For the farmer who takes care to keep them cool, providing them with

dear AndrewN
I have a question.

why provided with high-energy feed, and milked regularly cannot modify cows?

honestly speaking, i picked up E, but I thought provided with high-energy feed, and milked regularly modifies cows,

in this case, "For the farmer who takes care to keep them cool," is a preposition phrase, so I did not pay much attention, and I just focused on the provided with high-energy feed, and milked regularly.... milk each per year., that's why I picked up E and eliminated A.

my interpretation is for a certain group people, cows provided with high energy feed and milked regularly can produce an average of 2,275 gallons of milk each per year.

Andrew, would you please clarify why provided with high-energy feed, and milked regularly cannot modify cows?

At first, none of the answers looks right - this is certainly a high level question. B) and D) cannot be correct, as mentioned above, because the sentence has a plural number of cows ('them') at the beginning of the sentence, and a singular number of cows at the end. A) doesn't look at all promising, because, if you interpret 'takes care', 'providing' and 'milking' to be a list of actions performed by the farmer, you expect parallelism; that is, you expect it to read: "takes care to keep them cool, provides them with high energy feed, and milks them regularly..." Unfortunately none of the answers is parallel in this sense, *so we can't interpret the underlined passage as part of a sequence of actions performed by the farmer*. The underlined passage isn't attached to the beginning of the sentence at all, in fact; it's attached to the end of the sentence. If we simply reorder the words, using what should be the correct answer (that's E), I assume), the meaning should become clear:

Provided with high-energy feed, and milked regularly, Holstein cows will produce an average of 2,275 gallons of milk each per year for the farmer who takes care to keep them cool.

Try to do the same rearrangement with answer A) and you'll see there's a problem.

For the farmer who takes care to keep them cool, providing them with high-energy feed, and milking them regularly, Holstein cows are producing an average of 2,275 gallons of milk each per year.


(A) providing them with high-energy feed, and milking them regularly, Holstein cows are producing

(B) providing them with high-energy feed, and milked regularly, the Holstein cow produces

(C) provided with high-energy feed, and milking them regularly, Holstein cows are producing

(D) provided with high-energy feed, and milked regularly, the Holstein cow produces

(E) provided with high-energy feed, and milked regularly, Holstein cows will produce


Source : GMATPrep Default Exam Pack

For the farmer who takes care to keep them cool, providing them with high-energy feed, and milking them regularly, Holstein cows are producing an average of 2,275 gallons of milk each per year.


(A) providing them with high-energy feed, and milking them regularly, Holstein cows are producing

(B) providing them with high-energy feed, and milked regularly, the Holstein cow produces

(C) provided with high-energy feed, and milking them regularly, Holstein cows are producing

(D) provided with high-energy feed, and milked regularly, the Holstein cow produces

(E) provided with high-energy feed, and milked regularly, Holstein cows will produce


Source : GMATPrep Default Exam Pack

Hi IanStewart so my question is still same, what are the words cool, provided and milked acting as. I think adjectives. But what are they describing? Also, if in E, we would have providing rather than provided and same with milked, that would make it technically correct? right? because all 3 are adjectives (present participles). But when I tried to read it that way it didn't make any sense. "Manages to keep them cool, manages to keep them providing--- and manages to keep them milking"sounds absurd. Can you please comment on it?

Hi Akash,

For the farmer who takes care to keep them cool, providing them with high-energy feed, and milking them regularly, Holstein cows are producing an average of 2,275 gallons of milk each per year.

Well, this question is certainly confusing and not written in the best possible manner. However let’s get into the logic of this sentence. The sentence is saying that for the farmers who takes care of the Holstein cows in certain ways, these cows produce an average of 2,275 gallons of milk each per year. Now here comes the tricky part. The ways in which the farmers takes care of these cows is that he takes care:
a. to keep them cool,
b. to keep them provided with high-energy feed, and
c. to keep them milked regularly.



1. From the original sentence, it is clear that the entities in the list are not parallel. While “cool” is an adjective, “providing…” and “milking…” are working as gerunds (nouns) in this sentence.
2. In case, if you could not figure out the correct parallel list to rectify it, look at the problem this way. “providing…” and “milking…” are the verb-ing modifiers preceded by comma. This means that they are modifying the preceding clause. However, it does not make sense to say that the farmer keeps the cows cool by providing them good feed and by milking them. So these modifiers do not fit here.
3. Also notice the inconsistent verb tenses. This sentence is providing general information about the Holstein cows. Using present continuous tense “are producing” does not make sense here.

POE:

a. providing them with high-energy feed, and milking them regularly, Holstein cows are producing: Incorrect for the reasons stated above.

b. providing them with high-energy feed, and milked regularly, the Holstein cow produces: Incorrect.
1. The verb-ing modifier “providing…” does not make sense as in choice A.
2. The entities in the list are still not parallel.
3. The singular antecedent “the Holstein cow” does not agree in number with plural pronoun “them”.

c. provided with high-energy feed, and milking them regularly, Holstein cows are producing: Incorrect.
1. Verb-ing modifier “milking…” does not make sense.
2. The entities in the list are still not parallel.
3. Use of “are producing” is incorrect.

d. provided with high-energy feed, and milked regularly, the Holstein cow produces: Incorrect. The singular antecedent “the Holstein cow” does not agree in number with plural pronoun “them”.

e. provided with high-energy feed, and milked regularly, Holstein cows will produce: Correct. The use of future “will produce” is correct because we have a causal relationship here. If the farmers take care of the cows in certain ways, then the cows produce certain amount of milk. The cause is written in the simple present. Hence, the effect can be written in either simple present tense or simple future tense.

Hope this helps.
Thanks.
Shraddha

What are "Provided"and "Milked" verb ed modifier or verb itself,and justification for each

For the farmer who takes care to keep them cool, providing them with high-energy feed, and milking them regularly, Holstein cows are producing an average of 2,275 gallons of milk each per year.


(A) providing them with high-energy feed, and milking them regularly, Holstein cows are producing

(B) providing them with high-energy feed, and milked regularly, the Holstein cow produces

(C) provided with high-energy feed, and milking them regularly, Holstein cows are producing

(D) provided with high-energy feed, and milked regularly, the Holstein cow produces

(E) provided with high-energy feed, and milked regularly, Holstein cows will produce


Source : GMATPrep Default Exam Pack

At first, none of the answers looks right - this is certainly a high level question. B) and D) cannot be correct, as mentioned above, because the sentence has a plural number of cows ('them') at the beginning of the sentence, and a singular number of cows at the end. A) doesn't look at all promising, because, if you interpret 'takes care', 'providing' and 'milking' to be a list of actions performed by the farmer, you expect parallelism; that is, you expect it to read: "takes care to keep them cool, provides them with high energy feed, and milks them regularly..." Unfortunately none of the answers is parallel in this sense, *so we can't interpret the underlined passage as part of a sequence of actions performed by the farmer*. The underlined passage isn't attached to the beginning of the sentence at all, in fact; it's attached to the end of the sentence. If we simply reorder the words, using what should be the correct answer (that's E), I assume), the meaning should become clear:

Provided with high-energy feed, and milked regularly, Holstein cows will produce an average of 2,275 gallons of milk each per year for the farmer who takes care to keep them cool.

Try to do the same rearrangement with answer A) and you'll see there's a problem.