Arctic terns, being true long-distance migrants, they nest in coastal

GOOD question.

At first I chose D and then when I saw the OA, I realized I was wrong. I just felt it was not right about the modify in E. Personally I'm not a native speaker.

However,D is wrong because the predicate isn't parallel. Thxs mejia401.

Arctic terns, being true long-distance migrants, they nest in coastal wetlands of northern Europe but fly south for thousands of miles to spend the European winters in Antarctica.

A Arctic terns, being true long-distance migrants, they nest in coastal wetlands of northern Europe - 2 subjects - Arctic terns and they . Being is awkward here
B Arctics terns are true long-distance migrants, nesting in coastal wetlands of northern Europe, - Wrong modification using Verb- ing . Illogical sentence - usage of but
C Being that they are true long-distance migrants, arctics terns nest in coastal wetlands of northern Europe - Being that they are is redundant and awkward
D Nesting in coastal wetlands of northern Europe, arctic terns are true long-distance migrants - Grammatically correct , but illogical meaning -because of the "but" conjunction
E True long-distance migrants, arctics terns nest in coastal wetlands of northern Europe - Correct

Answer E

Arctic terns, being true long-distance migrants, they nest in coastal wetlands of northern Europe but fly south for thousands of miles to spend the European winters in Antarctica

The basic parallelism we need to search here for correct option is using the keyword in the non-underlined part, i.e. fly
Contenders : (A),(C) & (E).
PoE :
(A) : pronoun "they" is placed far away from "Arctic terns" to which it is referring. Also, the use of "being" is awkward here.
(C) : Although the modifier is placed at correct position, "Being that they are" is wordy construction.
(E) : Proper usage of modifier and follows parallelism (nest ... fly)

Ans: E

The Algorithm for solving this problem is:
1. First, remove the choices using 'being' as a modifier. A and C are gone.
D is antithetical in saying that the birds are long-distance migrants but travel thousands of miles.
B. the IC after 'but' is not parallel to the present participle modifier phrase starting with nesting.
This leaves us with just E, which is error free.

adverbial is the phrase, or word that modifies the main action in the main clause. adverbials can be realized by a noun, an adverb, an adjective phrase, doing-phrase, or do-ed phrase.

in our OA, choice E, a noun phrase works as an adverbial

the meaning of adverbial can be, reason, effect, context and method of the main action.

it is hard to realize weather an adverb can be fit to its main clause. gmat exploit this point on many sc questions.

in many case, the adverb can not be fit logically to the main clause.

in choice b and d, nesting... , an adverb, is not fit logically to the main clause "terns are immigrant".

1. Can we eliminate option D based on "it implies that arctic terns are NESTING at the same time as they are MIGRANTS -- a nonsensical meaning."(BTG forum explanation )?
2. Does verb-ing always needs to be Contemporaneous Action(at the same time)?

3. By 1940, the pilot Jacqueline Cochran held seventeen official national and international speed records, earning them at a time that aviation was still so new for many of the
planes she flew to be of dangerously experimental design.
“Earning” is not the action brought by verb - “held”
But I read (in one of the discussions in GMAT Club) that verb-ing need not always be a result of the main clause action but it can also be the cause? So wouldn't earning act as a cause for action 'held'?

AjiteshArun , GMATNinja , MagooshExpert , GMATGuruNY , VeritasPrepBrian , MartyTargetTestPrep , DmitryFarber , VeritasKarishma , generis , EducationAisle , daagh ,other experts - please enlighten

skywalker


Nesting in coastal wetlands of northern Europe, arctic terns are true long-distance migrants

Nesting in the context is not a verb but simply a verbal known as present participle. It could also be a gerund under very different contexts without a sense of finite tense to it. Let me give some examples.

Sleeping undisturbed in the night, Tom was ready to take up GMAT -- Does it mean he slept undisturbed and took the exam at the same time. NO.

Listening to the melodious songs of Asha, Tom dozed off on the couch.
Can we ask here how he dozed off and still was listening?


No. No. No. In that case what about was listening, has been listening. Would be listening, will be listening. What adds sense of tense is actually the auxiliary verb 'be' or 'was' or 'is' or 'are'.

Staring straight into the eyes, the interviewer tried to explore the mind of the candidate.

Barking loudly at the intruder, the dog woke up everybody in the colony.

Both staring and barking happened in the past.

Incidentally, it may also be remembered that a 'verb-ed, called a past- participle verbal need not indicate pastiness.

Targeted by many aspirants of MBA course, GMAT is a benchmark test.

Situated at the banks of the river Yamuna, and visited by hundreds of thousands of tourists each year, the Taj Mahal is an important milestone in the History tourism of India.


“Earning” is not the action broughtabout by the verb - “held” -- it is certainly not the action of the verb held. How can a verb earn records? It is the Jacque's holding that earned the records. We must not isolate the action from its doer in adverbial modifiers.

egmat
Hi Team Egmat. Could you please help me understand what is the role of the word being in the sentence. Is it incorrect because it is a modifier here?

Correct Option : E

sentence exam on :
1. modifier
2. usage of "BUT"

True long distance migrants, arctic terns nest in coastal wetlands of northern Europe but fly south for thousands of miles to spend the European winters in Antarctica

1. Modifer : True long distance migrants - Arctic Terns
2. BUT - conjuction used to introduce a phrase or clause contrasting with what has already been mentioned

clause 1 : arctic terns nest in coastal wetlands of northern Europe
clause 2 : fly south for thousands of miles to spend the European winters in Antarctica

EducationAisle
Sir,
Why is the usage of Comma+verb-ing incorrect in option B?
What is the meaning that is being conveyed in this one.
Please share your two cents.

More than this being strictly an issue with present participial phrase, a big issue is the absence of parallelism in B.

Notice the structure in B:

...nesting but fly....

At the very least, following would have been better:

...nesting but flying....

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