While working in a Zoo, Michelle saw a monkey, climbing a tree

Question

While working at Zoo,  Michelle saw a monkey, climbing a tree and carrying a baby.

(A) Michelle saw a monkey, climbing a tree and carrying a baby.

(B) Michelle saw a monkey, climbing a tree and that carried a baby.

(C) Michelle, carrying a baby, saw a monkey climbing a tree.

(D) Michelle saw a monkey climbing a tree and carrying a baby.

(E) Michelle saw a monkey with a baby, climbing a tree.

babuvgmat · Answer

While working at Zoo,  Michelle saw a monkey, climbing a tree and carrying a baby. 
(1) Michelle saw a monkey, climbing a tree and carrying a baby.  -- says Michelle climbing a tree ; incorrect modifier 
(2) Michelle saw a monkey, climbing a tree and that carried a baby.  -- same as A; incorrect modifier 
(3) Michelle, carrying a baby, saw a monkey climbing a tree.  -- grammatically correct but meaning differs from intended 
(4) Michelle saw a monkey climbing a tree and carrying a baby.  -- climbing and carrying correctly refers to monkey ; OA   
(5) Michelle saw a monkey with a baby, climbing a tree.  -- Again Climbing refers to Michelle , incorrect modifier

bhartiyaayus · Answer

The answer should be D.

(1)Michelle saw a monkey, climbing a tree and carrying a baby. - It looks like Michelle is climbing a tree
(2) Michelle saw a monkey, climbing a tree and that carried a baby. - that is not right here
(3) Michelle, carrying a baby, saw a monkey climbing a tree. - It looks like Michelle is carrying a baby
(4) Michelle saw a monkey climbing a tree and carrying a baby. - Right
(5) Michelle saw a monkey with a baby, climbing a tree. - Baby is climbing a tree

Nick90 · Answer

As per concise sentence structure , D seems to be correct. As per meaning C seems to be correct. confused :shock:

other options have modifier/reference issue.

Abhishek009 · Answer

Will go with (D)

(C) changes the intended meaning of the sentence though grammatically correct , it states that Michelle was carrying a baby , but the original sentence tries to state that the monkey was carrying a baby.

Will love to know the OE for this one... :-D

Nick90 · Answer

Will go with (D)

(C) changes the intended meaning of the sentence though grammatically correct , it states that Michelle was carrying a baby , but the original sentence tries to state that the monkey was carrying a baby.

Will love to know the OE for this one... :-D

[/quote} yes you are right, initially i thought Michelle was carrying a baby and she saw monkey climbing the tree. assuming that GMAt sentences are not just ordinary , I will go with D because Michelle was working in the zoo ......she should't be carrying the baby :lol:

varundixitmro2512 · Answer

I will also go for D

climbing a tree and carrying a baby should modify monkey and these two modifiers should come immediate after the noun i.e monkey and that too without "," as use come will make the modifier modify Michelle rather than monkey.

ynk · Answer

+1 for D.

Michelle saw a monkey climbing a tree and carrying a baby.
Perfect parallelism.(Climbing and Carrying)
Perfect meaning.(Michelle saw monkey climbing..)
No ambiguity.
Concise.

chetan2u · Answer

Hi,

the Q tests on Modifier and VERB+ing modifier in particular..
Verb+ING modifier modifies te preceding noun and with COMMA, it modifies the previous clause and the SUBJECT of the preceding clause..

here C and D are correct grammatically..
However C changes the meaning of the sentence.
D is correct and concise both grammaticaly and meaning wise

iamanorwhal · Answer

While working at Zoo, Michelle saw a monkey, climbing a tree and carrying a baby.

(A) Michelle saw a monkey, climbing a tree and carrying a baby.
(B) Michelle saw a monkey, climbing a tree and that carried a baby.
(C) Michelle, carrying a baby, saw a monkey climbing a tree. 
 (D) Michelle saw a monkey climbing a tree and carrying a baby. - Correct 
(E) Michelle saw a monkey with a baby, climbing a tree.

shonakshi · Answer

While working at Zoo, Michelle saw a monkey, climbing a tree and carrying a baby.

(A) Michelle saw a monkey, climbing a tree and carrying a baby.

(B) Michelle saw a monkey, climbing a tree and that carried a baby.

(C) Michelle, carrying a baby, saw a monkey climbing a tree.

(D) Michelle saw a monkey climbing a tree and carrying a baby.

(E) Michelle saw a monkey with a baby, climbing a tree.

Show Answer

Official Answer

D

mikemcgarry · Answer

Dear shonakshi I'm happy to respond. :-)

My friend, once again, I am going to ask you to spell out explicitly what you understand and what you do not understand about this question, in accordance with this blog article: Asking Excellent Questions I will also say that this is a self-made question by a user, so it is not the highest quality question. This is not a particularly GMAT-like question in a variety of ways. Does all this make sense? Mike :-)

rohitrawat9990 · Answer

D is correct

A. incorrect
,+V+ing modifiers wrongly used...

B incorrect 
same error as A and also violates parallelism

C changes the intended meaning

D Correct

E incorrect

Ving modifier error...

Sent from my iPhone using  GMAT Club Forum mobile app

carcass · Answer

I agree with  mikemcgarry .

I admire the effort to produce verbal quesions. That say, is a lot more difficult to craft verbal ones than quant ones.

However, you should be really careful especially with the tags. They identify unequivocally a question when a student performs a search on the board. As such, this is not a medium/upper level i.e. 600/700 level. So we need to be careful when tagging a question.

Thank you for your collaboration.

Regards

jaisonsunny77 · Answer

While working at Zoo, Michelle saw a monkey, climbing a tree and carrying a baby.

(A) Michelle saw a monkey, climbing a tree and carrying a baby. - here, the 3 verbs (saw, climbing, and carrying) are in parallel- This kind of a structure effectively allows us to assume that it is the same subject that is performing each of the three verb actions. In the context of this sentence, this universal subject idea does not make sense. Hence, eliminate (A).

(B) Michelle saw a monkey, climbing a tree and that carried a baby. - Has a parallelism error here. Hence, eliminate (B).

(C) Michelle, carrying a baby, saw a monkey climbing a tree. - (C) conveys that it was michelle who was carrying the baby, not the monkey. (C) therefore changes the intended meaning of the sentence. Hence, eliminate (C).

(D) Michelle saw a monkey climbing a tree and carrying a baby. - the 2 verbs in parallel are 'climbing' and 'carrying'; both these verbs are commanded by the same subject 'monkey'. This makes complete sense. hence, (D) is the right answer choice here.

(E) Michelle saw a monkey with a baby, climbing a tree. - the -ing word 'climbing' tries to modify the 'baby' as if to convey that it is the baby that tried to climb the tree, and not the 'older' monkey. This changes the intended meaning of the sentence. Hence, eliminate (E).

if you find this explanation helpful, please do give it a kudos.

rishovnits91 · Answer

While working at Zoo, Michelle saw a monkey, climbing a tree and carrying a baby.

(A) Michelle saw a monkey, climbing a tree and carrying a baby.
-ing participles are modifying Michelle and not monkey and so this usage (comma) is incorrect.

(B) Michelle saw a monkey, climbing a tree and that carried a baby.
- Placement of that is incorrect here. Use of comma is also incorrect for reasons mentioned in A.

(C) Michelle, carrying a baby, saw a monkey climbing a tree.
-Carrying a baby is a misplaced modifier.

(D) Michelle saw a monkey climbing a tree and carrying a baby.
 - Correct Usage.

(E) Michelle saw a monkey with a baby, climbing a tree.
climbing a tree seems to modify the baby which is not correct here.

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While working in a Zoo, Michelle saw a monkey, climbing a tree

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GMAT Sentence Correction (SC - EA only) Questions

While working in a Zoo, Michelle saw a monkey, climbing a tree

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