Over the next few years, increasing demands on the Chattahoochee River

I just don't get why D is right
the present participle "robbing" seems to modify Apalachicola Bay .

It is the exact reason that we eliminated A !

Hi foryearss, the present participle robbing is preceded by a comma in D.

Such Participial phrases modify the subject of the preceding clause. In this case, the preceding clause is:

Chattahoochee River could alter the saline content of Apalachicola Bay

The subject of this clause is Chattahoochee River. So, the present participle phrase robbing the oysters there of their flavor..... is correctly modifying Chattahoochee River.

Over the next few years, increasing demands on the Chattahoochee River, which flows into the Apalachicola River, could alter the saline content of Apalachicola Bay, which would rob the oysters there of their flavor, and to make them decrease in size, less distinctive, and less in demand.

(A) which would rob the oysters there of their flavor, and to make them decrease in size,
(B) and it would rob the oysters there of their flavor, make them smaller,
(C) and rob the oysters there of their flavor, making them decrease in size,
(D) robbing the oysters there of their flavor and making them smaller,
(E) robbing the oysters there of their flavor, and making them decrease in size,

Hello Everyone!

This is a great example of a list question you might find on the GMAT! Let's take a closer look at this question, one issue at a time, and determine our best course of action! First, here is the original question with any major differences between the options highlighted in orange:

Over the next few years, increasing demands on the Chattahoochee River, which flows into the Apalachicola River, could alter the saline content of Apalachicola Bay, which would rob the oysters there of their flavor, and to make them decrease in size, less distinctive, and less in demand.

(A) which would rob the oysters there of their flavor, and to make them decrease in size,
(B) and it would rob the oysters there of their flavor, make them smaller,
(C) and rob the oysters there of their flavor, making them decrease in size,
(D) robbing the oysters there of their flavor and making them smaller,
(E) robbing the oysters there of their flavor, and making them decrease in size,

After a quick glance over the options, a couple things clearly need to be addressed:

1. rob vs. robbing
2. decrease in size vs. smaller

We know already that this is an example of a list question. Whenever we see list questions, we know we must focus on the following:

1. Parallelism (ALL items in the list must be similar in word use, verb tense, structure, etc.)
2. Concision (ALL items should use the most concise wording whenever possible)

The best place to start with any list question is to find any part of the list that isn't underlined. Since that part of the sentence cannot change, ALL other items on the list must match it in verb tense, wording, tone, etc.

Over the next few years, increasing demands on the Chattahoochee River, which flows into the Apalachicola River, could alter the saline content of Apalachicola Bay[/color], [u]which would rob the oysters there of their flavor, and to make them decrease in size, less distinctive, and less in demand.

The two items on the list that aren't underlined are "less distinctive" and "less in demand." Would it make more sense to use "decrease in size" or the more concise "smaller" here? Remember - we must use concise wording whenever possible!

(A) which would rob the oysters there of their flavor, and to make them decrease in size,
(B) and it would rob the oysters there of their flavor, make them smaller,
(C) and rob the oysters there of their flavor, making them decrease in size,
(D) robbing the oysters there of their flavor and making them smaller,
(E) robbing the oysters there of their flavor, and making them decrease in size,

We can eliminate options A, C, and E because they are overly wordy. Saying "decrease in size" and "smaller" mean the same thing. The GMAT prefers you use the most concise option whenever possible, so we have to throw these out.

Now that we're left with only options B & D, let's take a closer look. I've included the rest of the sentence surrounding it so problems might be easier to spot:

(B) Over the next few years, increasing demands on the Chattahoochee River, which flows into the Apalachicola River, could alter the saline content of Apalachicola Bay, and it would rob the oysters there of their flavor, make them smaller, less distinctive, and less in demand.

This option is INCORRECT because it includes a vague pronoun "it." We're not 100% sure what the pronoun is referring to: increasing demands of the Chattahoochee River, the Apalachicola River, or the Apalachicola Bay?

(D) Over the next few years, increasing demands on the Chattahoochee River, which flows into the Apalachicola River, could alter the saline content of Apalachicola Bay, robbing the oysters there of their flavor and making them smaller, less distinctive, and less in demand.

This is CORRECT! It doesn't contain any confusing pronouns, and the parallelism with "robbing" and "making" sounds nice. Also, it uses the concise "smaller" rather than the wordy "decrease in size."


There you go - option D is the best choice!


Don't study for the GMAT. Train for it.

Dear EMPOWERgmatVerbal,

Thanks for the explanation. I am basic in Grammar so, please bear with me for basic questions
I request for detailed explanation of "decrease in size versus smaller"

bb generis GMATNinja

Thanks in advance

jkbk

No, not at all because 'is running' is not a noun. One can't separate 'running' from 'is' and say, running is a gerund (noun) and therefore 'which' can refer to it. It will be absurd to say 'he' is equal to 'running'.

The official explanation of C is the following:
"The comma before the conjunction and signals that an independent clause will follow and, but a verb phrase follows instead. The series of phrases following making them lacks appropriate parallelism."

I understand why C is wrong generally, but got confused by this explanation. Do they mean, an independent clause as a noun+verb structure should follow ',and'?
EMPOWERgmatVerbal GMATNinja ?

There’s a lot of funny-sounding stuff in this one: two consecutive “which” modifiers in some answer choices, plus it’s really, really hard to quickly say “oysters there of their flavor” five times in a row. But by now, you don’t care about “sound” on SC… right?


The first thing that jumps out at me is the underlined “which” modifier. I don’t think that it makes a whole lot of sense: “Apalachicola Bay” certainly doesn’t “rob oysters there of their flavor”, and neither does “the saline content of Apalachicola Bay.” The alteration of the saline content robs oysters of their flavor – but that’s a verb here (“could alter”), and “which” generally doesn’t modify a verb on the GMAT.

The parallelism is also a huge problem here. The phrase “to make” follows the “and”, so we’d need another infinitive verb earlier in the sentence. But I don’t see anything that could possibly work.

So we can eliminate (A).


Hopefully, the word “it” jumps out at you whenever you see it. You’re looking for a singular referent, but in this case, I don’t see a lot of great options: we have the saline content, Apalachicola Bay, or a couple of different rivers, but none of those are really performing the action of robbing oysters of their flavor. It’s the alteration of the saline content – caused by increasing demands on the Chattahoochee River – that rob the oysters of their flavor. So the pronoun “it” is wrong.

Plus, we have some funky parallelism stuff going on here: “rob the oysters there of their flavor, make them smaller, less distinctive, and less in demand.” I’d be OK if there was an “and” before “make”: that way, “smaller”, “less distinctive”, and “less in demand” could all be parallel to each other.

But in this case, the list makes no sense: it’s a hodgepodge of verbs (“rob” and “make”) and modifiers (“less distinctive” and “less in demand”). (B) is definitely out.


This one is tricky! It looks like “rob” is parallel to the verb “could alter”, and I guess that’s OK: “… increasing demands on the Chattahoochee River… could alter the saline content… and rob oysters there of their flavor…” That doesn’t sound too bad, but we could argue that the alteration of the saline content is the thing that robs the oysters of their flavor, not the “increasing demands on the river” – so the two verbs “rob” and “could alter” probably shouldn’t be parallel to each other. That’s awfully subtle, and you shouldn’t feel badly if you didn’t notice that there’s a problem with it.

The other issue with (C) is the parallelism at the end of the sentence: “making them decrease in size, less distinctive, and less in demand.” So “less in demand” and “less distinctive” are both modifiers. Fair enough. But then “decrease in size” is a verb phrase, which can’t be parallel to those two modifiers.

Nasty stuff, in my opinion. (C) is gone.


This sounds weird. “Robbing the oysters there of their flavor and making them smaller…” Hm, that’s a mouthful. Say it five times fast, and you probably won’t want to choose it as your answer.

But it’s right. “Robbing the oysters there of their flavor” is now a modifier, giving us more information about the entire previous clause about increasing demands on the river, and alterations of the saline content. That makes perfect sense: the entire, long-winded situation – beginning with the “increasing demands” on the river – robs oysters of their flavor, so the “-ing” modifier is perfect.

And the parallelism at the end of the sentence is great, too: “making them smaller, less distinctive, and less in demand.” Three parallel modifiers, all describing what happens to the oysters.

Let’s keep (D).


The comma after “flavor” is a minor issue. In general, the GMAT doesn’t spend a lot of time testing us on the subtleties of comma usage, but there’s no real need for the comma here, since “robbing” and “making” are very nicely parallel with each other. Don’t lose sleep over this, since it’s rarely – if ever – a deciding factor on these questions.

The bigger issue is the parallelism error at the end of the sentence: just as in (C), “decrease in size” isn’t parallel to “less distinctive” and “less in demand,” since “decrease” is a verb. And that’s the best reason to eliminate (E), and settle for (D).

Hi foryearss, the present participle robbing is preceded by a comma in D.

Such Participial phrases modify the subject of the preceding clause. In this case, the preceding clause is:

Chattahoochee River could alter the saline content of Apalachicola Bay

The subject of this clause is Chattahoochee River. So, the present participle phrase robbing the oysters there of their flavor..... is correctly modifying Chattahoochee River.


That's correct.

p.s. Our book EducationAisle Sentence Correction Nirvana discusses Present Participial Phrases, their application and examples in significant detail. If someone is interested, PM me your email-id; I can mail the corresponding section.

How can "robbing" correctly modify the Chattahoochee River ? When the sentence says robbing the oysters there of their flavor.....

Hi Kriti, please refer to my post later in this thread, wherein I have amended that in option D, the present participial phrasae robbing.. modifies increasing demands (on the Chattahoochee River).

In addition to this, such participial phrases generally describe/present a result of the previous clause.

Perhaps, a simpler example will help:

Peter studied hard, acing the exam.

Again, the present participial phrase acing the exam is modifying Peter (in the sense that Peter is the agent of acing) and in addition, acing the exam is a result of Peter studying hard.

p.s. Our book EducationAisle Sentence Correction Nirvana discusses Present participial phrase, its application and examples in significant detail. If you or someone is interested, PM me your email-id; I can mail the corresponding section.

This one is tricky! It looks like “rob” is parallel to the verb “could alter”, and I guess that’s OK: “… increasing demands on the Chattahoochee River… could alter the saline content… and rob oysters there of their flavor…” That doesn’t sound too bad, but we could argue that the alteration of the saline content is the thing that robs the oysters of their flavor, not the “increasing demands on the river” – so the two verbs “rob” and “could alter” probably shouldn’t be parallel to each other. That’s awfully subtle, and you shouldn’t feel badly if you didn’t notice that there’s a problem with it.