Found only in the Western Hemisphere and surviving through extremes of

A) Found only in the western hemisphere and surviving through extremes of climate, hummingbirds’ range extends ---incorrect because of wrong modification. Hummingbirds should appear immediately after the climate,

B) Found only in the western hemisphere, hummingbirds survive through extremes of climate, their range extending —correct choice; ‘their range extending’ is a modifier of the birds surviving through extremes.

c.) Hummingbirds, found only in the western hemisphere and surviving through extremes of climate, with their range extending – a fragment without a verb for the subject humming birds

D.)Hummingbirds, found only in the western hemisphere and surviving through extremes of climate, their range extending from- same error as in C

E.)Hummingbirds are found only in the western hemisphere, survive through extremes of climate, and their range extends – This choice is running into structural problems and therefore a violation of intended meaning. The range that extends is descriptive of the birds’ survival through extremes of climate and not a disparate feature. Therefore, the range has to be subordinated to the surviving act and not be equated with another action verb

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 this sentence is that hummingbirds are found only in the Western Hemisphere and survive through extremes of climate because their range extends from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego.

Concepts tested here: Meaning + Modifiers + Parallelism

• In a “phrase + comma + noun” construction, the phrase must correctly modify the noun; this is one of the most frequently tested concepts on GMAT sentence correction.
• The introduction of present participle ("verb+ing"- “extending” in this case) after comma generally leads to a cause-effect relationship.

A: This answer choice incorrectly uses the phrase “Found only in…climate” to modify “hummingbirds' range”, illogically implying that the range is found only in the Western Hemisphere and survives through extremes of climate; the intended meaning is that hummingbirds are found only in the Western Hemisphere and survive through extremes of climate; please remember, in a “phrase + comma + noun” construction, the phrase must correctly modify the noun.

B:Correct This answer choice acts upon the independent noun “hummingbirds” with the active verb “survive” to form a complete thought, leading to a complete sentence. Further, Option B correctly uses the phrase “Found only in the Western Hemisphere” to modify the noun “hummingbirds” and uses the clause “hummingbirds survive through extremes of climate”, conveying the intended meaning – that hummingbirds are found only in the Western Hemisphere, and they survive through extremes of climate. Moreover, Option B uses the phrase “their range extending from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego”, conveying the intended meaning – that hummingbirds survive through extremes of climate because their range extends from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego; please remember, the introduction of present participle ("verb+ing"- “extending” in this case) after comma generally leads to a cause-effect relationship.

C: This answer choice fails to form a complete sentence; as “found only in the Western Hemisphere”, “surviving through extremes of climate”, and “with their range extending” are all modifiers, there is no active verb to act upon the subject of the sentence, “Hummingbirds”.

D: This answer choice fails to form a complete sentence; as “found only in the Western Hemisphere”, “surviving through extremes of climate”, and “their range extending” are all modifiers, there is no active verb to act upon the subject of the sentence, “Hummingbirds”.

E: This answer choice alters the meaning of the sentence through the phrase “and their range…Tierra del Fuego”; the use of “and” incorrectly implies that hummingbirds survive through extremes of climate and as a separate action their range extends from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego.; the intended meaning is that hummingbirds survive through extremes of climate because their range extends from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego.

Hence, B is the best answer choice.

To understand the concept of "Comma + Present Participles for Cause-Effect Relationships" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~3 minutes):



To understand the concept of "Phrase Comma Subject" and "Subject Comma Phrase" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~1 minute):



All the best!
Experts' Global Team

My main doubt in this question was why C is incorrect because I was confused in B and C only

(

Where is the verb in C? It's a fragment

Hummingbird's range - noun in pocessive form can't be antecedent of "Found only in the Western Hemisphere and surviving through extremes of climate"
Cross out A

Hummingbirds, found only in the Western Hemisphere and surviving through extremes of climate, their range extends
Remove highlighted modifer, sentence is not making any sense.
Cross out D


Hummingbirds are found only in the Western Hemisphere, survive through extremes of climate, and their range extends
Ungrammatical
Cross out E

Hummingbirds, found only in the Western Hemisphere and surviving through extremes of climate, with their range extending
"With" changin the meaning.

Only Plausible - B

(A) Found only in the Western Hemisphere and surviving through extremes of climate, hummingbirds’ range extends
HBird's range is not found in.. and is not surviving the extremes. Kick this option out.
(B) Found only in the Western Hemisphere, hummingbirds survive through extremes of climate, their range extending
Don't see any problem with this one
(C) Hummingbirds, found only in the Western Hemisphere and surviving through extremes of climate, with their range extending
HBirds with their range..not logical. Kick this option out.
(D) Hummingbirds, found only in the Western Hemisphere and surviving through extremes of climate, their range extends
It's an illogical construction - HBirds, modifier, <pronoun> <noun><verb> . Kick this option out.
(E) Hummingbirds are found only in the Western Hemisphere, survive through extremes of climate, and their range extends
The third in the list (i.e. 'their range extends') is not parallel with the rest two. Kick this option out.

Option B is the right option.

Cheers.

(A) Found only in the Western Hemisphere and surviving through extremes of climate, hummingbirds’ range extends
the opening modifier should modify the hummingbirds and not their range. incorrect.

(B) Found only in the Western Hemisphere, hummingbirds survive through extremes of climate, their range extending
looks good. noun+noun modifier used correctly.

(C) Hummingbirds, found only in the Western Hemisphere and surviving through extremes of climate, with their range extending
birds with their range ... no bonafide verb. so out.
found only - is a noun modifier, and not a verb.

(D) Hummingbirds, found only in the Western Hemisphere and surviving through extremes of climate, their range extends
subject, modifier, subject - double subject error here. out.

(E) Hummingbirds are found only in the Western Hemisphere, survive through extremes of climate, and their range extends
survive through extremes of climate - looks like a verb, but not properly connected. thus, E is out.

took me 40 seconds.

Hi daagh / chetan2u

I am able to eliminate Option A,C and D
Between B and E, I don't find a good option either
Can you please help.

Option E-
Hummingbirds are found only in the Western Hemisphere, survive through extremes of climate, and their range extends

2 reasons to eliminate-
1) Highlighted portion seems to modify Western Hemisphere instead of Hummingbird.
2) Parallelism error--> are found , survive , their range

Option B-
Found only in the Western Hemisphere, hummingbirds survive through extremes of climate, their range extending

Green Part is a modifier so we can eliminate it.
The word EXTENDING in the end is---> End modifier introduced with present participle ( EXTENDING ) without separated by comma

According to me

Found only in the Western Hemisphere, hummingbirds survive through extremes of climate, their range extending from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, from sealevel rain forests to the edges of Andean snowfields and ice fields at altitudes of 15,000 feet

First highlighted portion is modifying--> Humming bird
Second highlighted portion is modifying--> Range
So, in the end the only sentence remains is

hummingbirds survive through extremes of climate, their range ---> which is incomplete.


Can you please explain what's wrong in my reasoning.
Please assist. Thanks in advance

Thanks and Regards,
Prakhar

Hi chetan2u,

I really appreciate you for such a quick response.

So, you mean "their range extending from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, from sealevel rain forests to the edges of Andean snowfields and ice fields at altitudes of 15,000 feet" is modifying ---> Complete clause ( hummingbirds survive through extremes of climate)

I have learnt that we can modify a complete sentence using abstract noun.
For eg--
Government plans to introduce ABC technique, an strategy which can BLAH BLAH BLAH....
Here "an strategy which can BLAH BLAH BLAH"... is modifying the complete sentence.

But in this question we are using THEIR which is a pronoun stands for hummingbirds.
Sentence structure-

Subject + Predicate , Pronoun + Noun (Range) + modifier

How can we modify preceding sentence using a pronoun in the following sentence.
Can you please give few more examples..??


Thanks and Regards,
Prakhar

Hi,
in very simple terms..
there are verious modifier and their role depends on the structure of the sentence...
extend is a verb and by adding -ing, a modifier is formed..
comma verb-ing modifier does two jobs...
(1) simultaneous actions or
(2) a result of the actions of previous clause..

here it does (2)... their range is the result of their ability to adapt to various extreme climates..

......, their range extending from... to..., from... to...
will mean the same as..
......, extending their range from... to ...., from...to...

RAHKARP27071989
Hi
The problem in your analysis is that you have tried to split a modifier phrase into its components and left out something because as per rule, a modifier can be dispensed with. Nope. We can dispense with a modifier only when the modifier is non-essential and is set off with a comma.
That is why we cannot separate their range and extending. The modifier extending is an essential one. You see it is not set off from noun their range.
Let’s look at a simple example.
Jack and Jill went down the hill, jack falling first and Jill following—In this sentence, can we afford to drop ‘falling first’ because it is a modifying Jack and drop ‘following’ because, it is modifying Jill.
HTH

Though I could easily see how the misplaced modifier was corrected in B, I demurred at "their range extending from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, from sealevel rain forests to the edges of Andean snowfields and ice fields at altitudes of 15,000 feet."
Is that an absolute phrase? It always sounds like 'a fragment' to me. Can you pls help me understand this type of construction? What is its purpose and what alternatives writers have over it? This will help me train myself to spot it. What else I should do to train my ear to get comfortable with it?

Thanks

You identified correctly - it is indeed an absolute phrase. An absolute phrase consists of a noun and a noun modifier. Here:
noun: their range
noun modifier (present participle) : extending......

Another simpler example (from Manhattan SC guide):

His head held high, Owen walked out of the store.

An alternative way would be to convert it into a main clause and separate by a conjunction or a semicolon. But absolute phrases are stylistically better.

Hi Daagh,

Where is the verb for "their range" in the second clause?

Dear SOUMYAJIT_,

I'm happy to respond. I hope you don't mind if I answer in the place of my brilliant colleague daagh.

Here's the OA, version (B).
Found only in the Western Hemisphere, hummingbirds survive through extremes of climate, their range extending from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, from sealevel rain forests to the edges of Andean snowfields and ice fields at altitudes of 15,000 feet.
As always, a brilliantly written question--the official questions always are superb!

As I believe you understand,
Found only in the Western Hemisphere = participial phrase, noun-modifier modifying the subject
hummingbirds survive through extremes of climate = MAIN CLAUSE of the sentence
hummingbirds = the main subject
survive = the main verb, in fact, the only full verb in the entire sentence

Now, what is going on after the word "climate"? We have a [noun] + [participle] structure. If we were trying to construct a second clause, we would have failed utterly here. Nevertheless, this is neither a clause nor a poor attempt at a clause. Instead, we have a very sophisticated grammatical structure known as an absolute phrase. See:
Absolute Phrases on the GMAT

Read that blog article, and let me know if you have any more questions.

Mike

Hello GMATNinja,

I have a query regarding the absolute phrase at the end of option B.

(B) Found only in the Western Hemisphere, hummingbirds survive through extremes of climate, their range extending from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, from sealevel rain forests to the edges of Andean snowfields and ice fields at altitudes of 15,000 feet.

their range extending from X to Y, from A to B of P and Q.

Since this is officially correct answer, I am guessing its grammatical to omit any connector between the two 'from'? e.g. from X to Y and from A to B.

Can you please throw some light on this sort of construction?

Hi warriorguy,

Let me try to answer. First of all I would like to draw your attention towards the highlighted part in your statement.
The correct construction is "their range extending from X to Y, from A to B." (I have color coded X,Y,A and B in the original sentence).

Now let us take a day to day life example.

People can go from North to South, from East to West to find their missing family members.
--Here we are not trying to quantify that people really go from North to South first and then from East to West, we are just trying to say that people have no bounds.

Similarly, in the given sentence, we are not trying to say that the humming birds actually survive in those regions, it's just that the humming birds survive a wide variety of climatic changes.
If we say that "The humming birds survive a wide variety of climatic changes, their range extending from X to Y and A to B" we literally mean to say that they survive between the regions X and Y and between wide variety of climatic fluctuations.

When we say that - I love you very much. My love knows no bounds, from head to toe, from front to back; I am all yours - we are just expressing the depths of our love.

I hope it helps.