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605-655 Level|   Grammatical/Rhetorical Construction|   Grammatical/Rhetorical Construction|                           
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Found only in the Western Hemisphere and surviving through extremes of 18 Feb 2021, 20:21
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A the clause before should modify Hummingbirds not their range
B Correct the structure is changes and we have proper meaning
C The main clause does not have the verb and preposition with is incorrectly used
D Again the main clause does not have verb so this option is a fragment .
E this choice was difficult to eliminate , here the meaning is changed as it just gives facts about the humming birds

I would like Experts to please explain E in more detail .
Here's (E), pasted into the full sentence:

    Hummingbirds are found only in the Western Hemisphere, survive through extremes of climate, and their range extends from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, from sealevel rain forests to the edges of Andean snowfields and ice fields at altitudes of 15,000 feet.

The easiest way to eliminate (E) is by thinking about parallelism. "And" always indicates some sort of parallelism, right? In this case, "and" is followed by a noun ("their range...").

But that doesn't work here, because the first part of the sentence is setting us up for a list of verbs: "Hummingbirds are found only in the Western Hemisphere, survive through extremes of climate, and their range extends..." Structurally, the list gives us a verb ("are found"), another verb ("survive"), and then a noun ("their range"), and that doesn't work. It might be OK if there was an "and" before "survive", but that's not the case here.

I hope this helps!

GMATNinja
Happy New Year! I am confused on the part that is not underlined and wanted to clarify with you just to better my understanding.
How can you say "from..., from..." and then end the sentence?
I really want to add an "and" to connect these two parts and then get rid of the comma ---> "from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego AND from sealevel rain forests to the edges of Andean snowfields and ice fields at altitudes of 15,000 feet."
But, then I guess there may be an issue with the other "and" in the "and ice fields" part.

Any insights would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance!
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Happy belated New Year to you too!

I wouldn't overthink this one. There's no rule mandating that if you have two modifiers there needs to be a conjunction linking them. For instance, you could write about a "tired old man," just as easily as you could write about a man who is "old and tired." It really depends on the context of the sentence and the instincts of the writer.

As for the specific construction you're asking about, you could have something like the following:

    Over the years, Tim has acquired many charming familial traits: from his mother a tendency to be kind to animals, from his father a tendency to fall asleep in front of the television after eating an entire personal pizza. :P

There's no "and" between the two "from" modifiers, but that's fine. The sentence still makes sense, and it's 100% clear that both modifiers are providing additional information about the main clause. So while it's true that if you had two independent clauses in one sentence, you'd need a conjunction (or a semicolon) to connect them, the same does not hold true for multiple modifiers.

More generally: when in doubt, assume there is no ironclad rule and move on to other decision points you feel more confident about.

I hope that helps!
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Found only in the Western Hemisphere and surviving through extremes of 09 Jul 2021, 08:02
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For people saying D does not have a verb, there is one! It is "their range EXTENDS".

I chose D as B wasn't convincing for me. My issue with B was that there was not a clear reference to "their range" - their could refer to hummingbirds or extremes of climate.. so due to this pronoun ambiguity I crossed off B.

To be honest, I'm very surprised as to how D was not one of the top two choices.
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Found only in the Western Hemisphere and surviving through extremes of 28 Jul 2021, 20:58
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"Found only in the Western Hemisphere and surviving through extremes of climate" is this construction parallel?
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Found only in the Western Hemisphere and surviving through extremes of 29 Jul 2021, 03:35
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"Found only in the Western Hemisphere and surviving through extremes of climate" is this construction parallel?
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Oh yes...

i) Found only in the Western Hemisphere - Past participial phrase

ii) Surviving through extremes of climate - Present participial phrase

Present participial phrases and Past participial phrases are parallel to each other.

Quite a few GMAT official questions (such as this) that test this concept.

p.s. Our book EducationAisle Sentence Correction Nirvana discusses Parallelism between Present participial phrases and Past participial phrases , its application and examples in significant detail. If you or someone is interested, PM me your email-id; I can mail the corresponding section.
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Found only in the Western Hemisphere and surviving through extremes of 12 Aug 2021, 11:54
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Amazing Q. really a good Q. on Parallelism.

(E) has a Parallelism error--> are found , survive , their range are not parallel.
(A) is wrong bcz of easy error --> Found only in .... hummingbirds’ range ... This is a wrong construct.

(C) and (D) have Parallelism error--> Found only , surviving through are not parallel.

==> B is the choice
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Found only in the Western Hemisphere and surviving through extremes of 22 Aug 2022, 20:43
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But in option B, (B) Found only in the Western Hemisphere, hummingbirds survive through extremes of climate, their range extending from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, from sea-level rain forests to the edges of Andean snowfields and ice fields at altitudes of 15,000 feet.

1. If we remove the part between the 2 commas, it would make no sense.
2. When can we remove the part between the 2 commas to check whether the sentence is making sense or not.


EMPOWERgmatVerbal
Hello Everyone!

Let's take a look at this question, one issue at a time, and narrow it down to the correct choice quickly! To begin, here is the original question with any major differences between the options highlighted in orange:

Found only in the Western Hemisphere and surviving through extremes of climate, hummingbirds' range extends from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, from sea-level rain forests to the edges of Andean snowfields and ice fields at altitudes of 15,000 feet.

(A) Found only in the Western Hemisphere and surviving through extremes of climate, hummingbirds’ range extends
(B) Found only in the Western Hemisphere, hummingbirds survive through extremes of climate, their range extending
(C) Hummingbirds, found only in the Western Hemisphere and surviving through extremes of climate, with their range extending
(D) Hummingbirds, found only in the Western Hemisphere and surviving through extremes of climate, their range extends
(E) Hummingbirds are found only in the Western Hemisphere, survive through extremes of climate, and their range extends

There are a lot of things we can focus on here, so let's look at some big-picture issues first, and see how much we can narrow down our choices:

1. Modifiers
2. Parallelism
3. Subject-Verb Agreement

Let's start with #1 on our list: modifiers. We can see from the options given that they contain modifiers, which are a common grammar issue on the GMAT. For each sentence, we need to make sure the modifiers and antecedents match up. We also need to make sure that, without the modifiers, the sentence is still complete with a subject and verb. Here's how things shake out when we focus just on modifiers:

(A) Found only in the Western Hemisphere and surviving through extremes of climate, hummingbirds’ range extends from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, from sea-level rain forests to the edges of Andean snowfields and ice fields at altitudes of 15,000 feet.

This is INCORRECT because the modifier "Found only in the Western Hemisphere and surviving through extremes of climate" should refer to hummingbirds, NOT the hummingbird's range! We can rule this out because the modifier and antecedent don't match up.

(B) Found only in the Western Hemisphere, hummingbirds survive through extremes of climate, their range extending from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, from sea-level rain forests to the edges of Andean snowfields and ice fields at altitudes of 15,000 feet.

This is OKAY for now. The subject "hummingbirds" matches up with the modifier "Found only in the Western Hemisphere" clearly. Also, if we remove all of the modifiers and non-essential clauses, we're still left with a complete sentence:

Found only in the Western Hemisphere, hummingbirds survive through extremes of climate, their range extending from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, from sea-level rain forests to the edges of Andean snowfields and ice fields at altitudes of 15,000 feet.

(C) Hummingbirds, found only in the Western Hemisphere and surviving through extremes of climate, with their range extending from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, from sea-level rain forests to the edges of Andean snowfields and ice fields at altitudes of 15,000 feet.

This is INCORRECT because there is no verb! We only have a subject (Hummingbirds) with 3 modifiers. If we cross out all 3, there is nothing left!

(D) Hummingbirds, found only in the Western Hemisphere and surviving through extremes of climate, their range extends from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, from sea-level rain forests to the edges of Andean snowfields and ice fields at altitudes of 15,000 feet.

This is also INCORRECT because there is no verb! It's another example of a subject (Hummingbirds) with 3 modifiers attached.

(E) Hummingbirds are found only in the Western Hemisphere, survive through extremes of climate, and their range extends from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, from sea-level rain forests to the edges of Andean snowfields and ice fields at altitudes of 15,000 feet.

This is OKAY for now. There are no issues with modifiers in this one!

We can eliminate options A, C, & D because they all have problems with modifiers.

Now that we have things narrowed down to only 2 choices, let's take a closer look at each one to find the better choice:

(B) Found only in the Western Hemisphere, hummingbirds survive through extremes of climate, their range extending from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, from sea-level rain forests to the edges of Andean snowfields and ice fields at altitudes of 15,000 feet.

This is CORRECT! The modifiers and antecedents match up and make sense, and there aren't any other grammar issues we can find!

(E) Hummingbirds are found only in the Western Hemisphere, survive through extremes of climate, and their range extends from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, from sea-level rain forests to the edges of Andean snowfields and ice fields at altitudes of 15,000 feet.

This is INCORRECT because it doesn't use parallel structure! A common method writers use to fix sentences that contain several modifiers is to turn them into lists. There's nothing wrong with doing that - but make absolutely sure that each item is written using parallel structure!


There you go - option B is the correct choice! It uses modifiers correctly, and doesn't have any issues with parallelism!


Don't study for the GMAT. Train for it.
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Found only in the Western Hemisphere and surviving through extremes of 23 Aug 2022, 10:26
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amatya
Found only in the Western Hemisphere and surviving through extremes of climate, hummingbirds' range extends from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, from sea-level rain forests to the edges of Andean snowfields and ice fields at altitudes of 15,000 feet.


(A) Found only in the Western Hemisphere and surviving through extremes of climate, hummingbirds’ range extends

(B) Found only in the Western Hemisphere, hummingbirds survive through extremes of climate, their range extending

(C) Hummingbirds, found only in the Western Hemisphere and surviving through extremes of climate, with their range extending

(D) Hummingbirds, found only in the Western Hemisphere and surviving through extremes of climate, their range extends

(E) Hummingbirds are found only in the Western Hemisphere, survive through extremes of climate, and their range extends



Show Spoiler
Hummingbirds

(A) Modifier (found … climate)

(B) CORRECT

(C) Sentence Structure

(D) Sentence Structure

(E) Parallelism (X, Y, and Z)

First glance

The beginning of the first two answers choices is substantially different from the beginning of the other three. Keep an eye out for topics that tend to affect sentences globally: Sentence Structure (including Subject-Verb Agreement), Meaning, Modifiers, and Parallelism.

Issues

(1) Modifier: found … climate

The original sentence begins with an opening modifier: found only in … climate. What is found only in this area?

Hummingbirds themselves, not the range of hummingbirds. The opening sentence contains a misplaced modifier; it is not logical to say that the range is found in a certain area. Eliminate choice (A).

(2) Sentence Structure
Parallelism (X, Y, and Z)

Because the underline in the original sentence contains the main subject and verb (or the core sentence), check the core sentence of the remaining choices.

(A) Hummingbirds’ range extends.

(B) Hummingbirds survive.

(C) Hummingbirds.

(D) Hummingbirds their range extends.

(E) Hummingbirds are found …, survive …, and their range extends.

Answer (C) contains no main verb to go with the subject. The participles found and surviving are modifiers (comma –ed and comma –ing), as is the participle extending (modifying range). Eliminate choice (C).

Answer (D) can be read in two ways—but either way is wrong. Either this choice contains two subjects mashed together (hummingbirds their range) or the subject hummingbirds has no verb to go with it (a correct example might be: hummingbirds are found … and their range extends …). Eliminate choice (D).

The other three choices have appropriate subject-verb pairings, but this examination might have helped you to spot a related problem. In choice (E), the X, Y, and Z parallelism breaks down for the Z element: are found, survive, their range extends. The first two elements are verbs; the third element is a subject-verb pair. In order to be parallel, all three should be verbs or all three should be subject-verb pairs.

The Correct Answer

Correct answer (B) contains both a main subject and a main verb (hummingbirds survive) and the opening modifier properly modifies hummingbirds.

The final modifier (their range extending) may sound awkward or odd to your ear. The test writers are hoping to get you to cross off the correct answer because it sounds funny; nobody talks in this way. The construction is acceptable, though likely to be used only in more formal or academic writing. If this choice did fool your ear, write the sentence on a flash card and re-read it periodically to help retrain your ear that this construction is correct. (You might even try writing your own sentence that mimics this sentence structure.)
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GMATNinja Kindly help me out with option B.
(B) Found only in the Western Hemisphere, hummingbirds survive through extremes of climate, their range extending
Will "this range" not refer to "climate" and thus change the meaning of the sentence
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Found only in the Western Hemisphere and surviving through extremes of 24 Aug 2022, 06:00
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aryamaagarwal
amatya
Found only in the Western Hemisphere and surviving through extremes of climate, hummingbirds' range extends from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, from sea-level rain forests to the edges of Andean snowfields and ice fields at altitudes of 15,000 feet.


(A) Found only in the Western Hemisphere and surviving through extremes of climate, hummingbirds’ range extends

(B) Found only in the Western Hemisphere, hummingbirds survive through extremes of climate, their range extending

(C) Hummingbirds, found only in the Western Hemisphere and surviving through extremes of climate, with their range extending

(D) Hummingbirds, found only in the Western Hemisphere and surviving through extremes of climate, their range extends

(E) Hummingbirds are found only in the Western Hemisphere, survive through extremes of climate, and their range extends



Show Spoiler
Hummingbirds

(A) Modifier (found … climate)

(B) CORRECT

(C) Sentence Structure

(D) Sentence Structure

(E) Parallelism (X, Y, and Z)

First glance

The beginning of the first two answers choices is substantially different from the beginning of the other three. Keep an eye out for topics that tend to affect sentences globally: Sentence Structure (including Subject-Verb Agreement), Meaning, Modifiers, and Parallelism.

Issues

(1) Modifier: found … climate

The original sentence begins with an opening modifier: found only in … climate. What is found only in this area?

Hummingbirds themselves, not the range of hummingbirds. The opening sentence contains a misplaced modifier; it is not logical to say that the range is found in a certain area. Eliminate choice (A).

(2) Sentence Structure
Parallelism (X, Y, and Z)

Because the underline in the original sentence contains the main subject and verb (or the core sentence), check the core sentence of the remaining choices.

(A) Hummingbirds’ range extends.

(B) Hummingbirds survive.

(C) Hummingbirds.

(D) Hummingbirds their range extends.

(E) Hummingbirds are found …, survive …, and their range extends.

Answer (C) contains no main verb to go with the subject. The participles found and surviving are modifiers (comma –ed and comma –ing), as is the participle extending (modifying range). Eliminate choice (C).

Answer (D) can be read in two ways—but either way is wrong. Either this choice contains two subjects mashed together (hummingbirds their range) or the subject hummingbirds has no verb to go with it (a correct example might be: hummingbirds are found … and their range extends …). Eliminate choice (D).

The other three choices have appropriate subject-verb pairings, but this examination might have helped you to spot a related problem. In choice (E), the X, Y, and Z parallelism breaks down for the Z element: are found, survive, their range extends. The first two elements are verbs; the third element is a subject-verb pair. In order to be parallel, all three should be verbs or all three should be subject-verb pairs.

The Correct Answer

Correct answer (B) contains both a main subject and a main verb (hummingbirds survive) and the opening modifier properly modifies hummingbirds.

The final modifier (their range extending) may sound awkward or odd to your ear. The test writers are hoping to get you to cross off the correct answer because it sounds funny; nobody talks in this way. The construction is acceptable, though likely to be used only in more formal or academic writing. If this choice did fool your ear, write the sentence on a flash card and re-read it periodically to help retrain your ear that this construction is correct. (You might even try writing your own sentence that mimics this sentence structure.)

GMATNinja Kindly help me out with option B.
(B) Found only in the Western Hemisphere, hummingbirds survive through extremes of climate, their range extending
Will "this range" not refer to "climate" and thus change the meaning of the sentence
Show more

Hello aryamaagarwal,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, the "comma + present participle ("verb+ing" - "extending" in this sentence)" construction modifies the entirety of the previous clause, and in doing so conveys that the subject of the clause - "hummingbirds" in this case - takes the action that the participle refers to.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
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Found only in the Western Hemisphere and surviving through extremes of 29 Aug 2022, 16:09
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aryamaagarwal
amatya
Found only in the Western Hemisphere and surviving through extremes of climate, hummingbirds' range extends from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, from sea-level rain forests to the edges of Andean snowfields and ice fields at altitudes of 15,000 feet.


(A) Found only in the Western Hemisphere and surviving through extremes of climate, hummingbirds’ range extends

(B) Found only in the Western Hemisphere, hummingbirds survive through extremes of climate, their range extending

(C) Hummingbirds, found only in the Western Hemisphere and surviving through extremes of climate, with their range extending

(D) Hummingbirds, found only in the Western Hemisphere and surviving through extremes of climate, their range extends

(E) Hummingbirds are found only in the Western Hemisphere, survive through extremes of climate, and their range extends



Show Spoiler
Hummingbirds

(A) Modifier (found … climate)

(B) CORRECT

(C) Sentence Structure

(D) Sentence Structure

(E) Parallelism (X, Y, and Z)

First glance

The beginning of the first two answers choices is substantially different from the beginning of the other three. Keep an eye out for topics that tend to affect sentences globally: Sentence Structure (including Subject-Verb Agreement), Meaning, Modifiers, and Parallelism.

Issues

(1) Modifier: found … climate

The original sentence begins with an opening modifier: found only in … climate. What is found only in this area?

Hummingbirds themselves, not the range of hummingbirds. The opening sentence contains a misplaced modifier; it is not logical to say that the range is found in a certain area. Eliminate choice (A).

(2) Sentence Structure
Parallelism (X, Y, and Z)

Because the underline in the original sentence contains the main subject and verb (or the core sentence), check the core sentence of the remaining choices.

(A) Hummingbirds’ range extends.

(B) Hummingbirds survive.

(C) Hummingbirds.

(D) Hummingbirds their range extends.

(E) Hummingbirds are found …, survive …, and their range extends.

Answer (C) contains no main verb to go with the subject. The participles found and surviving are modifiers (comma –ed and comma –ing), as is the participle extending (modifying range). Eliminate choice (C).

Answer (D) can be read in two ways—but either way is wrong. Either this choice contains two subjects mashed together (hummingbirds their range) or the subject hummingbirds has no verb to go with it (a correct example might be: hummingbirds are found … and their range extends …). Eliminate choice (D).

The other three choices have appropriate subject-verb pairings, but this examination might have helped you to spot a related problem. In choice (E), the X, Y, and Z parallelism breaks down for the Z element: are found, survive, their range extends. The first two elements are verbs; the third element is a subject-verb pair. In order to be parallel, all three should be verbs or all three should be subject-verb pairs.

The Correct Answer

Correct answer (B) contains both a main subject and a main verb (hummingbirds survive) and the opening modifier properly modifies hummingbirds.

The final modifier (their range extending) may sound awkward or odd to your ear. The test writers are hoping to get you to cross off the correct answer because it sounds funny; nobody talks in this way. The construction is acceptable, though likely to be used only in more formal or academic writing. If this choice did fool your ear, write the sentence on a flash card and re-read it periodically to help retrain your ear that this construction is correct. (You might even try writing your own sentence that mimics this sentence structure.)

GMATNinja Kindly help me out with option B.
(B) Found only in the Western Hemisphere, hummingbirds survive through extremes of climate, their range extending
Will "this range" not refer to "climate" and thus change the meaning of the sentence
Show more
Don't ignore context and logic!

First, as Experts Global noted, when an "-ing" modifier follows a clause + comma, it will typically modify the entire previous clause. So we should be mindful of the subject of that clause -- in this case, "hummingbirds" -- when trying to understand what noun the modifier is providing info about.

More simply, if you see "their" you know you're looking for a plural referent, right? So if your eyes drift to the left in search of a plural noun, you'll first see, "extremes." But that doesn't make sense: extremes don't have ranges. The next plural noun you see is "hummingbirds," and that makes perfect sense: hummingbirds certainly have ranges.

At that point, you can stop focusing on this issue. If a pronoun has a logical referent somewhere, it's not a concrete error. Time to move on to other decision points.

I hope that helps!
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Found only in the Western Hemisphere and surviving through extremes of 30 Aug 2022, 21:00
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woohoo921
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A the clause before should modify Hummingbirds not their range
B Correct the structure is changes and we have proper meaning
C The main clause does not have the verb and preposition with is incorrectly used
D Again the main clause does not have verb so this option is a fragment .
E this choice was difficult to eliminate , here the meaning is changed as it just gives facts about the humming birds

I would like Experts to please explain E in more detail .
Here's (E), pasted into the full sentence:

    Hummingbirds are found only in the Western Hemisphere, survive through extremes of climate, and their range extends from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, from sealevel rain forests to the edges of Andean snowfields and ice fields at altitudes of 15,000 feet.

The easiest way to eliminate (E) is by thinking about parallelism. "And" always indicates some sort of parallelism, right? In this case, "and" is followed by a noun ("their range...").

But that doesn't work here, because the first part of the sentence is setting us up for a list of verbs: "Hummingbirds are found only in the Western Hemisphere, survive through extremes of climate, and their range extends..." Structurally, the list gives us a verb ("are found"), another verb ("survive"), and then a noun ("their range"), and that doesn't work. It might be OK if there was an "and" before "survive", but that's not the case here.

I hope this helps!

GMATNinja
Happy New Year! I am confused on the part that is not underlined and wanted to clarify with you just to better my understanding.
How can you say "from..., from..." and then end the sentence?
I really want to add an "and" to connect these two parts and then get rid of the comma ---> "from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego AND from sealevel rain forests to the edges of Andean snowfields and ice fields at altitudes of 15,000 feet."

Any insights would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance!

KarishmaB
Gently follow-up to see if you have any insights. Thank you for your time.
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Let's simply the sentence and focus on the non underlined part:

Hummingbirds' range extends from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, from sealevel rain forests to the edges of Andean snowfields and ice fields at altitudes of 15,000 feet.

We cannot use 'and' here because the second prepositional phrase is describing the range mentioned before. They are the features you will see in the range 'from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego' (north most regions to south most regions). You will find sea level as well as very high altitudes in this range.

If we say the range extends from A to B and from C to D, C and D are describing points different from A and B. But here, the second prepositional phrase describes the extremes you will find in the 'Alaska to Tierra del Fuego' range.
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Found only in the Western Hemisphere and surviving through extremes of 20 Oct 2022, 01:27
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GMATNinja Charles, can you please compare options B & E?
Even though B is grammatically more correct over E, I feel that it sounds very incomplete. As if it is building up a crescendo for a twist about Hummingbirds' range.
E seems more direct and sounds complete.
You always suggest to consider meaning over any thing else, can you confirm what are your thoughts about the meaning of these two options?
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Found only in the Western Hemisphere and surviving through extremes of 20 Oct 2022, 04:21
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AdiM07
GMATNinja Charles, can you please compare options B & E?
Even though B is grammatically more correct over E, I feel that it sounds very incomplete. As if it is building up a crescendo for a twist about Hummingbirds' range.
E seems more direct and sounds complete.
You always suggest to consider meaning over any thing else, can you confirm what are your thoughts about the meaning of these two options?
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Hello AdiM07,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, Option B actually conveys a more cogent meaning than E does.

The use of the clause “and their range…Tierra del Fuego” implies that hummingbirds survive through extremes of climate and as a separate action their range extends from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego.

By contrast, the use of the phrase “their range extending from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego” in Option B conveys that hummingbirds survive through extremes of climate because their range extends from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego.

The latter meaning is more appropriate because it conveys a relationship between hummingbirds surviving extreme climates and their range extending over a broad area, while Option E makes the two sound unrelated.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
Experts' Global Team
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Found only in the Western Hemisphere and surviving through extremes of 07 Nov 2022, 16:34
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AdiM07
GMATNinja Charles, can you please compare options B & E?
Even though B is grammatically more correct over E, I feel that it sounds very incomplete. As if it is building up a crescendo for a twist about Hummingbirds' range.
E seems more direct and sounds complete.
You always suggest to consider meaning over any thing else, can you confirm what are your thoughts about the meaning of these two options?
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Quote:
... Even though B is grammatically more correct over E.... You always suggest to consider meaning over any thing else...
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The problem with grammar "mistakes" is that they, by nature, make the meaning unclear or hard to follow.

In this post, we explained why the parallelism doesn't work in (E). In (E), the reader is expecting a list of things that hummingbirds do: (1) hummingbirds are found; (2) hummingbirds survive; (3) hummingbirds... their range extends?? The broken parallelism is confusing, and forces the reader to spend some time trying to figure out what the heck the sentence is trying to say.

In (B), the core of the sentence is quite simple: "hummingbirds survive through extremes of climate." The stuff that comes afterwards ("their range...") gives us more information in support of that statement. It's a perfectly logical modifier, and the meaning is crystal clear.

So, yes, meaning is king in a way, but parallelism errors usually make the meaning unclear.

I hope that helps!
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Found only in the Western Hemisphere and surviving through extremes of 04 Dec 2022, 11:04
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Is For+verb-ing fine? I rejected obtion B for using "for ranging" I thought it is incorrect . Someone pls help
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Found only in the Western Hemisphere and surviving through extremes of 18 Mar 2023, 22:39
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Hi,
I this question "their range ..." is an independent clause so shouldnt it be connected to the sentence by FANBOYS. This was the reason I eliminated B and selected E
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Found only in the Western Hemisphere and surviving through extremes of 27 Mar 2023, 10:52
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kalyanimadhu98
Hi,

I this question "their range ..." is an independent clause so shouldnt it be connected to the sentence by FANBOYS. This was the reason I eliminated B and selected E
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In (B), "extending" is actually an -ing modifier, not a verb. "Their range extends..." could be an independent clause, but "their range extending..." is just a modifier, as explained in this post: https://gmatclub.com/forum/found-only-i ... l#p1986211.

Hopefully that helps. If not, please review the rest of the thread and then let us know if it's still unclear!
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Found only in the Western Hemisphere and surviving through extremes of 07 May 2023, 10:39
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Found only in the Western Hemisphere and surviving through extremes of climate, hummingbirds' range extends from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, from sea-level rain forests to the edges of Andean snowfields and ice fields at altitudes of 15,000 feet.


(A) Found only in the Western Hemisphere and surviving through extremes of climate, hummingbirds’ range extends
What is found only in the Western Hemisphere? Hummingbird's range

(B) Found only in the Western Hemisphere, hummingbirds survive through extremes of climate, their range extending
What is found only in the Western Hemisphere?
Hummingbirds. makes sense
How do hummingbirds survive through extremes of climate?
By extending their range From Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, from ..... to or another
Why do they( hummingbirds) extend their range from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, from...
I think both make sense( how aspect makes sense), isn't it? correct me if my understanding was wrong.

(C) Hummingbirds, found only in the Western Hemisphere and surviving through extremes of climate, with their range extending
If we remove the non-essential modifier from option(C) (always around the two commas be careful), the sentence still makes sense.
However, In option(c), the sentence becomes, without a non-essential modifier, these Hummingbirds with their range extending.
Does it make any sense? NO

(D) Hummingbirds, found only in the Western Hemisphere and surviving through extremes of climate, their range extends
same reason as C.

(E) Hummingbirds are found only in the Western Hemisphere, survive through extremes of climate, and their range extends
E is parallel issues.
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Found only in the Western Hemisphere and surviving through extremes of 19 Aug 2023, 12:54
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egmat
Even though I have gone through the explanation, I am still not clear with the construction of non underlined part "from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, from sea-level rain forests to the edges of Andean snowfields and ice fields at altitudes of 15,000 feet".

Simply put this construction is : from X to Y, from A to B.

Shouldn't there be a connector such as "and" between these two idiomatic expressions? ,or such construction is allowed as is?
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