In an attempt to attract more tourists, the Swiss government commissioned several lifesize
fiberglass cow statues, having them decorated by local artists, and set them up on the
streets of Zurich.

A. the Swiss government commissioned several life-size fiberglass cow statues,
having them decorated by local artists, and"having is not parallel"
B. the Swiss government commissioned several life-size fiberglass cow statues, they
were decorated by local artists, and then "they" is unclear
C. the Swiss government commissioned several life-size fiberglass cow statues, had
them decorated by local artists, and
D. several life-size fiberglass cow statues were commissioned by the Swiss
government, decorated by local artists, and then passive voice
E. several life-size fiberglass cow statues, commissioned by the Swiss government,
were decorated by local artists, and theypassive voice, awkward sentence construction

'In an attempt to attract more tourists' must modify 'the Swiss government'. D and E are out

Parallelism must be maintained- commissioned.... had....set. Only choice 'C' maintains that
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Also, there is a second them referring to cows at the end of the sentence. Remember that all pronouns in a sentence must point to only one antecedent!! By structure we can conclude cows. Also keep ambiguity as the very last resort if nothing works. Structure and parallelism allow us to use pronouns where multiple antecedents are present.

D and E incorrectly place “the statues” next to the modifier ” in an attempt to attract tourists”. It was the “Swiss government” that performed the actions of the sentence in an attempt to attract tourists. Eliminate D and E.
The verb “ set” is not underlined, so all the actions of the government have to be parallel with this verb. Only C offers the parallel verbs commissioned, had and set. Eliminate A and B.
The correct answer is C.
Please note that the verb "to have" has many uses and meanings. The perfect tenses are only one use of the verb to have. Had them decorated is just simple past tense. In this construction, the meaning of the verb to have is to cause to happen by command. Had them decorated means that the government caused them to be decorated by ordering someone to decorate them.
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mikemcgarry : Mike, I had a quick question. I knocked off C because it had this phrase" had them decorated", which signifies past perfect. I thought maybe this option means that the decoration happened before the act of commsioning , which actually does not make sense. Is this really a past perfect or simple past? are there any errors in E apart from the fact that the word "they" refers to the artists and should refer to the government?
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Dear bkpolymers1617,

My friend, I'm happy to respond.

Precision, my friend, precision. The structure "had decorated" would be past perfect, and indeed that wouldn't work in this context. By contrast, the structure "had them decorated" is NOT past perfect! This is a 100% entirely different structure entirely.

This structure takes the form:
to have {noun][participle]
The mayor has had all the trees trimmed for the parade.
The teacher has her students trembling for fear.
I had the present wrapped at the store.
In all cases, the implication is that the subject provided the intention or directive or command for the action to take place.

Does all this make sense?
Mike
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mikemcgarry: YOU ARE THE BOSSSS
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I went for A mistaking "having..." part as modifier but now I notice it.
Btw, would the part between commas function as modifier correctly, if it was like:
...several life-size fiberglass cow statues, having [b]been[b] decorated by local artists, and ...

D & E are out as they have the misplaced modifier issues, its the government that wants to attract the tourists.
Between A, B & C we need to check parallelism.
Only C is parallel.

In an attempt to attract more tourists, the Swiss government commissioned several life-size fiberglass cow statues, having them decorated by local artists, and set them up on the streets of Zurich.

(A) the Swiss government commissioned several life-size fiberglass cow statues, having them decorated by local artists, and

(B) the Swiss government commissioned several life-size fiberglass cow statues, they were decorated by local artists, and then

(C) the Swiss government commissioned several life-size fiberglass cow statues, had them decorated by local artists, and

(D) several life-size fiberglass cow statues were commissioned by the Swiss government, decorated by local artists, and then

(E) several life-size fiberglass cow statues, commissioned by the Swiss government, were decorated by local artists, and they

A. Parallelism error : commissioned several life-size... not parallel to having them decorated by.

B. They were decorated by local artists has different subject (cow statues). This clause cannot be joined with a comma to the preceding clause Swiss govt commissioned...

C. Correct answer as it maintains correct parallelism.

D. The subject of "In an attempt to attract more tourists" should be the Swiss govt. Even if cow statues is the subject then also there is parallelism error:

cow statues 1. commissioned by the swiss govt 2. were decorated by local artists 3. set them up on the (error)

E. same kind of parallelism error as D. cow statues they set them up is a clear error.
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