Dinesh654 wrote:
Hello experts
ReedArnoldMPREPCan we say, in choice D, the structure is parallel?
wale having been beached on an African shore more than a million years ago and subsequently butchered by hominids
I don't think the sentence is parallel,
1. "having been beached" is verb?- some people are saying its not- why not ? it looks like a verb to me, its just that its passive voice.
2.butcherd by hominoids, I think this one is not a verb, "was butchered" can be a verb.
butchered is just a modifier to me.
Am I correct?
I rejected this because the sentence wasn't parallel to me. Am I correct on which one is verb and which one is not?
Technically, 'having been beached' and 'butchered' are parallel. They are both what are called 'participles'--modifiers that come from verbs. --ing modifiers are called 'present participles' and ---ed modifiers are called past participles (...and I suspect that 'having [done]' modifiers are called 'present perfect participles,' but I don't actually know...). These look like verbs, and come from verbs, but don't function as verbs in the sentence (--ing words always need 'help' to be a verb. See this blog post:
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog/verb-confusion-gmat/)
Your reasons for why 'butchered' is not a verb are similar to the reasons why 'having been beached' is not a verb. "Have been beached" is a verb. "Has been beached" is a verb. But "having been beached" is not. "The whale having been beached." is not a sentence.
The problem with D is that modifier 'having been beached' doesn't make sense for a few reasons. First and foremost, 'been peached' is a passive construction, and 'beached' doesn't make sense passively in this instance. A 'boat' can be beached, because I can 'beach' the boat--meaning I can drive the boat onto the sand and get it stuck. But nobody and no thing 'beached' the whale. The whale beached itself, meaning, it swam up onto the beached and could not swim back. "Having been kicked, the ball..." that works, because someone kicked the ball. "Having been beached" changes the story to something that doesn't work.
The other issue with D is that present-perfect 'having been.'
"Having pre-heated the stove, he began to cook dinner." That works. It tells me that the pre-heating took place before he cooked. This is an adverbial modifier--it describes the action. "Having" as a noun modifier doesn't work like that. It's hard for me to pinpoint exactly why... For one, let's take out the incorrect passive 'been beached' and consider:
"Fossils of a whale having beached... have been gathered."
The 'having beached' modifier should tell me that this thing happened before, but linked to, the action (as pre-heating a stove happens before but is linked to cooking dinner). But in this case, the WHALE is what beached, and the FOSSILS are what are dated. So the 'having beached' modifier doesn't link to the verb in the right way.
Further,
"Fossils of a whale having beached the shore and subsequently butchered by hominids have been gathered."
This is trying to make clear the 'beaching' took place shortly before the 'butchering,' which makes sense, but as you note 'butchered' isn't actually a verb, so the 'having beached' modifier doesn't link to that.
Much better: "Fossils of a whale that beached and subsequently was butchered have been gathered."
The 'subsequently' tells me the butchering happened shortly after the beaching.
Finally... I virtually never advise using commas to keep or eliminate answer choices, BUT... You will never separate a subject from its (first) verb with only one comma.
The structure of D is: "Fossils of a whale [long modifier], have been recovered."
This is wrong. I should do: "Fossils of a whale, [long modifier], have been recovered." or "Fossils of a whale [long modifier] have been recovered."