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In the mid-1970s, since birds were overcome by pollution, and routinel 19 Feb 2021, 02:30
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lakshya14
Is "overcome" correct in this sentence, describing something of past?
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Hi lakshya14, overcome is not used as a verb here; it is used as a past participle, an adjective.
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In the mid-1970s, since birds were overcome by pollution, and routinel 19 Feb 2021, 07:14
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lakshya14
Is "overcome" correct in this sentence, describing something of past?
Hi lakshya14, overcome is not used as a verb here; it is used as a past participle, an adjective.
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Then shouldn't it be "overcomed"?
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In the mid-1970s, since birds were overcome by pollution, and routinel 19 Feb 2021, 07:21
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lakshya14

Then shouldn't it be "overcomed"?
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Hmm...interesting...don't believe that's a word.
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In the mid-1970s, since birds were overcome by pollution, and routinel 19 Feb 2021, 07:38
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lakshya14
Is "overcome" correct in this sentence, describing something of past?
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The word ‘overcome’ is used as a past participle here.
Present ———past——-past participle
Overcome—overcame—-overcome

Here overcome is used as an ADJECTIVE that describes birds.
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In the mid-1970s, since birds were overcome by pollution, and routinel 29 May 2021, 05:14
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Hello,

Doesn't the correct answer change the meaning of the original sentence?

from "that reduced" to "to reduce'?
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In the mid-1970s, since birds were overcome by pollution, and routinel 16 Jun 2021, 11:35
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ahumne
Hello,

Doesn't the correct answer change the meaning of the original sentence?

from "that reduced" to "to reduce'?
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Public service announcement: there is nothing wrong with selecting an answer choice that conveys a different meaning than the first option, so long as the answer choice you select is better. After all, if (A) is illogical, we'd want to change the meaning, right? :)

In this case, the meaning difference between "a plan to reduce" and a "a plan that reduced" is a very subtle one. "A plan to reduce" refers to the intention of the plan's architects, and defines what they're trying to do. "A plan that reduced" refers to a plan that has already been implemented and proved to be effective in reducing something.

You could argue that because we don't necessarily know if the plan was ultimately effective -- it's a plan that's been "devised" but not implemented -- we might prefer to convey the intent of the plan, as "plan to reduce" does, but I'm not sure that "plan that reduced" is inherently wrong.

Fortunately, we've got a few issues in (A). "In the 1970's, since..." makes it sound as though some action has been occurring since the 1970's. But that's not the case -- the birds were falling in the 70's. There's no reason to believe that they've continued to fall into the present.

Also, as others have noted, you also have a questionable construction with "and routinely falling." At first glance, it's hard to tell what this phrase is doing. Should it be parallel to something in the first clause? If so, what? And if this is a parallel construction why is that comma there? At best, this is confusing.

At this point, we've got multiple strikes against (A), all of which suggest an illogical meaning. So this is one of those questions where we want to change the meaning, as long as those changes make the sentence clearer and more logical.

I hope that clears things up!
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In the mid-1970s, since birds were overcome by pollution, and routinel 09 Oct 2021, 08:42
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egmat
How can be the birds be the doer of the action prompting ? The combined subject + verb may be the trigger for Officials but without associating the verb with the subject, prompting does not make much sense with Birds.. Please help me understand the concept. I think I am missing something.

I found this in one of the lessons for verb+ing modifiers.
"As mentioned earlier, verb-ing modifiers are made from “verbs” and they denote action. Now, any action needs a doer. In the same way, the verb-ing modifiers also associate with the subjects of the preceding clause. What we must keep in mind is that the action denoted by verb-ing must make sense with the subject of the clause. The use of verb-ing is correct only if it makes sense with the subject of the clause it is modifying.

For example:
• Sachin Tendulkar played an exceptionally outstanding innings, making the team win gloriously.

The sentence means that Sachin played a superbly good innings. And the result of this action led to the victory of the team in a glorious manner. So, the verb-ing modifier “making” preceded by a comma is presenting the result of the preceding clause."
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In the mid-1970s, since birds were overcome by pollution, and routinel 17 May 2023, 20:10
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Hi GMATNinja

Using the same logic, the below statement should be correct.

"Joe became the CFO of the company, increasing his pay significantly."

The result of Joe becoming CFO increased his pay. "increasing" gives more information about "Joe became the CFO of the company".

However, I have seen that this statement is considered wrong and often rephrased as: "Joe became the CFO of the company, a move that increased his pay significantly."

Can you please clear this for me? Thanks

GMATNinja
ddavy
I thought that verb-ing modifiers that come after a clause and are separated by a comma, can only describe the preceding action if both the verb-ing modifier and the actual action refer to the same object! In other words: they must have the same "doer".

Obviously, birds cannot prompt people to do sth, so the use of verb-ing modifier and thus option (D) must be wrong here.

GMATNinja egmat or anyone else please help..
This is a very subtle point: an "-ing" modifier that follows a clause doesn't describe the subject of the previous clause directly, but rather, it either offers more information about the action performed by that subject or describes a consequence of this action.

Take a simple example: "Andrea's kids used the family's Faberge egg as a football, prompting their mother to punish them for several months." In this sentence, it's not quite accurate to say that Andrea's kids prompted her to ground them - the children themselves were not asking for punishment. Rather, the punishment was a consequence of the kids' action of using the faberge egg as a football. That's perfectly logical.

Same idea in (D): "Birds overcome by pollution routinely fell from the sky above Los Angeles freeways, prompting officials in California to devise a plan..." Again, the birds themselves didn't prompt the officials to devise a plan, but the prompting was a consequence of the action performed by the birds, namely, having fallen from the sky. This also makes sense, so (D) is correct.

I hope that helps!
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In the mid-1970s, since birds were overcome by pollution, and routinel 18 May 2023, 10:35
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Can we say that whenever there is cause effect relationship described by 'ing modifier' then that doesnt have to modify the subject of the previous clause or doer of the previous clause ? I remember the same example (Ice cap began to melt, uncovering..).
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In the mid-1970s, since birds were overcome by pollution, and routinel 17 Jun 2023, 12:50
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MissionAdmit
Hi GMATNinja

Using the same logic, the below statement should be correct.

"Joe became the CFO of the company, increasing his pay significantly."

The result of Joe becoming CFO increased his pay. "increasing" gives more information about "Joe became the CFO of the company".

However, I have seen that this statement is considered wrong and often rephrased as: "Joe became the CFO of the company, a move that increased his pay significantly."

Can you please clear this for me? Thanks
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In choice (D), the fact that birds were routinely falling from the sky is what prompted officials in Cali to do something. That makes perfect sense -- that phenomenon is certainly something that could prompt officials to do something, and you could say, "The officials were prompted BY the fact that birds were routinely falling from the sky."

In your example, the fact that Joe became CFO is what increased his pay. That doesn't make as much sense. Becoming the CFO didn't directly increase his pay, and you wouldn't say, "Joe's pay was increased by the fact that he became CFO." Rather, his pay was increased BECAUSE he became CFO. So the two examples are different in a subtle but important way.

More broadly, GMAT SC isn't about compiling a list of immutable rules that you can blindly apply to other questions, and it isn't about looking at individual sentences in a bubble and labeling them wrong or right. Every question is different, and you always need to think very carefully about meaning and context when looking for the BEST option out of the five available.

I hope that helps!
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In the mid-1970s, since birds were overcome by pollution, and routinel 01 Nov 2023, 20:58
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egmat
Hello @rahulk2801!

You have presented a good analysis of the official sentence.

Here is my two cents on this official question.

(A) since birds were overcome by pollution, and routinely falling from the sky above Los Angeles freeways, this prompted officials in California to devise a plan that reduced: Incorrect

i. Presence of and indicates the presence of a list. However, there is no entity before and that is parallel to falling.
ii. Demonstrative pronoun this must be followed by a noun. However, there is no noun following this in this choice.
iii. Use of simple past tense reduced is incorrect because the plans do not reduce anything. Their implementation does.
iv. Since and prompted are redundant together because since has been used to mean because.


(B) since birds that had been overcome by pollution were routinely falling from the sky above Los Angeles freeways, it prompted officials in California to devise a plan that would reduce: Incorrect

i. Use of past perfect tense had been overcome is incorrect because the action of getting affected by pollution and falling from the sky were happening at the same time. There is no need for any sequencing in the sentence.
ii. There is no noun antecedent for pronoun it. In this choice, it seems to refer to the action were falling. This reference is most definitely incorrect.
iii. This choice repeats the redundancy error of Choice A.
iv. This choice retains the would reduce error, similar to the one we saw in Choice A.

(C) birds had been overcome by pollution and routinely fell from the sky above Los Angeles freeways, prompting officials in California to devise a plan that reduced: Incorrect

i. This choice repeats the verb tense error of Choice B.
ii. This choice repeats the verb tense error of Choice A.
iii. This choice repeats the reduced error of Choice A.


(D) birds overcome by pollution routinely fell from the sky above Los Angeles freeways, prompting officials in California to devise a plan to reduce: Correct


(E) birds overcome by pollution and routinely falling from the sky above Los Angeles freeways were prompting officials in California to devise a plan to reduce: Incorrect

i. This choice distorts the intended meaning by saying that the birds were prompted the officials to devise a plan.



Hope this helps. :-)
Thanks.
Shraddha
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Hi egmat AjiteshArun, KarishmaB MartyTargetTestPrep generis, please provide your two cents on verb-ing modifier being used here. According to this article https://e-gmat.com/blogs/usage-verb-ing-modifiers-part-1/#:~:text=When%20a%20verb%2Ding%20modifier,subject%20of%20the%20preceding%20clause. modified action and modifier must both make sense with the doer of action. But here the doer is 'birds' and the action is 'falling'. modifier phrase provides the consequence of birds falling from sky. This is fine, but birds can't prompt administration to do anything. This doesn't make sense.
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In the mid-1970s, since birds were overcome by pollution, and routinel 02 Nov 2023, 21:07
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rickyric395
Hi egmat AjiteshArun, KarishmaB MartyTargetTestPrep generis, please provide your two cents on verb-ing modifier being used here. According to this article https://e-gmat.com/blogs/usage-verb-ing-modifiers-part-1/#:~:text=When%20a%20verb%2Ding%20modifier,subject%20of%20the%20preceding%20clause. modified action and modifier must both make sense with the doer of action. But here the doer is 'birds' and the action is 'falling'. modifier phrase provides the consequence of birds falling from sky. This is fine, but birds can't prompt administration to do anything. This doesn't make sense.
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Hi rickyric395,

It's possible to use "comma -ings" that don't really refer directly to the subject. In fact, in most cases, it's better to think of them as referring to some preceding clause. Let me know if the discussion at [00:09:00] in the following video answers your question:

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