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sameersanjeev
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In 1984 medical researchers at Harvard and Stanford universities concl 12 Oct 2017, 04:36
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egmat
sam2016


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.
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Thank you so much for sharing this :)
Just one query. I hope the content of the videos and the articles is the same. I ask this because I am more of a visual person and hence, I would prefer watching the videos instead of reading the articles provided both are identical.
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In 1984 medical researchers at Harvard and Stanford universities concl 12 Oct 2017, 12:04
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sam2016

Thank you so much for sharing this :)
Just one query. I hope the content of the videos and the articles is the same. I ask this because I am more of a visual person and hence, I would prefer watching the videos instead of reading the articles provided both are identical.
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Hello sam2016,


Oh yes of course. The article and the video have the same teachings. Both platforms teach the same rule in the very same manner.


Thanks. :-)
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In 1984 medical researchers at Harvard and Stanford universities concl 06 Nov 2017, 00:30
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VeritasPrepKarishma
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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'.
Show more

I've a doubt guys. Would be really helpful if someone could throw some light on it.

As everybody here has pointed out that "recommending", which is a Verb+ing modifier refers to the previous clause and must make sense with the subject and verb of that clause. However, in my opinion it seems, the subject of the previous clause is not 'sedentary lifestyles' but 'heart and lung diseases' as we have another that clause after the 'sedentary lifestyles' that clause.

Or is it that "heart and lung diseases that shorten lives" is NOT a clause? In that case, would we say that whenever "that" refers to a noun from another clause followed by a verb is not a stand alone clause by itself?

Tagging experts for help.
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In 1984 medical researchers at Harvard and Stanford universities concl 06 Nov 2017, 22:50
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sahilmshah92
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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'.

I've a doubt guys. Would be really helpful if someone could throw some light on it.

As everybody here has pointed out that "recommending", which is a Verb+ing modifier refers to the previous clause and must make sense with the subject and verb of that clause. However, in my opinion it seems, the subject of the previous clause is not 'sedentary lifestyles' but 'heart and lung diseases' as we have another that clause after the 'sedentary lifestyles' that clause.

Or is it that "heart and lung diseases that shorten lives" is NOT a clause? In that case, would we say that whenever "that" refers to a noun from another clause followed by a verb is not a stand alone clause by itself?

Tagging experts for help.
VeritasPrepKarishma
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egmat
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"that sedentary life-styles lead to heart and lung diseases that shorten lives" - is a subordinate "that" clause.
Subject - sedentary life-styles
Verb - lead

"that shorten lives" - is a modifier modifying "heart and lung diseases"

So the structure of the clause is "A lead to B"
B is "heart and lung diseases that shorten lives"

The basic structure of the sentence comes out when you ignore all modifiers.

Here it is
"researchers ... concluded that ... life-styles lead to ... diseases..., recommending middle-aged people to undertake exercise"

The subject of the subordinate clause is closer to "recommending".
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In 1984 medical researchers at Harvard and Stanford universities concl 12 Aug 2018, 18:47
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Hi KarishmaB

Hope you're keeping well
Got a query regarding subjunctive here. In A

A: "strongly recommending middle-aged people to undertake some form of regular exercise."

Ignoring other issues with it, can we say: it is wrong because it violates subjunctive?
in other words, would the following be correct in terms of subjunctive?

"strongly recommending middle-aged people to undertake some form of regular exercise"

Regards

KarishmaB

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'.
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In 1984 medical researchers at Harvard and Stanford universities concl 12 Aug 2018, 22:01
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TheRzS
Hi KarishmaB

Hope you're keeping well
Got a query regarding subjunctive here. In A

A: "strongly recommending middle-aged people to undertake some form of regular exercise."

Ignoring other issues with it, can we say: it is wrong because it violates subjunctive?
in other words, would the following be correct in terms of subjunctive?

"strongly recommending middle-aged people to undertake some form of regular exercise"

Regards

KarishmaB

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'.
Show more

The structure of subjunctive could be:
"Researchers recommend that people undertake ..."
or
"Researchers recommend people undertake ..." (omit that)

"Researchers recommend people to undertake..." is not very natural though some cultures do use it.

That said, the use of comma -ing verb is not correct here since researchers concluding and researchers recommending are separate actions. "recommending" does not modify (talk more about) concluding. You need to use "and" to join them.
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In 1984 medical researchers at Harvard and Stanford universities concl 13 Aug 2018, 00:22
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ok thanks KarishmaB
takeaway: <-ing> - when used as participle, does not invoke subjunctive
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In 1984 medical researchers at Harvard and Stanford universities concl 13 Aug 2018, 07:20
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TheRzS
ok thanks KarishmaB
takeaway: <-ing> - when used as participle, does not invoke subjunctive
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No, that is not the takeaway. The problem is that you cannot use a participle here.
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In 1984 medical researchers at Harvard and Stanford universities concl Updated on: 28 Oct 2019, 11:21
Originally posted by eshan04 on 20 Aug 2019, 11:18.
Last edited by eshan04 on 28 Oct 2019, 11:21, edited 1 time in total.
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egmat
Hi Akhil,

The verb -ing modifier is incorrect in option A. Since it should refer to the previous clause, it is illogically referring to sedentary lifestyles. It is not the lifestyles that are recommending something, but the researchers.

I hope this helps to clarify your doubt!

Regards,
Meghna
Show more

But if we use "and" (as in E), it eliminates causal relation required in the sentence. Otherwise, it seems like the two statement are independent.
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In 1984 medical researchers at Harvard and Stanford universities concl 23 Aug 2019, 08:18
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daagh GMATNinja

1. Does -ing modifer / present participle modifier always and only modify the immediate preceding clause ? Be it dependent or independent clause ?

In this case, will it be the main clause with medical researchers as the subject or the 2nd subordinate clause with sedentary lifestyles as the subject.

2. Is there a third subordinate clause with 'that' as the subject pointing to 'heart and lung diseases' and shorten as verb ?
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In 1984 medical researchers at Harvard and Stanford universities concl 14 Jul 2020, 08:22
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isnt the "They" in answer E ambiguous? Medical researchers? or Universities?
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In 1984 medical researchers at Harvard and Stanford universities concl 30 Mar 2021, 08:06
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Quote:
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
Show more

EducationAisle egmat why can't "strongly recommending" modify the previous clause "researchers... concluded" thereby conveying that Researchers concluded X and as a result recommended Y

Quote:
(E) and they strongly recommended that middle-aged people
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The reason I eliminated (E) is because I didn't see the need to start an IC. Clearly the recommendation is related to the previous information, So I didn't see any reason to start an IC
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In 1984 medical researchers at Harvard and Stanford universities concl 30 Mar 2021, 19:29
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waihoe520
We don't have to treat "they" as ambiguous unless there is genuine room for understanding. "Researchers" is the only plural noun in the sentence that can make a recommendation. None of the other nouns can do that--not universities, and certainly not lifestyles or diseases--so we don't have a truly ambiguous pronoun. It also helps that "researchers" is our subject, so when we see "and they," we should default to referring back to "researchers" unless the sentence gives us a cue to do otherwise.
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In 1984 medical researchers at Harvard and Stanford universities concl 30 Mar 2021, 19:36
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Hoozan
First, A has an idiom problem. We can recommend something, or we can recommend THAT someone DO something, but we can't recommend someone TO DO something. Also, it doesn't work well to use "recommending" as a modifier here. It doesn't clearly modify "concluded," since it's a completely separate action that does not show how the researchers concluded something or describe a direct logical consequence of their conclusion. It's really its own action, hence the new clause in E. It also doesn't help that we have another full clause after "concluded," making it tougher to refer back clearly to that verb.

A separate note on E: try to avoid crossing anything out just because it uses a construction that doesn't seem to be required. The wrong answers should be actively wrong, and the right answer may often do things that seem unnecessary or less than ideal.
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In 1984 medical researchers at Harvard and Stanford universities concl 09 Aug 2021, 04:40
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egmat
Hi Akhil,

The verb -ing modifier is incorrect in option A. Since it should refer to the previous clause, it is illogically referring to sedentary lifestyles. It is not the lifestyles that are recommending something, but the researchers.

I hope this helps to clarify your doubt!

Regards,
Meghna
Show more

Thank you Payal for the explanantion.
If that is the case, can't 'that' (referring to diseases) be the subject of "recommending"? I know that it is still wrong, but how do you decide when you have multiple nested clauses?
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In 1984 medical researchers at Harvard and Stanford universities concl Updated on: 09 Jun 2022, 23:55
Originally posted by Foreheadson on 22 Sep 2021, 07:42.
Last edited by Foreheadson on 09 Jun 2022, 23:55, edited 1 time in total.
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I am sure that the second sentence according to option E would be separate sentence, so it can not be the right answer choice. I believe separate sentences should be divided by full stop not by "and".

Update, I was wrong. independent clauses must be connected with "and".

Posted from my mobile device
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In 1984 medical researchers at Harvard and Stanford universities concl 09 Jun 2022, 16:32
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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.

Key is to know what "recommending" is modifying in the original sentence. In this case, the subordinate clause starting "that sedentary life-styles" is the subject that's closest to "recommending." That doesn't make any sense. The researchers are the ones making the recommendation.

Knowing that VERB-ing modifier modifies the nearest preceding subject, we can confidently eliminate (A) and (B)

Let's tackle (C) - (E)

(A) strongly recommending middle-aged people to

(B) strongly recommending that middle-aged people should

(C) and strongly recommended for middle-aged people to

Wrong because subject of the choice is unclear. Who recommended?

(D) and their strong recommendation was for middle-aged people to

Same as (C)

(E) and they strongly recommended that middle-aged people

"Recommend that" makes sense and subjunctive clause is good as well. Keep (E)!
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In 1984 medical researchers at Harvard and Stanford universities concl 10 Jun 2022, 02:22
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in other gmat problem , "they" in choice E is considered redundant and the choice is wrong. but "they" is inferior, but not incorrect.

the pronoun in the second clause can be considered redundant if the first clause is short. if the first clause is long, I think, the pronoun should be inserted.
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In 1984 medical researchers at Harvard and Stanford universities concl 26 Oct 2022, 09:52
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GMATNinja, please please please help in this.
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In 1984 medical researchers at Harvard and Stanford universities concl 28 Oct 2022, 06:07
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Just sharing my two cents here. It's a good question mixed with modifier and parallelism errors

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 - here it seems like "recommending" (verb-ing modifier ) is modifying "sedentary life style" which is not the intended meaning. Hence, incorrect

B. strongly recommending that middle-aged people should - If you look closely "recommend" is a subjunctive verb and whenever you use subjunctive verb, avoid using "should" along with it. Grammatically Incorrect, hence out

C. and strongly recommended for middle-aged people to - apart from idiom error i see a parallelism error here, to make it sound grammatically correct it should be Universities concluded that bla bla and strongly recommended that (use of subjunctive verb is appropriate here). Hence, incorrect

D. and their strong recommendation was for middle-aged people to - same as C

E. and they strongly recommended that middle-aged people - Voila! we have found the correct answer. Here, they refer to researchers and is free of errors.
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