Because 70 percent of the people of India use wood as their sole fuel

You are right, we have to check for doer of -ing modifer.

Hi daagh AndrewN experts

Using this example, is it correct to say that passive voice clause can never be followed by commna + verb-ing modifier, if the does is not specified?

Watch that language, shanks2020. Absolute words—e.g., never, always, must—and the rules you may construct from them rarely stand up in all cases. As much as you can, you want to avoid looking to pigeonhole each grammatical consideration and instead adapt your working knowledge of concepts and general usage to the question at hand and the answer choices contained therein. Look for obvious errors first, and whittle away at what remains from there.

- Andrew
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Hi AndrewN

So is my reasoning correct that one of the reasons that options A/B/C could be wrong is lack of proper subject/doer for the comma verb-ing modifier - resulting? even though it does modify the preceding clause correctly.
Also can you please confirm whether "considering" in options D and E are acting as similar comma verb-ing modifier or they are just nouns after the preposition without, hence does not require any connection with the previous clause.

Hello, shanks2020. Choices (A), (B), and (C) can all be eliminated for the same error in the meaning conveyed by the -ing phrase. GMATNinja has done a fine job detailing that error in this earlier post. I hope that will satisfy your curiosity.

- Andrew
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This is an easy one if we eliminate the wrong choices.
The correct constructions are - as much X as (and not as much X than)
Eliminate A, C and E.

Rewriting B and D in full sentences.
(B) Because 70 percent of the people of India use wood as their sole fuel, ten million acres of forest have been lost there since 1960,resulting in wood now costing eight times as much to collect and distribute as in 1960.
(D) Because 70 percent of the people of India use wood as their sole fuel, ten million acres of forest have been lost there since 1960,and as a result wood now costs eight times as much to collect and distribute as it did in 1960.
In B, it implies that - the result of the fact that ten million acres of forest have been lost is wood (followed by its modifier).This makes no sense.
Hence D is the only choice left to be correct.

I have two queries here :
1. Can we use Comma+verbING modifier if the previous clause does not mention the doer (subject), for instance, if the previous clause is in passive? (as in B here)

I believe the rule is - Comma+verbING should modify the closest action of the preceding clause, and the SUBJECT of the preceding clause should be the agent of the -ING action.

2. As " and" is considered parallel marker, can we use " and" to show the result of one clause as another ?

ten million acres of forest have been lost there since 1960,and as a result wood now costs eight times as much to collect and distribute as it did in 1960.
If we remove "as a result" from the clause second clause,won't the parallel structure become nonsense?

GMATNinja egmat

Not a rule. As a framework for evaluating the logic of a CLAUSE + COMMA + -ING construction, asking whether it makes sense for the subject of the clause to have performed the action works most of the time, but there are definite exceptions. Consider an example:

Tim's children were attacked by hungry squirrels, prompting his wife to insist that Tim stop coating them in peanut butter before releasing them into the wild.

This sentence is fine. The action described in one clause - the squirrel attack - resulted in the action in the next clause - the prohibition on covering kids in peanut butter.

But if you used the above framework, you'd see that the subject of the clause is "Tim's children." Are Tim's children really what prompted his wife to take action? Nope. It was the fact that they were attacked. So there's a risk that you'd conclude, incorrectly, that the construction doesn't work, when it's perfectly acceptable.

The takeaway: when you see CLAUSE + COMMA + -ING, simply ask yourself if the -ing modifier logically describes the previous clause.



"And" is a pretty flexible parallel marker. All it needs to do is connect two parts of a sentence that play the same role. For example:

Tim slathered his children in peanut butter, and as a result, they were attacked by squirrels.

Here, "and" is connecting two independent clauses. Those clauses are structured slightly differently, but that's fine. Grammatically, they play the same role: the part in red can stand on its own as a complete sentence, and so can the part in blue.

I hope that clears things up a bit!
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GMATNinja The way I thought about Option B was that the use of 'costs' in D is better than 'costing' B because 'costs' connotes a general fact which should be applicable here. Is that a right consideration ?

GMATNinja

Clearly the “wood” that was used in the 60’s is not the same as the one being used now. So, why are we using “it?”

Per your comment to question SC67561.01, we should not use “it” or “they” to refer to same type of things that happen in two different time periods. It/they are used to refer to the same things, not carbon copies.

If GMAT is creating questions that are not based on consistent rules, how are we supposed answer questions correctly each time?

Yup, I think that's another valid point, one that fits with our previous explanation:


In (D), the "result" is that "wood now costs eight times as much as it used to". In (B), it sounds like the result is just "wood" -- wood that happens to now cost eight times as much as it used to.

In other words, because "costing" is a modifier in (B), it's less clear whether the "costing" part IS the result or just some additional information about the wood. But in (D), it's clear that the result is not just "wood" -- it's the fact that wood now costs eight times as much as it used to.

I hope that helps!
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Unfortunately, GMAT SC isn't meant to be a test of black and white grammar rules -- it's about subtle meaning and logic issues that can't be distilled down to a list of mechanical decision points. That's what makes it so hard!

On the GMAT, your job is to select the BEST answer choice out of the five available options, and that's why comparing sentences from different problems is rarely productive. Looking at a single sentence in a bubble and trying to determine whether it's correct or incorrect based on grammar "rules" is an entirely different job -- one that you'll never have to do on this test!

This question and the avalanche question (SC67561.01) are entirely different animals. But before we dive in, let's look at a couple of examples:

• "Electricity costs more in Chile than it does in the United States." - This makes perfect sense: we are referring to electricity in general and saying that it costs more in one place than in another.
• "Electricity in Chile costs more than it does in the United States." - This one isn't great. Now it seems like the "it" is referring to "electricity in Chile" -- so "electricity in Chile" costs more than "electricity in Chile" costs in the United States?? That doesn't make any sense. Sure, you can guess what this sentence is trying to say. But as written, it suggests an illogical meaning. Is this wrong because it breaks some ironclad rule? No. But the first one is much better because it expresses the logical meaning more clearly.

The correct answer in the avalanche question is much like the second example above, while choice (A) is more like the first example above:


Because we have such avalanches, it's clear that we are NOT talking about the avalanches that already happened. Instead, we are talking about hypothetical avalanches LIKE the ones that already happened, and that makes perfect sense.

Here's (A):

Here the pronoun "they" makes it sound like we are in fact referring to the specific "avalanches at Rogers Pass in Glacier National Park killed more than 200 people between 1885 and 1910," not just hypothetical avalanches. That doesn't make sense -- of course you cannot prevent an avalanche that already happened (unless you have all six Infinity Stones?). So (E) is the better choice.

Back to the current thread. Choice (D) in this question ("Because 70 percent...") is more like the first example above. We are referring to wood (the fuel/resource) in a GENERAL way and then saying that this fuel/resource costs more now than it did before. This is perfectly logical, so (D) is okay.

In general, GMAT SC shouldn't be about memorizing what you saw on other questions and trying to apply that stuff to new questions. Instead, you have to think really hard about meaning in each new question and determine which choice is best. I know: not much fun.

I hope that helps!
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Going back to the original sentence – here is my analysis on the comparisons (I have cancelled out useless modifiers)


Resulting in wood is obviously wrong

Is the comparison in the parenthesis wrong though ? I think it sounds okay but i think the comparison is wrong because this way, we are comparing wood to wood (costing is a present participle adjective)

The intention is to compare cost to cost

Cost has to be a verb. Cost cannot be a present participle adjective



Resulting in wood is obviously wrong

Is the comparison wrong ? The comparison is wrong beacuse on the Right hand side, there is a clause (it did) whereas on the Left hand side, there is a noun only (wood costing)
ii) also there is no verb for "did" to refer back too. 'Costing' is an adjective. "Did" should refer back to an actual verb



- The comparison is wrong beacuse of the ellipsis. The ellipsis forces the usage of present tense "Wood Costs" in the brackets as shown above in option E.
- We need the usage of past tense instead in the brackets (the brackets should be wood cost and NOT wood costs)

That's a great analysis, jabhatta2, well done!

I would just add these two important issues with answer choice E:

[*]"and" hides the causality (the third clause is the result of the second clause, which in turn is the result of the first clause).

[*]"eight times as much than"

Hello, everyone. I just finished responding to a PM on this question. I will provide my thoughts below in an effort to assist the community. (Pardon the PM-like brevity.)

My first round of eliminations:


I always like to look for easy targets first, and as much... than creates an improper comparison. We should be looking for as much... as. Meanwhile, the comparison in (E) is nonsensical—wood cannot cost eight times as much as a result. The price of wood needs to be compared to the price of wood. In one fell swoop, we can comfortably get rid of 60 percent of the answer choices.

Round two of eliminations:


The modifier in (B) is hard to grasp at first—because "ten million acres of forest have been lost... since 1960," this fact is "resulting in wood"? We would expect to see some clear break from the past to usher in a commentary on the consequences. Furthermore, the comparison relies on a lot of ellipsis: wood now costing eight times as much... as [wood cost to collect and distribute] in 1960. Note that costing is an adjective, while the implied "cost" is a verb. These elements within the comparison are not parallel. There should be a better way to express the comparison.

Notice how choice (D) addresses the above concerns. "As a result" indicates that a commentary on the earlier sequence of events is about to follow; it did uses a pronoun and substitute verb to create a clearcut comparison between the cost of wood now and the cost of wood in 1960: "wood now costs" or "[wood costs in the present]" and "[wood cost] in 1960." We have a verb-to-verb comparison, and we have sidestepped the other doubts present in (B).

Perhaps that clarifies a matter or two. Good luck with your studies.

- Andrew
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"The phrase "resulting in," because it contains a preposition, should introduce a noun or noun phrase that is a result"

So just to get more clarity on this, is below construction okay?

resulting in eight times higher cost of wood than that in 1970

Posted from my mobile device

Hello nilaythakkar,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, prepositions should be followed, immediately, by the noun they refer to.

So, the correct version of this construction is "resulting in a cost of wood eight times higher than that in 1970".

We hope this helps.
All the best!
Experts' Global Team
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There's limited value in creating your own sentences. On the actual exam, we're asked to compare options, some of which will have concrete errors, some of which won't.

For instance, if one option gave me "resulted in a higher cost" and another gave me "resulted in a cost that was higher," I'm not sure that the second is wrong, but the first is better, because when I'm looking at the second, I stumble at first, wondering "wait, how can something result in a cost," before realizing what the writer intends. 

For your example, if I saw the phrase "resulting in eight times..." I wouldn't have any idea what the writer meant. But if I saw something like "resulting in a 700% increase," that's clearer and therefore better.

The takeaway: don't try to memorize which constructions are "right" and which are "wrong." English is too complicated. Your brain will explode. Instead, learn to recognize when to make the mental shift from thinking about concrete grammatical errors to thinking about what option is clearest and most logical.

For more on setting your priorities in SC, check out this video.

I hope that helps!
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GMATNinja

If I take your example, but make it a "more..than" sentence, is it safe to say we can drop the verb? I.e., Tim dropped more babies in 1997 than in 1994.

"as" is what makes the verb a requirement in the original problem, is that right?

In the first example, yes: "Tim dropped more babies in 1997 than in 1994" is valid. (Grammatically.)

However, I wouldn't make a rule out of when you need a verb in a comparison. If we had "The Celtics won as many games in 2011 as in 2012," I think that's okay too.

But if I had a long modifier in the middle of the comparison, I might want a verb to clarify, even if I don't technically need one. For instance: "The Celtics won as many games in 2012, when the team was reeling from the aftershock of losing in the Finals the previous year, as they did in 2011."

So the unsatisfying takeaway is that we're going to have to rely on the context and logic of the sentence. Ask yourself if the comparison is logical and clear. If it's not, that option is out. If it is clear, or if you're not sure, move on to other issues. Simple as that.

I hope that helps!
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