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ankitamundhra28
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People who inherit the sickle cell anemia gene from only one parent 19 May 2019, 02:03
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Hi all,

This is my 1st post here in this forum.
I can't understand why "Evolutionary advantage" is not modifying just Malaria.
If we say "People who seem to be resistant to specific medicine, an evolutionary advantage .....
So here, it would modify Specific medicine or resistant to specific medicine.

I am still confused.
Tks

The noun or noun-phrase after comma may not always modify the noun immediately preceding comma.

People who inherit the sickle cell anemia gene from only one parent seem to be resistant to malaria, an evolutionary advantage that may explain why a genetic condition so debilitating to many individuals has survived in the human population.

If we look at the sentence prior to the comma:
"People who inherit the sickle cell anemia gene from only one parent seem to be resistant to malaria."

This sentence itself is an independent clause. Guess it's also called adverbial phrase. Since, this statement before comma conveys an entire thought and contains subject/verb, it is not necessary for the noun that follows comma to modify the noun immediately preceding the comma.

"an evolutionary advantage" is the entire act of being resistant described in the previous sentence AND it properly modifies what it intends to.
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Thanks for this brilliant explanation... But here is my doubt... Shouldn't the clause "an evolutionary advantage" come with , + FANBOYS since its an independent clause that modifies the previous clause?
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People who inherit the sickle cell anemia gene from only one parent 30 May 2019, 09:20
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Hi - I am not sure why E is incorrect - Can I get some clarity on this please?
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People who inherit the sickle cell anemia gene from only one parent 03 Jun 2019, 14:33
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Hi - I am not sure why E is incorrect - Can I get some clarity on this please?
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(E) People who inherit the sickle cell anemia gene from only one parent are, it seems, resistant to malaria, and they have, an evolutionary advantage that may explain why a genetic condition so debilitating to many individuals has survived in the human population.
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By splitting the sentence into two independent clauses, it is no longer clear that the resistance to malaria is the evolutionary advantage discussed in the second half of the sentence. Choice (E) leaves us wondering whether the second half refers to resistance to malaria or to some other evolutionary advantage that may explain why the genetic condition is debilitating.

(A) is a better choice.
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People who inherit the sickle cell anemia gene from only one parent 05 Jun 2019, 02:28
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Thanks GMATNinja, so it is a meaning issue that should rule this option out.
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People who inherit the sickle cell anemia gene from only one parent 12 Oct 2020, 22:24
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People who inherit the sickle cell anemia gene from only one parent seem to be resistant to malaria, an evolutionary advantage that may explain why a genetic condition so debilitating to many individuals has survived in the human population.


(A) seem to be resistant to malaria,

(B) seemingly are resistant to malaria,

(C) seem to be resistant to malaria and have

(D) seemingly are resistant to malaria and to have

(E) are, it seems, resistant to malaria, and they have
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I got the ans by POE but I need to know more on option A as to be verb was looked like to verb and initially, I rejected it because I thouht A has no verb .
can someone daagh generis highlight more about difference between 'to be' (base form of verb - was ) and 'to verb' (example - to learn , to dance ..these are not considered as verbs) of option A - my view on structure of A - X (subj) seem to be (verb) resistant to malaria , absolute modifier .
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People who inherit the sickle cell anemia gene from only one parent 12 Nov 2022, 05:29
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Hi GMATNinja KarishmaB

After going through the options, my entire POE was based on the fact that the "the evolutionary advantage.." modifier is incorrectly modifying malaria. It has been pointed out by one of the users that since the starting 'phrase' is by itself a complete sentence, the modifier does not necessarily modify the closest noun. Is that really what is happening here? How do we pin-point what is exactly being modified?
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People who inherit the sickle cell anemia gene from only one parent 18 Nov 2022, 01:59
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Hi GMATNinja KarishmaB

After going through the options, my entire POE was based on the fact that the "the evolutionary advantage.." modifier is incorrectly modifying malaria. It has been pointed out by one of the users that since the starting 'phrase' is by itself a complete sentence, the modifier does not necessarily modify the closest noun. Is that really what is happening here? How do we pin-point what is exactly being modified?
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What is the evolutionary advantage? That people with the anaemia gene are resistant to malaria.
The entire clause represents the "evolutionary advantage". What is the structure here then? It is a noun modifier which has a noun + its modifier. The noun can rename a previous clause and we see this structure often in GMAT.

A is B, a phenomenon that ...

Hence, it makes sense. When we use 'and' and introduce another verb 'have' in options (C), (D) and (E), we disconnect it from the previous clause.
People seem to be .. and have an evolutionary advantage...
Now it doesn't say that being resistant to malaria is the evolutionary advantage. We don't know what the evolutionary advantage is and that doesn't make sense.
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People who inherit the sickle cell anemia gene from only one parent 19 Nov 2022, 15:54
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Namangupta1997
Hi GMATNinja KarishmaB

After going through the options, my entire POE was based on the fact that the "the evolutionary advantage.." modifier is incorrectly modifying malaria. It has been pointed out by one of the users that since the starting 'phrase' is by itself a complete sentence, the modifier does not necessarily modify the closest noun. Is that really what is happening here? How do we pin-point what is exactly being modified?
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(C), (D), and (E) have bigger problems!

Choice (D) is out right away because of the parallelism issue:

    "People seemingly are resistant (1) to malaria and (2) to have an evolutionary advantage..."

Looking just at the second item in the list, we have, "People seemingly are resistant to have an evolutionary advantage," and that doesn't make any sense.

We described the problem with (E) in an earlier post: https://gmatclub.com/forum/people-who-i ... l#p2286907. Choice (C) is out for a similar reason: it seems like we're splitting the "evolutionary advantage" part from the "being resistant to malaria" part. As a result, it's not clear whether the "evolutionary advantage" is (1) the resistance to malaria or (2) some other, unmentioned trait.

So we're left with (A) and (B). And since the modifier is the same in both, we don't really have to worry about it.

If (A) and (B) had "which is" after the comma ("... resistant to malaria, which is an evolutionary advantage..."), then the modifier would be more problematic: in that case, the "which" noun modifier would certainly appear to describe the malaria itself. As it is, the modifier is more flexible and can logically describe the entire preceding clause.

I hope that helps!
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