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705-805 Level|   Parallelism|      
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sands282
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Native to the coastal swamps of the Carolinas Updated on: 15 May 2014, 00:49
Originally posted by sands282 on 15 May 2014, 00:32.
Last edited by sands282 on 15 May 2014, 00:49, edited 1 time in total.
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Be sure to select an answer first to save it in the Error Log before revealing the correct answer (OA)!

Difficulty:

85% (hard)

Question Stats:

43% (01:55) correct 57% (02:14) wrong based on 427 sessions

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“Native to the coastal swamps of the Carolinas, Venus fly traps attract insects by secretion of sweet nectar and spring shut in less than a tenth of a second, digesting the prey thoroughly enough that only dried skin fragments remain when its sealed stomach opens again ten days later.”

A. Venus fly traps attract insects by secretion of sweet nectar and spring shut in less than a tenth of a second, digesting the prey thoroughly enough

B. Venus fly traps attract insects by secretion of sweet nectar, they spring shut in less than a tenth of a second, and with such thorough digestion of the prey

C. Venus fly traps use secretion of sweet nectar to attract insects, spring shut in less than a tenth of a second, and digest the prey so thoroughly

D. the Venus fly trap attracts insects by secretion of sweet nectar, springing shut in less than a tenth of a second and digesting the prey so thoroughly

E. the Venus fly trap attracts insects by secretion of sweet nectar, springs shut in less than a tenth of a second, and it digests the prey thoroughly enough
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D
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aditya8062
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Native to the coastal swamps of the Carolinas 15 May 2014, 00:45
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D it is : the Venus fly trap attracts insects by secretion of sweet nectar, springing shut in less than a tenth of a second and digesting the prey so thoroughly

please underline the question
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sands282
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Native to the coastal swamps of the Carolinas 15 May 2014, 00:47
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Can someone please explain why the Official answer is correct?
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Native to the coastal swamps of the Carolinas 15 May 2014, 00:49
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Apologies, I have underlined part of question now.
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Native to the coastal swamps of the Carolinas 15 May 2014, 01:29
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see why do i ask people to underline is because normally people on this forum do questions in a time limit and a non underlined question is a big waste of time !!
so here is the solution :
look at the non underlined portion --->" when its sealed stomach opens again ten days later.”
now because we have "its" so we need a singular subject -----> eliminate A B C

E has two problems
firstly it breaks the parallelism
also u do not need parallelism in this case as "springing and digesting" are consequence of "attracts" .remember that parallelism is done only when two or more actions are of EQUAL importance .this is not the case here !!
because we are talking about the consequence so we need a modifier as is done in the correct answer

secondly it has not used the idiom "so X that Y" correctly
correct usage is "so X that Y" or ADJECTIVE ENOUGH (no THAT)

also note that i doubt if this question is from GMAC because Venus flytrap is the insect not
the Venus fly trap
if u leave a gap between "fly" and "trap" then different meaning can be construed !!
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Native to the coastal swamps of the Carolinas 28 Oct 2014, 20:14
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sands282
“Native to the coastal swamps of the Carolinas, Venus fly traps attract insects by secretion of sweet nectar and spring shut in less than a tenth of a second, digesting the prey thoroughly enough that only dried skin fragments remain when its sealed stomach opens again ten days later.”

A. Venus fly traps attract insects by secretion of sweet nectar and spring shut in less than a tenth of a second, digesting the prey thoroughly enough

B. Venus fly traps attract insects by secretion of sweet nectar, they spring shut in less than a tenth of a second, and with such thorough digestion of the prey

C. Venus fly traps use secretion of sweet nectar to attract insects, spring shut in less than a tenth of a second, and digest the prey so thoroughly

D. the Venus fly trap attracts insects by secretion of sweet nectar, springing shut in less than a tenth of a second and digesting the prey so thoroughly

E. the Venus fly trap attracts insects by secretion of sweet nectar, springs shut in less than a tenth of a second, and it digests the prey thoroughly enough

I know this is an old topic, but I think this problem is important to understand.

When you read the first sentence and then decide where to start, the best place to look is sometimes the non-underlined portion. Here, the non-underlined portion gives a HUGE signal: "when its stomach opens again" shows that the noun HAS to be singular. Just noticing this eliminates answers A, B, and C ("Venus fly traps" is plural).

Between D and E, the decision point is mostly between "digesting the prey so thoroughly" and "digests the prey thoroughly enough". The latter is grammatically incorrect ("thoroughly enough that" is very wrong), and leaves answer D remaining.

A takeaway from this is to look at the non-underlined portion when you start. Often, as in this problem, the non-underlined portion is essential to determine decision points.

Hope this makes sense.
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Native to the coastal swamps of the Carolinas 15 Dec 2014, 20:17
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for such a long sentence you need to give little extra 20 seconds accurately answer them. This one was between. A and D. Where D prevails.

sands282
“Native to the coastal swamps of the Carolinas, Venus fly traps attract insects by secretion of sweet nectar and spring shut in less than a tenth of a second, digesting the prey thoroughly enough that only dried skin fragments remain when its sealed stomach opens again ten days later.”

A. Venus fly traps attract insects by secretion of sweet nectar and spring shut in less than a tenth of a second, digesting the prey thoroughly enough

B. Venus fly traps attract insects by secretion of sweet nectar, they spring shut in less than a tenth of a second, and with such thorough digestion of the prey

C. Venus fly traps use secretion of sweet nectar to attract insects, spring shut in less than a tenth of a second, and digest the prey so thoroughly

D. the Venus fly trap attracts insects by secretion of sweet nectar, springing shut in less than a tenth of a second and digesting the prey so thoroughly

E. the Venus fly trap attracts insects by secretion of sweet nectar, springs shut in less than a tenth of a second, and it digests the prey thoroughly enough
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Native to the coastal swamps of the Carolinas 09 Mar 2017, 21:38
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when its sealed stomach opens again ten days later

Since we have its in the later part of the sentence, we now know that the opening modifier should modify a singular phrase - the Venus F T.

Down to D and E.

In E, the construction tries to jam everything in an attempt to make it parallel; however, we would need the second and third part to show the effect/result of the action performed. I don't think both should be parallel to the first part.

E has another error. We normally use the construction : X, Y and Z wherein all entities are parallel. Here sentence uses attracts, springs and it digests. Incorrect construction.

So D
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