Babies develop audial recognition abilities months before being born : Sentence Correction (EA only)

svijayaug12

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Babies develop audial recognition abilities months before being born [#permalink]

08 Sep 2015, 21:40

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A

B

C

D

E

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56% (02:04) correct

44% (02:12) wrong

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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.

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daagh

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Re: Babies develop audial recognition abilities months before being born [#permalink]

09 Sep 2015, 06:41

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Expert Reply

'Assisting' is parallel to 'lending'. Both are adverbial participles modifying the previous clause and the verb 'develop' in particular.
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Re: Babies develop audial recognition abilities months before being born [#permalink]

16 Feb 2016, 20:39

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svijayaug12 wrote:

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.

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.

svijayaug12

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Re: Babies develop audial recognition abilities months before being born [#permalink]

08 Sep 2015, 21:48

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 ?

svijayaug12 wrote:

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.

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daagh

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Re: Babies develop audial recognition abilities months before being born [#permalink]

08 Sep 2015, 23:46

Expert Reply

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
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justdoitxxxxx

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Re: Babies develop audial recognition abilities months before being born [#permalink]

09 Sep 2015, 01:16

I chose A too. Not good at meaning approach

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thangvietname

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Re: Babies develop audial recognition abilities months before being born [#permalink]

09 Sep 2015, 06:25

assisting
is paralel to what,

do not understand

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sananoor

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Re: Babies develop audial recognition abilities months before being born [#permalink]

16 Feb 2016, 22:10

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

Mvictor please help me with option D...a little more explanation about the usage of "could"
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apjoshua92

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Re: Babies develop audial recognition abilities months before being born [#permalink]

17 Feb 2016, 02:42

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

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Re: Babies develop audial recognition abilities months before being born [#permalink]

19 Feb 2016, 20:35

sananoor wrote:

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

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

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

mahakmalik

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Re: Babies develop audial recognition abilities months before being born [#permalink]

19 Feb 2016, 20:36

sananoor wrote:

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

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

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

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Babies develop audial recognition abilities months before being born [#permalink]

19 Feb 2016, 21:20

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.

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daagh

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Re: Babies develop audial recognition abilities months before being born [#permalink]

06 Mar 2016, 04:05

Expert Reply

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.
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jjsverbal

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Re: Babies develop audial recognition abilities months before being born [#permalink]

06 Mar 2016, 17:51

mahakmalik wrote:

sananoor wrote:

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

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

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

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.

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Doer01

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Re: Babies develop audial recognition abilities months before being born [#permalink]

10 Oct 2018, 07:11

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.
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Sidharth8

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Re: Babies develop audial recognition abilities months before being born [#permalink]

10 Mar 2019, 05:46

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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Re: Babies develop audial recognition abilities months before being born [#permalink]

19 Nov 2023, 23:23

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Re: Babies develop audial recognition abilities months before being born [#permalink]

19 Nov 2023, 23:23

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