallel ?
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 and displaces grasses and other cattle food, rendering rangeland worthless

Please refer to highlighted parts of the answers quoted as it contains a few contradictory answers.

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Skywalker18

AjiteshArun , GMATNinja , mikemcgarry , egmat , sayantanc2k, RonPurewal , DmitryFarber , MagooshExpert , ccooley , GMATNinjaTwo , mcelroytutoring , daagh , other experts -- please enlighten.

Hi Skywalker18!

Skywalker18

1.In OA - B , that modifies a herbaceous plant from Eurasia or leafy spurge? I understand that CAN'T refer to "with milky sap" since its enclosed between commas.

The sentence is saying: leafy spurge = herbaceous plant with milky sap. So "milky sap" is technically modifying "plant", which in turn is part of a noun phrase modifying "leafy spurge".

Skywalker18

2. The below is the perfect version stated by mcelroytutoring -
About 5 million acres in the United States have been invaded by leafy spurge, a herbaceous plant from Eurasia with milky sap, which gives mouth sores to cattle, displaces grasses and other cattle food, and renders rangeland worthless.
Is the parallelism here okay?

Yes, the parallelism here works

We can interpret "gives...", "displaces...", and "renders..." as all modifying "leafy spurge", and so the parallelism here is consistent and makes sense.

Skywalker18

3. In OA- B, the verb-ing modifier rendering modifies the preceding verb displaces or both the verbs gives and displaces that are parallel ?
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 and displaces grasses and other cattle food, rendering rangeland worthless

Here, "rendering" is modifying the whole phrase: "gives mouth sores to cattle and displaces grasses and other cattle food".

I hope that helps!

-Carolyn

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08 Jun 2018, 19:32

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Let me simply say this: it's questions like these that make me feel better about having scored "only" 48/51 in Verbal (1 wrong) instead of a perfect 51.

Not every GMAC official question is fully fair or perfectly written, especially on Verbal, and this "leafy spurge" question is a great example of that. Luckily, you can get around 5 wrong on Verbal and still earn a 96% score of V42 (around 3 or fewer wrong for 99% or above: V45+).

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16 Dec 2018, 10:52

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GMATNinja daagh egmat EducationAisle
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.

if i remove this bold underlined part considering it as non essential modifer,then sentence will read as:

About 5 million acres in the United States have been invaded by leafy spurge, displacing grasses and other cattle food and rendering rangeland worthless.

So i am stuck here:

the result of action of invasion is displacing and redering so makes sense.

Now displacing and rendering should make sense with the doer of the action "have been invaded"

so who is doer in this case?

Subject is 5 million acres but doer as pe rme is leafy sponge bcz it does action of invasion but doer is subject .Right?

So if doer is 5 million acres,then rendering dioesnot make sense but if doer is leafy sponge ,it does.So can u please clear me how to find doer?

And if i write sentence as:

Leafy spurge have invaded about 5 million acres in the United States , displacing grasses and other cattle food and rendering rangeland worthless.

This is correct?

bcz subject/doer is leafy sponge and it is displacing and rendering.Right?

Please clarify my doubt of doer in original sentence.

And yes i read in one of doubt clarification posts,

comm+verbing modifies nearest verb so modies gives here.Is it a rule?

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17 Dec 2018, 05:34

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@vanam

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.

if i remove this bold underlined part considering it as non essential modifer,then sentence will read as:

About 5 million acres in the United States have been invaded by leafy spurge, displacing grasses and other cattle food and rendering rangeland worthless.

So i am stuck here:

the result of action of invasion is displacing and redering so makes sense.

Now displacing and rendering should make sense with the doer of the action "have been invaded"

so who is doer in this case?

Subject is 5 million acres but doer as pe rme is leafy sponge bcz it does action of invasion but doer is subject .Right?

So if doer is 5 million acres,then rendering dioesnot make sense but if doer is leafy sponge ,it does.So can u please clear me how to find doer?

And if i write sentence as:

Leafy spurge have invaded about 5 million acres in the United States , displacing grasses and other cattle food and rendering rangeland worthless.

This is correct?

bcz subject/doer is leafy sponge and it is displacing and rendering.Right?

Please clarify my doubt of doer in original sentence.

And yes i read in one of doubt clarification posts,

comm+verbing modifies nearest verb so modies gives here.Is it a rule?

1. In terms of overall sense, the doer, in this case, is the weed plant. However, the problem here is the passive voice sentence. Therefore, we have to go out of the box and fix the real doer. The five million acres of land is only a cover-up subject rather than real. I think you have that correctly.

2. It may be ok to mask the parenthesis temporarily for a clear understanding, but for the sake of structure, please do not remove the modifier while considering the previous clause.

3. Yes. Structurally, the verb+ing should modify the previous verb namely 'gives.'

Nevertheless, common sense (which is the Supreme Court) disqualifies it because it does not make sense.

The take away is that one should be worldly-wise and down-to-earth in the verbal section because isn't it verbal reasoning after all?
In the given case, it will be worthwhile to read Ninja's painstaking explanation as many times as one would need and put up the Golden Explanation given by Ron in a placard in one's bedroom so that one can see it as the last thing before going to bed and see it once again as the first thing in the morning when getting up.

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13 Jan 2019, 05:14

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In the original sentence with milky sap tends to modify Eurasia, Can we say this?

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17 Jan 2019, 22:13

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GMATNinja

Quote:

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

Quote:

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

Quote:

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

Quote:

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

Parallelism in (C) is clearly wrong: "... and displacing grasses" is parallel to what, exactly? "Having milky sap", I guess? That's a mess. We can comfortably eliminate (C).

Quote:

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

Quote:

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

GMATNinja... could you please explain the correct sentence or structure in which "Having been" would be correct. I understand it needs to be the first of two actions but i want to see how this same sentence would look like if we were to to use - Having been.

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19 Jan 2019, 23:11

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raghavrf

In the original sentence with milky sap tends to modify Eurasia, Can we say this?

raghavrf , belated reply, sorry.

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

No, "milky sap" does not modify Eurasia.
Although a modifier should be as close to the noun as possible, if an essential modifier such as "from Eurasia" intervenes,
then the modifier (with) can "reach back" over the preposition to modify the noun.

The essential modifier "trumps" the non-essential one.
Further, the prepositional phrase cannot be placed elsewhere.

milky sap modifies a plant [from Eurasia]

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19 Feb 2019, 10:09

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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?

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10 Mar 2019, 18:13

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Hiee , can anyone explain

In the correct ans B.

how we can use displaces as the verb to grasses ?

Posted from my mobile device

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10 Mar 2019, 20:13

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Akshi123

Hiee , can anyone explain

In the correct ans B.

how we can use displaces as the verb to grasses ?

Posted from my mobile device

Quote:

Correct answer B in the sentence
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 and displaces grasses and other cattle food, rendering rangeland worthless.

Hi Akshi123 - welcome to GMAT Club!

displaces is not the verb for grasses
displaces is the verb for that
that is the relative pronoun for leafy splurge

displaces needs a direct object
displaces WHAT?
displaces grasses and other cattle food.

grasses and other cattle food are direct objects of the verb displaces

leafy splurge/that . . . displaces . . . and gives . . .

leafy splurge (singular) . . .
that (singular)
(1) gives mouth sores to cattle
and
(2) displaces grasses and other cattle food

. . . leafy splurge~~, a herbaceous plant from Eurasia,~~ ~~with milky sap,~~ that gives [mouth sores to cattle] and displaces [grasses and other cattle food],
rendering rangeland worthless.

Hope that helps.

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