In laboratory rats, a low dose of aspirin usually suffices t

Nice question. The power split on this problem is parallelism, but I haven't seen much discussion about it because it's a bit hard to see.

You have to pay attention to the core of the sentence to find the parallelism: "A low dose of aspirin usually suffices to block production of thromboxane but not seriously interfering with the production of prostacyclin." By taking out the modifiers we can see the parallelism and more easily notice the error - "suffices 'to block' ... but not 'interfering'." We can see that we need the infinitive form of interfere (remembering that the GMAT allows us to drop the leading 'to') to be parallel. A, B, and E have incorrect forms of "interfere" and get eliminated. That leaves C and D, but D gets eliminated because it's less concise and it's unclear (D really should be written "which is a substance used to promote...").

KW
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Dear Friends,

Here is a detailed explanation to this question-

Meaning is crucial to solving this problem:
Understanding the intended meaning is key to solving this question; the intended meaning of the crucial part of this sentence is that thromboxane is a substance that promotes blood clotting

Concepts tested here: Meaning + Verb Forms + Parallelism + Awkwardness/Redundancy

• Any elements linked by a conjunction (“but” in this sentence) must be parallel.
• The infinitive verb form (“to + base form of verb” – “to + promote” in this sentence) is the preferred construction for referring to the purpose/intent of an action.

A: This answer choice fails to maintain parallelism between “suffices to block production of thromboxane” and “not seriously interfering with the production of prostacyclin”; please remember, any elements linked by a conjunction (“but” in this sentence) must be parallel. Further, Option A uses the needlessly wordy phrase “which is a substance”, leading to awkwardness and redundancy.

B: This answer choice fails to maintain parallelism between “suffices to block production of thromboxane” and “not seriously interfering with the production of prostacyclin”; please remember, any elements linked by a conjunction (“but” in this sentence) must be parallel.

C: Correct. This answer choice uses the phrase “that promotes blood clotting”; the construction of this phrase conveys the intended meaning – that thromboxane is a substance, and as a separate action, it promotes blood clotting. Further, Option C correctly maintains parallelism between “suffices to block production of thromboxane” and “does not seriously interfere with the production of prostacyclin”. Additionally, Option C is free of any awkwardness or redundancy.

D: This answer choice alters the meaning of this sentence through the phrase “to promote blood clotting”; the use of the infinitive verb form (“to + base form of verb” – “to + promote” in this sentence) illogically implies that thromboxane is a substance for the purpose of promoting blood clotting; the intended meaning is that thromboxane is a substance, and as a separate action, it promotes blood clotting; remember, the infinitive verb form (“to + base form of verb” – “to + promote” in this sentence) is the preferred construction for referring to the purpose/intent of an action. Further, Option D uses the needlessly wordy phrase “which is a substance”, leading to awkwardness and redundancy.

E: This answer choice fails to maintain parallelism between “suffices to block production of thromboxane” and “not a serious interference with the production of prostacyclin”; please remember, any elements linked by a conjunction (“but” in this sentence) must be parallel. Further, Option E uses the needlessly wordy phrase “which is a substance”, leading to awkwardness and redundancy.

Hence, C is the best answer choice.

All the best!
Experts' Global Team
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In laboratory rats, a low dose of aspirin usually suffices to block production of thromboxane, which is a substance that promotes blood clotting, but not seriously interfering with the production of prostacyclin, which prevents clotting.

(C) a substance that promotes blood clotting, but does not seriously interfere
(D) which is a substance to promote blood clotting, but does not seriously interfere

"A substance to promote" is not idiomatic first of all; then we can see that C has a parallel structure

substance that promotes (verb), but does not interfere (verb)

On the other hand D has

substance to promote (to + verb), but does not interfere (verb)

Using "which" to describe "thromboxane" after the comma certainly could work... but that doesn't mean a "which" is required. As described in this post, there is nothing wrong with using a comma to separate extra information about the noun before the comma.

As for your second question, as long as you understand why (D) is wrong, you've done your job! As I've said before, GMAT questions are hard enough, so don't torture yourself by trying to figure out how GMAC would feel about altered answer choices.
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soapbolt - this youtube link will solve your queries. let me know if you still have some.


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Hi Diwabag,

One key to correctly answering a Sentence Correction question is to avoid getting locked into your own idea of how the sentence should be written. You have to keep your mind open to a structure that you weren’t expecting and meanings different from the one that you expected the sentence to convey. In this case, while a relative clause beginning with “which” would work, there are other types of modifiers that would also work, and as it turns out, the correct version uses an appositive rather than a relative clause.

Also, be aware that Sentence Correction question writers may put familiar structures, such as clauses beginning with “which,” in incorrect choices and less familiar structures, such as appositives, in correct answers. So, you have to be ready to see structures that you didn’t expect to see in correct Sentence Correction answers. Be careful about gravitating toward the familiar, and make sure you consider entire choices, so that you notice any flaws that may accompany familiar, correct-sounding structures.
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(D) which is a substance to promote blood clotting, but does not seriously interfere - the problem with option D is "To promote". Take a look at other forms of option D.
which is a substance that promotes blood clotting, but does not seriously interfere - This is grammatically correct but unnecessarily length in comparison to option C
which is a substance promoting blood clotting, but does not seriously interfere - This is grammatically correct

Hope it helps.

Hello, mSKR. I do not think a strong case can be made for ambiguity of meaning in the way you have outlined. The comma before but effectively ropes off the which clause so that the reader understands the main clause is going to continue:

a low dose of aspirin suffices to block production of thromboxane... but does not seriously interfere with the production of prostacyclin

Without the comma in question, the non-essential information about thromboxane would seem to continue instead:

thromboxane, which is a substance to promote blood clotting but does not seriously interfere...

I hope that clarifies your concerns.

- Andrew
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It's hard to say, and the each case would be evaluated on its own, but

thromboxane,
I)which is a substance that (...)
II)a substance that (...)

(if everything else in the sentence is correct) the second case is better then the first one, just because it's more concise: you do not need "which" to refer back to "thromboxane" , you can just use an appositive modifier.

Hope it helps

Couple points of clarification here.

The sentence is about aspirin and we DO want non-essential modifiers after thromboxane and prostacyclin. 'Which' modifiers create non-essential clauses but so do appositives set off by commas. "A substance that promotes blood clotting" is a non-essential appositive and correct in the sentence.

That said, the "which" modifiers aren't great. Since we have a "which" modifier at the end of the sentence, it can be a bit confusing to the reader to have multiple "which" clauses in the sentence unless they have the same structure.

KW
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"But" belongs to the FANBOYS group and connects two Independent clause.
Here we are using But and there is no IC after it which gives us another reason to eliminate option A, B , E
Parallelism is also the issue here. As mentioned by KyleWiddison

But While selecting Between C and D i got confused and assumed that which is referring to the "thromboxane " and whole Which modifier structure should be parallel to the other Which Modifier structure. Because of this thinking i endup choosing option D over C .

Can you please Explain why C is more preferable ? is it because of "to promote " doesn't convey the right meaning ? or is it we prefer Noun + Noun Modifier over any other modifier because of its power to modify any item in the sentence ? or is there any reason which is yet not mentioned or i am not aware of ?

Please help !!!
GMATNinja, aragonn, GMATNinjaTwo, hazelnut, generis
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Hey can anybody tell me that without which such as in option B and C, a substance doesn't create ambiguity that this substance refer to aspirin or thromboxane or prostacyclin because structure like this can modify any noun at any place in this sentence please explain.

Now, Original sentence says that thromobroxane is a substance that promotos blood clotting < Basically a general fact about it> but D says that thromobroxane is a substance whose puspose is to promote the blood clotting.

I believe now you can see that D is not what original sentence is trying to communicate.

Hope it helped you.

"Which" and "substance" both function as noun modifiers here, so if there were ambiguity about what "substance" were referring to, you'd have the same ambiguity for "which."

And context makes it pretty clear that both must be describing "thromboxane." If we don't know what thromboxane does, it's not going to be terribly meaningful that aspirin blocks it, right? And "thromboxane" also happens to be the closest noun to the modifier. Certainly not a rule, but if a noun modifier is right next to a noun it could logically describe, it isn't wrong.

I hope that clears things up!
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The "touch rule" isn't actually a rule, and there are plenty of exceptions to it. (For more on that, check out "Usage #4" in this article.)

So, no, I wouldn't say that the "which" is somehow less ambiguous. Tying "substance" back to "aspirin" would be just as much of a stretch as tying "which" back to "aspirin," so that isn't a significant decision point in this case.
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Just curious is a Noun + noun modifier preferred over a which clause?

IMO C
Here which is a non-essential modifier, but the statement emphasizes on thromboxane so; A,D,E are out.
C makes more sense than B (interfere with Vs interfering with)

GMATNinja , EMPOWERgmatVerbal , Bunuel, GMATNinjaTwo , ScottTargetTestPrep ,

Hello. I always thought that WHICH is supposed to modify the preceding word (touch rule). Since the beginning of the underlined portion is supposed to describe thromboxane, isn't a "WHICH" modifier necessary here?

That's the reason I chose D over C and I totally missed the parallelism error in D. But if D were "which is a substance THAT PROMOTES blood clotting, but does not seriously interfere" ----> would this be correct?

Please help. I've been stumped in this question for almost an hour already! :P

In laboratory rats, a low dose of aspirin usually suffices to block production of thromboxane, which is a substance that promotes blood clotting, but not seriously interfering with the production of prostacyclin, which prevents clotting.

(A) which is a substance that promotes blood clotting, but not seriously interfering
(B) a substance that promotes blood clotting, but not seriously interfering
(C) a substance that promotes blood clotting, but does not seriously interfere
(D) which is a substance to promote blood clotting, but does not seriously interfere
(E) which is a substance that promotes blood clotting, but not a serious interference


Why option D is incorrect? somebody please help.
Thanks

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