Normally a bone becomes fossilized through the action of groundwater, which permeates the bone, washes away its organic components, and replaces them with minerals. (A) which permeates the bone, washes away its organic components, and replaces them (B) which permeates the bone, washes away its organic components, and those are replaced (C) which permeates the bone, washing away its organic components, to be replaced (D) permeating the bone, washing away its organic components, to be replaced (E) permeating the bone, washing away its organic components and replacing them (SC01595) https://www.oakton.edu/user/4/billtong/eas100/real_jurassic_park.pdf When the team brought the dinosaur into the lab, we noticed that some parts deep inside the long bone of the leg had not completely fossilized. Normally a bone becomes fossilized with the help of groundwater, which permeates it, washes away its organic components and replaces them with minerals. But water also interacts with DNA and protein molecules, breaking apart the bonds that hold them together. One possible explanation was that not much water had gotten into this T. rex . If that was true, then some biomolecules could remain. It was a long shot but clearly worth checking out.

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Normally a bone becomes fossilized through the action of groundwater

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himanshu0123

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had the option C] be like:

''Usually, a bone becomes fossilized through the action of groundwater,
which permeates the bone and washes away its organic components to be replaced with minerals''

Here, '' to be replaced'' is an adverbial modifer modifying ''why groundwater washes away its organic components?''

please correct my understanding.

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himanshu0123

Hello himanshu0123,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, the use of the infinitive verb form ("to + base form of verb"), even if in the passive construction, conveys a sense of purpose, distorting the intended meaning of the sentence and implying that the groundwater washes away the organic components for the purpose of being replaced by minerals; the intended meaning is simply that the groundwater does three actions - permeating the bone, washing away the organic components, and replacing them with minerals; remember, the infinitive verb form is the preferred construction for referring to the purpose or intent of an action.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
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Doesn't option A sounds like "groundwater" replaces the "organic components" with minerals? Isn't that wrong?

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JJDa

Doesn't option A sounds like "groundwater" replaces the "organic components" with minerals? Isn't that wrong?

Hello JJDa,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, this meaning is perfectly correct.

The process of fossilization as described here involves groundwater permeating the bone and washing away the organic components; then, as the groundwater evaporates, the minerals dissolved within it are left behind and occupy the space once occupied by the organic components that the water washed away.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
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Bunuel

Normally a bone becomes fossilized through the action of groundwater, which permeates the bone, washes away its organic components, and replaces them with minerals.

Quote:

(A) which permeates the bone, washes away its organic components, and replaces them

This one looks good to me. “Which” correctly modifies groundwater and “groundwater permeates [..], washes [..], and replaces [..]” is nicely parallel. Note that all three actions are performed by groundwater so this list conveys the intended meaning. Keep (A).

Quote:

(B) which permeates the bone, washes away its organic components, and those are replaced

This choice breaks the parallelism by adding a those at the end and alters the meaning of the sentence. Who is replacing the organic components with minerals? Those are replaced after? Doesn’t make much sense. (A) is definitely better because groundwater should have minerals that will replace these components. Eliminate.

Quote:

This choice not only breaks the parallelism but doesn’t make much sense. Washing away seems to be modifying permeates the bone - does the bone permeate by washing away its organic components? Finally, “to be replaced” modifies organic components which is not the intended meaning of the sentence as explained in (B). Ugly, Eliminate.

Quote:

(D) permeating the bone, washing away its organic components, to be replaced

Keeps getting worse. The construction here is resulting in an improper list since permeating and washing only have a comma splice and result in an incomplete sentence. Additionally, permeating the bone might modify the action of fossilization rather than what groundwater itself does. Out.

Quote:

(E) permeating the bone, washing away its organic components and replacing them

Here you could see the construction as normally a bone becomes fossilized through the action of groundwater, permeating [..], washing [..], and replacing [..] which is not a parallel list and doesn’t make much sense. How can bone the permeate itself? Out.

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Normally a bone becomes fossilized through the action of groundwater,

(E) permeating the bone, washing away its organic components and replacing them

KarishmaB GMATNinja

Why verb-ing is incorrect in E? We can say that "permeating, washing and replacing" present how aspect or more info about "Action" of groundwater.
Please let me know how to avoid such confusion.

Thanks in advance!

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While (A) is the OA - here is one big issue with (A)

From the perspective of 'meaning' specifically - does it make sense to have all three (permeates | washes and replaces) parallel ?

It doesn't make sense for these 3 to be parallel.

Why ? Because these three actions ARE NOT TAKING PLACE AT THE SAME TIME.

Instead, this is the sequence :
First -- Ground Water permeates (aka - enters) the bone

Then after step 1 --

ONLY THEN do the next two steps (washes and replaces) happen at the same time.

Washes and Replaces make sense to be parallel as washes and replaces occur at the same time.

But permeating takes place EARLIER

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Sneha2021

Verb-ing after comma at the end of the clause modifies the subject or the entire previous clause (how the subject performs the action given in the verb). The subject of the previous clause is 'bone' and verb is 'becomes fossilized'.

But 'permeating..., washing... and replacing...' needs to modify 'groundwater.' These actions are performed by the groundwater, not bone.

Hence the relative clause modifying 'groundwater' is a much better way to write it.

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egmat GMATNinja @banuel

I saw the meaning of this question as-- the ground water passes through the fossil (penetrates) and this process of penetration leads to washing away of substances which are replaced by other minerals.
How is this a list? It is a process one thing leads to another.

My question now: is C wrong only for the use of 'to be replaced' because water is not penetrating with an intention?

If I write C as: which permeates the bone, washing away its organic components, and replacing them with minerals.

Is it still wrong for parallelism.
If we had both C and A, would C be a better choice? it explains the process in a better way.

Thanks Divya

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singhall

egmat GMATNinja @‌banuel

I saw the meaning of this question as-- the ground water passes through the fossil (penetrates) and this process of penetration leads to washing away of substances which are replaced by other minerals.

How is this a list? It is a process one thing leads to another.

My question now: is C wrong only for the use of 'to be replaced' because water is not penetrating with an intention?

If I write C as: which permeates the bone, washing away its organic components, and replacing them with minerals.

Is it still wrong for parallelism.

If we had both C and A, would C be a better choice? it explains the process in a better way.

Thanks Divya

It isn't clear whether "to be replaced" modifies "bone" or "organic components" in (C). Also, "to be replaced" suggests a vague timeline for the mineral replacement -- how long after the "washing away" does the "replacing" happen? Does the replacing happen after the bone becomes a fossil? And does the groundwater have anything to do with the replacing, or does the replacing happen by some other means?

Because of the broken parallelism, the meaning is unclear in (C).

Also, if permeating causes the washing (and/or the replacing), does that mean that the washing and the replacing happen the instant that water permeates a bone? Washing away the organic components and replacing them with minerals sure seems like something that would take quite some time -- after all, we are talking about fossils here, and it seems unlikely that a bone becomes instantly fossilized the second a little water seeps into it.

Choice (A) avoids the issue of timing and causality altogether and quite simply tells us that the groundwater does three things: permeates the bone, washes away organic components, and replaces the organic components with minerals. The order of the processes is clear enough, and the parallelism makes it very clear that it's the groundwater that does three things.

Worrying about how (A) compares to an edited version of (C) isn't a valuable use of time. (A) is perfectly logical, and (C) has several interconnected issues. That makes (A) our winner.

I hope that helps!

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I have a general doubt. In case of comma plus relative pronoun (",which" in this question) does the relative pronoun refer to preceding noun in all cases or can it jump over prepositional phrase (in this case "of groundwater) and refer to the noun before it.(in this case "action"). I know it doesn't make any logical sense in this question. But what about in other cases?

Thank you in advance.

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ifyouknowyouknow

It's fine for a noun modifier to "jump" over a small amount of text as long as the intended meaning is clear. For instance, I can say "The box of crackers, which was on sale for only $1.99, was the cheapest item in my cart." Clearly, it's the whole box of crackers, not just the crackers themselves, that "was on sale" refers to.

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