jlo1234 wrote:
egmat DmitryFarber GMATNinja Couple of questions regarding this question:
1) For choice D, is "enough for generating...." a noun modifier modifying "energy"? Or is it a prepositional phrase that is a verb modifier modifying the verb "produce"? Because logically I think it should modify "produce", but then how can the noun modifier "enough for generating...." jump over a verb modifier to modify the noun "energy"? Isn't there a rule saying that noun modifiers can only jump other noun modifiers?
There are no rules about what modifiers can and can't jump over. Some tendencies we see? Sure. But no ironclad rules. All we really care about is: 1) is the modifier logical? and 2) is the modifier
reasonably close to what it's describing. If the answer to those questions is "yes" or even "I'm not sure," then you shouldn't treat the modifier as an error. Simple as that.
As for what "enough" is describing, I'd say it seems to be modifying "energy," but really, either interpretation is reasonable enough. Take another example:
Tim ate enough food to obliterate the large intestine of a small mastodon.
Here, I'd say "enough" is describing the amount of "food," and so it's a noun modifier, but if you wanted to insist it was telling us how much he "ate," and is therefore a verb modifier, I'd see your point. It isn't worth losing sleep over. Either way, it seems logical, so I wouldn't treat it as an error.
Quote:
2) For choices B and C, why are the following constructions not parallel?
B: "enough... for electricity to be generated and to heat factories and homes."
C: "enough for generating electricity and to heat factories and homes."
The problem with (B) is more about meaning than faulty parallelism. Take another look:
Quote:
Scientists at the Los Alamos National Laboratory have succeeded for the first time in mining heat from the Earth’s interior and producing enough energy on a commercial scale for electricity to be generated efficiently and to heat factories and homes.
First, the phrase "scale for electricity," makes me think there's a scale that measures electricity. That makes no sense. What would generating energy for this supposed scale have to do with heating factories?
Worse, if "to heat" is parallel to "to be generated," then we have the following meaning: The lab has produced enough energy for electricity
to be generated efficiently and for electricity
to heat factories and homes. Electricity might be
consumed when the factories and homes are heated, but it's odd to claim that the electricity is doing the heating itself.
If I read it a few times, I can figure out what the author is trying to say, but the sentence is so muddy and confusing that it's clearly inferior to (D).
(C), on the other hand, is just faulty parallelism. "For generating" is a prepositional phrase and "to heat" is an infinitive verb phrase. That's no good.
Once you see the meaning issue in (B) and the faulty parallelism in (C), there's no reason to agonize any more. Those options are out.
I hope that helps!