Babies develop audial recognition abilities months before being born

Question

Babies develop audial recognition abilities months before being born, lending credence to the notion that prenatal exposure to classical music can aid in intellectual development and  apparently assisting newborns, who cannot yet visually recognize shapes and colors, in distinguishing their own mothers from those of others.

(A) apparently assisting newborns, who cannot yet visually recognize shapes and colors, in distinguishing their own mothers from those of others
(B) apparently assisting newborns that cannot yet visually recognize shapes and colors in distinguishing their own mothers
(C) assisting apparent newborns, who cannot yet visually recognize shapes and colors, in distinguishing their own mothers from those of others
(D) apparently assisting newborns, who could not yet visually recognize shapes and colors, in distinguishing their own mothers
(E) apparently assisting newborns, who cannot yet visually recognize shapes and colors, in distinguishing their own mothers from others.

svijayaug12 · Answer

With the general notion to quickly recognize comparison sentences to use "those of", I guess most of us would select the option (A).

Any tips on how to quickly recognize such meaning based questions ?

daagh · Answer

One clue could be that the unborn babies logically need to distinguish their mothers from others and not from the mothers of others. Just distinguishing mother without indicating distinguishes from whom is also inadequate. We have distinguish ‘mothers from’ others only in D

justdoitxxxxx · Answer

I chose A too. Not good at meaning approach

thangvietname · Answer

assisting
is paralel to what,

do not understand

daagh · Answer

'Assisting' is parallel to 'lending'. Both are adverbial participles modifying the previous clause and the verb 'develop' in particular.

mvictor · Answer

tough one...
the question begins with babies who develop audio recognition abilities before being born
then we have 2 ing modifiers that describe how babies develop
1. lending...
2. apparently assisting..

since we need 2 ing modifiers, and since apparently needs to be an adverb, we can eliminate right away C.
A - distinguishing their own mothers from THOSE of others - those refers to mothers - illogical so out.
B - newborns THAT - for people only who/whom is correct.
D - COULD - subtle error, I almost picked D.
E - looks good. the ambiguous THOSe from A is removed so E is the best.

sananoor · Answer

D - COULD - subtle error, I almost picked D.

Mvictor please help me with option D...a little more explanation about the usage of "could"

apjoshua92 · Answer

An exemplary example of why we should FOCUS on meaning rather than crib about grammar all the time! Babies have to distinguish between their mothers and others and not  other mothers .

mahakmalik · Answer

Please explain why D is wrong?Could cannot be used beacuse...........?

mahakmalik · Answer

Please explain why D is wrong?Could cannot be used because...........?

kizashish · Answer

D is also wrong because it has idiom error. Correct idiom is "distinguish X from Y".

Could is wrong because the sentence is in present tense and "could" is simple past.

daagh · Answer

In D, “in distinguishing their own mothers” may absurdly mean that the newborns have more than one mother or even distinguishing their own mothers from other babies’ mothers. D is misleading.

jjsverbal · Answer

Aside from the idiom approach, think carefully about its meaning.

"apparently assisting newborns, who could not yet visually recognize shapes and colors, in distinguishing their own mothers"

That babies develop audial recognition assists babes in distinguish their mothers. What do babies need to distinguish their mothers from?
The sentence in quotes leaves us with the impression that something is missing. Don't you think? 
To add, the use of past tense "could" cannot be justified here, I would insist, because we want to talk about an attribute of newborns, something that is neither circumstantial nor changeable. A newborn cannot visually recognize shapes and colors. This is a fact.

Doer01 · Answer

Hi Folks,
 In the given sentence, “lending credence to the notion that prenatal exposure to classical music can aid in intellectual development” is modifying the main clause “Babies develop audial recognition abilities months before being born”.

Second part is a modifying clause as well and should be parallel in structure to the first. Option E is shows a perfectly parallel structure.
lending credence ............information.......in intellectual development
apparently assisting newborns, ......modifier ..., in distinguishing their own mothers from others.

Thanks.

Sidharth8 · Answer

A is needlessly wordy.
B ‘that’ is the wrong pronoun to apply to ‘newborns’
C applies the adjective ‘apparent’ to newborns, instead of the adverb ‘apparently’ to ‘assisting’. This changes the meaning of the sentence significantly.
D ‘who could not’ suggests that there are newborns who can visually distinguish their mothers from others and that is not something that the original sentence suggests

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Babies develop audial recognition abilities months before being born

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Babies develop audial recognition abilities months before being born

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