yuktipoddar wrote:
In a cardboard representation of nucleotide subunits, Watson and Crick,
elaborating on other scientists’ theories which had failed to explain the nucleotide structures and pairings in their entirety,accurately modeled the double-helix DNA.
(A) elaborating on other scientists’ theories which had failed to explain the nucleotide structures and pairings in their entirety,
(B) elaborating on other scientists’ theories failed to explain the nucleotide structures and pairings in their entirety,
(C) elaborating on other scientists’ theories which have failed to explain the nucleotide structures and pairings in their entirety,
(D) elaborated on other scientists’ theories which fail to explain the nucleotide structures and pairings in their entirety,
(E) elaborated on other scientists’ theories which had failed to explain the nucleotide structures and pairings in their entirety,
warrior1991 wrote:
generis VeritasKarishma GMATNinja AjiteshArun egmatI know that verb-ed modifiers modify the noun and here Watson and Crick are the noun.
Don't you think when you read option E, you feel the sentence is a run on?
Kindly help.
Read the text below using the option E.
In a cardboard representation of nucleotide subunits, Watson and Crick,
elaborated on other scientists’ theories which had failed to explain the nucleotide structures and pairings in their entirety,accurately modeled the double-helix DNA.
warrior1991 - you are correct that
• Option E is wrong--
elaborated acts as a verb, not a participle
-- (E) sticks incorrectly sticks two verb phrases together with a comma but no conjunction
-- so the comma after
elaborated . . .entirety is fatal.
-- The comma after Watson and Crick is also fatal.
The word AND without a comma should follow
elaborated...entirety (see below)
Let's look at (E) as it stands:
In a cardboard representation of nucleotide subunits, Watson and Crick, elaborated on other scientists’ theories which had failed to explain the nucleotide structures and pairings in their entirety, accurately modeled the double-helix DNA.
Ignore the introductory prepositional phrase.
Watson and Crick
, elaborated on other ABCs' work which had failed to explain XYZs in their entirety, accurately
modeled the 123.
Wrong: Subject + elaborated on + COMMA + modeled
Here is a shorter example with identical structure.
Wrong: Karen, elaborated on her theory, modeled the atom correctly.Corrected: Subject + elaborated on + AND + modeled (NO comma)
Correct: Karen elaborated on her theory and modeled the atom correctly.
Compare the two short example sentences.
It should be easier to see that (E)'s construction is wrong.
If option (E) is supposed to be a compound predicate (two verb phrases, i.e., two things that Watson and Crick did),
then
it needs a comma + and after the "elaborated" phrase.
In that case, the comma after
Watson and Crick is not justified.
The structure of (E) should be:
In a cardboard representation of nucleotide subunits, Watson and Crick elaborated on other scientists’ theories which had failed to explain the nucleotide structures and pairings in their entirety and accurately modeled the double-helix DNA.
• Option A is correct.As far as meaning, logic, and sentence structure, (A) makes a lot more sense.
"elaborating" describes Watson and Crick in a way that
elaborated cannot.
Jargon: the whole __ING phrase is called a reduced relative clause.
We
could write
. . . Watson and Crick,
who were elaborating on other scientists' theories that had failed to explain...
That construction makes sense.
It contains a relative clause.
Who is the relative pronoun.
Were is the verb in the relative clause, which describes Watson and Crick. In English, some clauses can be shortened, as is the case here.
We can "reduce" the relative clause
who were elaborating on...We just remove the
who and the
were.Result:
elaborating on other scientists'... -- in the same way as the UNreduced relative clause does, the reduced clause
still describes / modifies the nouns -- in this case, Watson and Crick
Option A, as it stands:
In a cardboard representation of nucleotide subunits, Watson and Crick,
elaborating on other scientists’ theories which had failed to explain the nucleotide structures and pairings in their entirety,accurately modeled the double-helix DNA.
This structure in (A) is clear in meaning and logic.
It is also grammatically correct.
We can also check by shortening the sentence, this way:
Watson and Crick, elaborating on ABCs' incomplete theories, accurately modeled the XYZ.
Correct: Subject + comma + modifier + verb.
This OA [of (E)] is wrong.
I will change it to option (A).
I hope that analysis helps.
*we could NOT reduce what would be a relative clause containing elaborated, which could be written who had elaborated. We cannot reduce that relative clause in order to make elaborated a direct modifier of the two scientists because ... The past participle and the past tense verb are identical. elaborated is not acting as a modifying participle in this case.