In 1984 medical researchers at Harvard and Stanford universities concl

The OA is E.

When I look back at this question, I realise the mistake I did in the exam.

My thought process while doing this question was:

Is the recommendation a result of the researchers' conclusion? No. The researchers are recommending based on their conclusion. Hence A and B are out.

So, it is between C, D and E.

D sounded odd. I thought 'they' in E is not necessary and I went with C in the exam.

But C is wrong because it says 'recommended for middle-aged people'. Usage of 'for' is wrong.

Hence E is the answer.

But, I have two questions here.

1. Is my reasoning above correct?
2. Do we require 'they' here? Is it okay if we don't have 'they' here, as the subject is obvious?
Or do we definitely require a subject specified for FANBOYS preceded by comma? (should connect two clauses)

Kindly help me on this. Thanks.

Hey, You just posted the OA some seconds before I did Just kidding.

C is wrong because it's not a correct idiom.
Correct idiom is: Recommend somebody FOR something.
--OR--
Recommend someone to do something.
--NOT--
Recommend for somebody to do something.

Assume E is correct, we can eliminate "they" --> structure is: X concluded that.....and recommended that............... <== same subject X

Hope it helps.

Hi,

"Recommend" is an example of a bossy verb and the correct usage should be:

bossy verb+that+subject+command subjunctive (use of infinitive "to" or "should" is incorrect. Hence we can eliminate options A, B C & D by this logic only(there are other reasons also).

Hence E is correct.



Regards

Argha

Actually it is very simple if we know that 'recommend' can only take command subjunctive mood.

The structure for command subjunctive construction is - Bossy verb + that + be or bare form of verb.

The only option that follows this particular structure is option E. thus option E is the correct answer (I did it in 30 sec)

Hi,

After going through these posts i am still not very clear about why A is incorrect.
Can someone explain in more detail about this.

In 1984 medical researchers at Harvard and Stanford universities concluded that sedentary life-styles lead to heart and lung diseases that shorten lives, strongly recommending middle-aged people to undertake some form of regular exercise.

(A). strongly recommending middle-aged people to
Recommending is a verb-ing modifier. As a rule, verb-ing modifier after a comma, will modify the preceding clause (and either provides additional info about the preceding clause, or presents the result of the preceding clause. When it does so, it associates itself with the subject and the verb of the preceding clause.)
Ex: Researchers published the results of the experiment, winning the prestigious award.

In our case, sedentary lifestyles ... is NOT recommending..

(B). strongly recommending that middle-aged people should
Same issue as in A

(C). and strongly recommended for middle-aged people to
Many issues in C. Researchers concluded that ... recommended that.. would be a proper construction. "recommended for" is unidiomatic.

(D). and their strong recommendation was for middle-aged people to
"recommendation was for middle-aged people to..." is a wrong construction.

(E). and they strongly recommended that middle-aged people
Correct construction - Researchers concluded that sedentary... , and they strongly recommended that middle-aged people...
Notice the comma preceding 'and' - the comma + and construction joins the two independent clauses correctly.

As posted previously by folks, I have the same query.

In 1984 medical researchers at Harvard and Stanford universities concluded that sedentary life-styles lead to heart and lung diseases that shorten lives, strongly recommending middle-aged people to undertake some form of regular exercise.

The -ING modifier modifiers 'researchers'.

MR, strongly recommending blah blah blah, concluded that sedentary life-styles lead to heart and lung diseases.

And recommendation can likely be assumes as a result of the conclusion of researchers.

After concluding they recommended

Please confirm

Responding to a pm:

The verb recommend needs subjunctive. So "A recommends that B do C" is the proper format.

Also, when I read the sentence, there is a disconnect between researchers and recommending. I expect the VERB+ing modifier to modify the closest subject which is 'sedentary lifestyles'. But it actually modifies researchers and that doesn't work. We are looking for the subject researchers again which option (E) provides by using 'they'.

A:
If we use a comma and the present participle ‘recommending’ here, it will modify the ‘that clause’. So ‘recommending’ will be done by ‘sedentary life-styles’. Obviously, this is incorrect since the researchers are the ones who recommend exercise. So we cannot use the participle here. Hence we eliminate options (A) and (B).
B: Same

C & D:
Options (C) and (D) are unidiomatic in their usage of the verb recommend.
You recommend X for Y (say a person X for position Y)
or
You recommend that X do Y (say a person X do Y)

Option (E) uses recommend properly – ‘recommended that X do Y’. Also, ‘… researchers concluded that … and recommended that …’ have parallel structure.

In 1984 medical researchers at Harvard and Stanford universities concluded that sedentary life-styles lead to heart and lung diseases that shorten lives, strongly recommending middle-aged people to undertake some form of regular exercise.

(A). strongly recommending middle-aged people to
(B). strongly recommending that middle-aged people should
(C). and strongly recommended for middle-aged people to
(D). and their strong recommendation was for middle-aged people to
(E). and they strongly recommended that middle-aged people

This is E sir -

In 1984 medical researchers at Harvard and Stanford universities concluded that sedentary life-styles lead to heart and lung diseases that shorten lives, and they strongly recommended that middle-aged people

But what if we omit they from E in that case also would the sentence be correct?

In 1984 medical researchers at Harvard and Stanford universities concluded that sedentary life-styles lead to heart and lung diseases that shorten lives, and strongly recommended that middle-aged people

If we Omit they still I find that the parallelism is maintained -

In 1984 medical researchers at Harvard and Stanford universities concluded that [.............], and
strongly recommended that [................................]

Medical researchers did two things concluded and recommended (Subjunctive) and both are in parallel.

I need your Opinion sir. This question is from Gmat Prep Paper based Exams.

I think ( I am not absolutely sure) that if there is a comma before AND, then the following clause must contain its own subject and verb;

If there was no comma before AND then we are allowed to omit 'they'.

When we use comma + and then we need not be so concerned about parallelism but still it is better to have both the clauses on either side of AND parallel.

When we use and without comma then the questions needs to be parallel and we have to skip the subject in the clause after and.

I say so, because I have come across the OG question intar-the-oldest-hispanic-theater-company-in-new-york-has-44445.html.

When you read the sentence, you will find what I say.

Intar, the oldest Hispanic theater company in New York, has moved away from the Spanish classics and now it draws on the works both of contemporary Hispanic authors who live abroad and of those in the United States.
(A) now it draws on the works both of contemporary Hispanic authors who live abroad and of those
(B) now draws on the works of contemporary Hispanic authors, both those who live abroad and those who live
(C) it draws on the works of contemporary Hispanic authors now, both those living abroad and who live
(D) draws now on the works both of contemporary Hispanic authors living abroad and who are
(E) draws on the works now of both contemporary Hispanic authors living abroad and those

The OE
Grammatical construction; Idiom; Parallelism
The pronoun it before the second verb results in an ungrammatical construction; removing the pronoun removes the error. The scope of those is unclear (authors, or contemporary Hispanic authors). The correct version of the sentence makes it clear that the company draws on the works of contemporary Hispanic authors who live in two different places. Those who live abroad is parallel to those who live in the United States

.A Because there is no comma after classics, the use of it creates an ungrammatical construction. The construction following both is unclear
.B Correct. In this sentence, Intar is the subject of draws on; parallel constructions follow both . . . and
.C It creates an ungrammatical construction; those living abroad is not parallel to who live
.D The construction following both is not parallel to the construction following and
.E Now modifies the verb and should precede it. The parallelism of the both . . . and construction is violated.

I hope you find the above discussion interesting and helpful.
I am no expert but would prefer some expert opinion.

I DONOT MIND KUDOS

Dear honchos,
I'm happy to respond. My friend, you are perfectly correct. Without the "they," we still would have the parallelism between the two verbs for the same subject. That would be essentially correct. The presence or absence of a comma before the word "and" is stylistic. With two separate clauses, as in the OA, we need the comma. With parallel verbs, we often wouldn't have the comma, but if the first verb phrase is long and complicated enough, we might include the clause for clarity. Here, the first verb phrase includes a "that" clause that contains a second "that" clause --- that is long and complicated enough that the comma would be justified.
Does all this make sense?
Mike

Dear samichange
I'm happy to respond. My friend, I will ask, when you cite a question, please cite the source. This question is from the OG Verbal Review: in the 2016 edition, it is SC#100.

First of all, I will say: that comma rule is a strong stylistic preference, but it is NOT a mathematical black-and-white always-right vs. always-wrong kind of rule.

As I explained above to honchos, if we have two verbs in parallel, often we would not have a comma separating the halves of the sentence, but if the first verb phrase is long and involves modifying subordinate clauses, then we might use the comma break for overall clarity in the structure of the sentence.

By contrast, if we have two clauses, we would almost always have the comma, unless the clauses are particularly short. Again, this is not a black-and-white rule. Remember that the GMAT SC does NOT test punctuation, and absolutely no answer choice will be totally right or totally wrong purely on the basic of punctuation.

In this particular sentence, in (A), certainly the absence of the comma makes us suspicious. At best, a punctuation irregularity such as this is a kind of tip-off to look for other problems. Even with the comma, the version in (A) would be choppy and wordy
(modified A): Intar has moved away from the Spanish classics, and now it draws on the works . . .
(B) Intar has moved away from the Spanish classics and now draws on the works . . .
Compared to the structure in (B), the structure in (A), even with the comma, would a bit wordier, a bit more indirect, a bit less powerful, a bit less elegant. Choosing the first could be appropriate in a sentence in which the two halves were quite distinct, a sentence in which we wanted to make a strong logical distinction between the first action and the second action and show how unrelated there were. That's not the case here, because we want to juxtapose the actions to show their contrast. Still, this is subtle, not quite enough to say definitely that (A) is out and out wrong.

What really torpedoes (A) is the logical flaw at the end. Think of this parallelism:
... both
//of contemporary Hispanic authors who live abroad
and
//of those in the United States
We know what the sentence is trying to put in parallel are
(a) contemporary Hispanic authors who live abroad, and
(b) contemporary Hispanic authors in the United States
That's what the sentence is trying to say, but by putting such a strong separation between the two branches, each with its own prepositional phrase, the reference of the word "those" is unclear. Grammatically, it could be read as "those in the United States", i.e. every single person who happens to be in the US. Grammatically, the sentence would be putting into parallel the "contemporary Hispanic authors who live abroad" with everyone who is in the US. That's 100% illogical, and not what the sentence is trying to say, but the poor grammatical construction leaves this possibility open. This is enough to say that (A) is irredeemably wrong. Notice, incidentally, how much more elegantly (B) handles the same parallelism, and with no ambiguity.

Does all this make sense?
Mike

mikemcgarry

Your posts are just awesome. I visit GC just to hunt for your comments on Verbal Questions )

Well, I am in a bit of confusion here because the Manhattan Staff thinks of the same situation differently. This is the comment that I have got for the same.

Whereas you can't join two independent clauses without a comma in front of the "and", if there IS a comma in front of the "and" without it being paired with another comma earlier in the sentence, you MUST create an independent clause by including a subject after the "and". As with the other post of course, if Ron points out an official GMAT problem that violates this near-universal English grammar rule, I'll withdraw my claim.

This is the link https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/foru ... 81-15.html [Page 2 Last Post]

Please if you can clarify Sir.

Dear Steinbeck,
I'm happy to respond. There is always a temptation with grammatical rules to speak of them as if there were black & white always true, the way mathematical rules always are. A few grammar rules are totally black & white, but most aren't. I think the MGMAT person here got a little too dogmatic.

Certainly in an extremely short sentence, we could drop the comma between two independent clauses:
He slipped on the banana peel and I laugh.
A sentence this short would NEVER appear on the GMAT. For GMAT purposes, I will say that it is hard to imagine a sentence with two independent clauses that don't have this separating comma.

The converse though is tricky. Suppose there is a comma, not a comma paired with another setting off a smaller structure, but a legitimate separating comma before the "and." Can we say dogmatically that what comes after the comma must be a separate independent clause? Hmmm. Is this usually the case, true in the majority of circumstances? Yes, absolutely. Is it true 100% of the time with no exceptions? That seems to extreme to me. As a general rule, even in grammatical structure that don't ordinarily warrant commas, if the separate elements become long, with long modifying phrases & clauses, then sometimes commas are used just to separate elements and indicate the organization of the larger sentence.

Consider the use of commas in this monster-long sentence from the US Declaration of Independence:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness, That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Obvious, this is much more complicated than anything the GMAT SC will throw at you. Excerpt this mini sentence:
It is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government.
Of course, the antecedent of the "it" has been lost, but notice that we have a comma after an independent clause, and what follows is not another independent clause.

Now, that is 18th century English and involves much longer sentences, so it may or may not be applicable to the GMAT. I am not about to hunt through the entire OG looking for examples. I will just say that the 100% interpretation provided by the MGMAT folks seems to be a little extreme. It's good to know this as a generally true guideline, but it's good not to get too dogmatic about punctuation, which the GMAT does not test at all.

Does all this make sense?
Mike

Hello egmat,

Is there an article which you can share which explains the verb-ing modifier in detail? I always get confused when it comes to in which cases should I eliminate the verb-ing modifier and in which cases is it correct?

Hello sam2016,


Thanks for the query.


We sure have a very detailed article, actually two, on the correct usage of verb-ing modifiers. Following are the links to the same:


1. Usage of Verb-ing Modifiers - Part 1: https://gmatclub.com/forum/usage-of-verb-ing-modifiers-135220.html

2. VERB-ING MODIFIERS PART 2 : https://gmatclub.com/forum/verb-ing-modifiers-part-2-in-our-first-article-on-verb-ing-135567.html


In fact, the recently revamped concepts on Verb-ing Modifiers are part of a our Free Trial course. Just register at e-gmat.com for free and review the lessons.


Hope this helps.
Thanks.
Shraddha