First discovered more than 30 years ago, Lina's sunbird, a

Question

60. First discovered more than 30 years ago, Lina's sunbird, a four-and-a-half-inch animal  found in the Philippines and that resembles  a hummingbird, has shimmering metallic colors on its head; a brilliant orange patch, bordered with red tufts, in the center of its breast; and a red eye.

A. found in the Philippines and that resembles
B. found in the Philippines and that, resembling
C. found in the Philippines and resembling
D. that is found in the Philippines and it resembles
E. that is found in the Philippines and that, resembling

what's wrong with a?

sudish · Answer

Here's the explanation.

The given sentence has nested modifiers that diminishes the readability of the sentence. Hence, our first aim should be to eliminate as many modifiers/modifying phrases/clauses as possible.

The various phrases/clauses are listed below:
First discovered more than 30 years ago
a four-and-a-half-inch animal
found in the Philippines
resembles a hummingbird
has shimmering metallic colors on its head

Note that we do not need to consider the part after the semicolon as it can stand on its own.

So, we need to concentrate on the following part mainly
Lina's sunbird, a ...animal, found in the Philippines and that resembles a hummingbird

We know that any two parts of a sentence joined by 'and' should be parallel or equal
Hence we see that -
Lina's sunbird ... found in the Philippines, has shimmering ... --> is correct
whereas - Lina's sunbird ... that resembles a hummingbird, has shimmering ... --> is incorrect
The correct option should have been - Lina's sunbird ... resembling a hummingbird, has shimmering ...

Hence, looking at the available options, it's quite clear that the option C has a correct usage
i.e. Lina's sunbird ... found in the Philippines and resembling a hummingbird, has shimmering ...

All other answer choices have used incorrect parallelism.

Hope this helps

Cheers!

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First discovered more than 30 years ago, Lina's sunbird, a

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