Yes, "for the farmer" is a prepositional phrase, and it modifies "Holstein cows". The sentence is really just this: "Holstein cows produce milk for the farmer", with a lot of added description thrown in, but the sentence is confusing (at least it was to me, the first time I read it) because the words are in a very unusual sequence. I think it would be a lot more common to write this kind of sentence in this way:

If they are 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.

or in this way

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

but we have some flexibility with word order in English. Since it's clear what modifies what, there's nothing wrong with the phrasing in the right answer E, even if sentences are only rarely written that way (either on the GMAT or elsewhere).
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Hello HarshaBujji,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, in this sentence the "provided" and "milked" are past participles acting as adjectives; they form a list with the adjective "cool" to refer to the attributes that the farmer gives to Holstein cows.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
Experts' Global Team
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I fell for this one at first. Here, weirdly, providing them with and milking them incorrectly seem to be modifying the prep phrase for the former who takes care of them to be cool or could modify Holstein cows are producing, neither of those options make much sense. If you didn’t fall for it xD, eliminate!


No parallelism, also SV error because them doesn’t agree with Holstein cow. Easy to Eliminate.


Not much better than B, no parallelism. Out.


The SV error in B is back although the parallelism seems ok here. Keep them cool, provided with x and milked y (past participles)


The Parallelism is good here & them agrees with Holstein cows. The use of future tense is also fine because you can show the effect of the cows having been kept cool, milked etc: in the future! E is the answer!

In this we have three modifiers

''provided with high-energy feed, and milked regularly'' these two modify cows

''for the farmers who take care to keep....'' a prepositional modifier. What is it modifying? How does this fit into the construction

is it like we have a 3 modifiers in a row?

No... The structure of the correct sentence is
For the farmer who takes care to keep them...
cool,
provided with high-energy feed,
and
milked regularly,
... Holstein cows will produce an average of 2,275 gallons of milk each per year.

I.e., the farmers keep them cool, keep them provided with high-energy feed, and keep them milked regularly.
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Hello himanshu0123,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, the prepositional "For the farmer who takes care to keep them...regularly" modifies the clause "Holstein cows will produce...per year", providing extra information about the action of the cows producing milk; within this modifier, we have three noun modifiers - "cool" "provided with high-energy feed", and "milked regularly" that act upon the pronoun "them".

We hope this helps.
All the best!
Experts' Global Team
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EMPOWERgmatVerbal EMPOWERgmatRichC - Can you please share your analysis

Hi All,

While this SC is a bit wordy and quirky, it's based on a couple of standard Grammar rules that are not too difficult to spot:

1) Parallelism: The prompt defines 3 tasks for a farmer - so we have to make sure that the 3 tasks are written in parallel 'format.' From the answer choices, we can see some 'gerunds' (re: "-ing" words) sprinkled about, but a gerund is NOT parallel with the first, non-underlined item in the list ("to keep them cool"). Thus, we need the 2nd and 3rd items to be "provided" and "milked." Eliminate Answers A, B and C.

2) Subject-Pronoun agreement: The beginning, non-underlined portion of the sentence uses the pronoun THEM to refer to something that will be kept cool, milked, etc. - so we need a PLURAL noun at some point to match-up with that pronoun. "Cows" is correct here (as opposed to "cow", which is singular). Eliminate Answer D.

Final Answer:

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich
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in A]

1) If I apply parallelism:
who take care to keep ( commom for 3 items below)
i- them cool,
ii- providing them,
iii- milking them

How should I identify grammatical error instead of going by the sound of it?

2) can adjective - 'cool' be parallel to 'providing' as 'cool' is parallel to 'provided' an ed verbal in E]

3) a side question: does comma +ing verbal rule applies in same manner to comma_ed verbal

please share few examples to support your answer.

Hello Anshul1223333,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your queries, if "keep" is taken common to the three elements in the list, we get the verb phrase "keep providing" and "keep milking", thus "providing" and "milking" cannot parallel the adjective "cool" because in these constructions the present participles ("verb+ing") are not acting as adjectives.

Further, no; "comma + present participle ("verb+ing")" does not act in the same way as "comma + past participle"; remember, the introduction of present participle ("verb+ing"- “milking” and "providing" in this case) after comma modifies the entirety of the preceding clause and generally leads to a cause-effect relationship, but "comma + past participle" functions just as any other noun modifier would, modifying the noun just before the comma.

To understand the concept of "Comma Plus Present Participle for Cause-Effect Relationship" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~2 minutes):



All the best!
Experts' Global Team
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ExpertsGlobal5


why 'providing and 'milking' not acting as adjectives in A] but 'provide' milked' acting as adjectives in E]

Hello Anshul1223333,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, "keep + present participle ("verb+ing")" is an active verb phrase, for example, "I keep losing my socks.", but "keep + past participle" is not.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
Experts' Global Team
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@ExpertGlobal5

in A] can we call 'providing' , 'milking' acting as noun gerunds.

as 'loosing' is a gerund in the example you shared below.

Hello Anshul1223333,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, "keep + present participle ("verb+ing")" is an active verb phrase, for example, "I keep losing my socks.", but "keep + past participle" is not.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
Experts' Global Team[/quote]

These are non-parallel.

Parallel structures don't have to match up exactly—it's ok if some of them have, e.g., extra attached modifiers that others don't have—but parallel structures MUST ALWAYS have the same grammatical role overall.
e.g.,
noun || other noun (although they can have varying quantities of modifiers and/or adjectives attached to them)
verb || other verb (although tenses may be different, if the context so requires)
modifier of a noun || another modifier of the noun
etc.

In this breakdown, "providing them" and "milking them" are the same type of grammatical element, but "them cool" is definitely not that type. So these are not valid parallel structures.





Yes.
Consider the absolute requirement stated above (parallel structures need to be the same grammar thing overall).

In the correct version of this sentence,
• "cool" is a modifier of "[keep] them"
• "provided with high-energy feed" is also a modifier of "[keep] them"
• "milked regularly" is a modifier of "[keep] them", too

These are parallel. They're also the only 3 elements you can dig out here that ARE parallel—so even if they "sound weird" to you, they're the right parallel elements by default.
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No.

comma + _ING—with the exception of "including", which you should consider a preposition rather than an _ING form—needs to modify the entirety of the preceding clause.

comma + _ED, on the other hand, often describes only a noun.
In fact, GMAC mostly uses this type of modifier to describe nouns. This is one example from the official guide.
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in A] can we call 'providing' , 'milking' acting as noun gerunds.

in the right answer we have below phrase:

''For the farmer who takes care to keep them cool, provided them with high-energy feed, and milked them regularly, ''


is this a dependent clause? I did not see verb for 'Farmer'?

'FOR' here takes the sense of 'Because'?

It's not a clause. It's a prepositional phrase that begins with the preposition "for."


In this case, "for" doesn't mean "because." It means something more along the lines of "to the benefit of."
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Hi - my question is on (A)

We have comma + verb'ing

Comma + Verb'ing MODIFIES the closest subject and the closest verb.

The closet subject is them (Cows)
Closet verb is the infinitive verb (To keep)