The new “e-waste” salvage company collects electronic waste items

Thanks for the explaination, your explaination provides why option A and C are wrong (both give nonsencial meaning). However, Which among B, D and E whih one is correct and why?

If you analyze the question properly even the option B is incorrect! There shouldnt have been a comma before "that" in option B.

A and C have been discussed. Lets check other statementes one by one-

The new “e-waste” salvage company collects electronic waste items, such as old cellular telephones and broken personal music players, discarding them as trash, to transport them to state facilities for recycling.

B players, that have been discarded as trash and transports
-In this sentence the comma before "that" is incorrect
D players, which have been discarded as trash and transport
-company collects and trasport? Very obvious SV error. dont even need to analyze further the correctnes of modifier etc.
E players, that are discarded as trash and transport
Same error as D.

Ans B is best among given choices and could have been ideal if comma was not there.

RED= verb BLUE = subject
The new “e-waste” salvage company collects electronic waste items, such as old cellular telephones and broken personal music

A: wrong.Discarding here means to say that the company is discarding the electronic items. This changes the meaning of the sentence.
B:wrong. You cannot have a comma before that.
C:wrong. There are two verbs in the clause "that are discarded, as trash in order to transport" which are not properly connected in a sentence. You need to have either and,or etc. to connect the two verbs. Or You can say "transporting" instead of "to transport".
D:wrong. SV agreement error. Company needs a singular verb tranports.
E:wrong. You cannot have a comma before that.

B would have been correct if there was no comma before that.

[/quote]

If you analyze the question properly even the option B is incorrect! There shouldnt have been a comma before "that" in option B.

A and C have been discussed. Lets check other statementes one by one-

The new “e-waste” salvage company collects electronic waste items, such as old cellular telephones and broken personal music players, discarding them as trash, to transport them to state facilities for recycling.

B players, that have been discarded as trash and transports
-In this sentence the comma before "that" is incorrect
D players, which have been discarded as trash and transport
-company collects and trasport? Very obvious SV error. dont even need to analyze further the correctnes of modifier etc.
E players, that are discarded as trash and transport
Same error as D.

Ans B is best among given choices and could have been ideal if comma was not there.[/quote]

Hii vips,
I have a slight disagreement over what you said regarding comma usage with "that".
1) comma along with that can't stand in situations such as relative clause
2) comma along with that can stand in situations where that is part of a modifier. If you remove the context between the two commas, the sentence can stand equally well.
By the way, moving to the question, first thing that should strike one's mind is parallelism. TRANSPORT should be "transports", which is parallel to "collects", as per SVA.
Hope that helps.

Hi Marcab,
Thanks for your feedback - however if you notice, 1. a relative clause is also a modifier. 2. In this question 'that' is used as part of relative clause only.
Therefore, I stand my ground - B is the best among given choices, but the B would have been ideal had the comma not been there.
Hope it is clear.

hey vips.
Many thanks for the reply.
Regarding the explanation you gave me just now, I totally with you and to your explanation that if "that" is in a relative clause then it can't be preceded by a comma.
But not to forget that we can easily remove the context with the two commas and hence remove the precedence of "that" with a comma.
Your explanation had been correct, if "that" modified "players" BUT since its modifying "trash" then "that" is correct in such usage.
Hope that helps.
-s

Hii Vips. How are you doing?
Btw, I found an article regarding the precedence of "that" with a "comma".
According to MGMAT, when a short non-essential phrase intervenes and is set off by commas, then such a construction is needed.
Ex-Our system of Presidential elections favors states, such as Delaware, that by population are over-represented in the Electoral College.
If you have MGMAT SC 5ED, then its given on page number 239.
Hope that helps.
-s

Thanks Marcab. Dont have this book but thank you for this info.

mikemcgarry

Could you please help me out with this???
since here the structure is like
clause 1,modifier and clause 2

Shouldn't we use comma(,) before and
because as per my knowledge
clause 1,and clause 2

is the correct strcuture to join 2 clauses by using and..
Please somebody help...................

suramya26
I don't completely see your point but in GMAT we only have to choose from given options. Any sentence can be made better or ideal using some structure which may not be given in options. We don't/shouldn't count them. I agree that if the sentence would have been:
[clause 1,and clause 2]: The new “e-waste” salvage company collects electronic waste items, such as old cellular telephones and broken personal music players, as trash and it transports them to state facilities for recycling.
This sentence is clear and easy to understand.
But as discussed above and presented on e-gmat's links: questions is trying to test our understanding of different structure:
Noun, noun-modifier, that clause.
Here generally comma+that clause doesn't sit well but as Marcab mentioned if the modifer between the comma-splice is NON-ESSENTIAL that directly corresponds to noun before the modifier (this structure is being tested here!!!).

Finally, i would add that comma+co-ordinating conjunction (such as FANBOY - for/and/nor/but/or/yet) are used to connect INDEPENDENT clause and not just any clause. So in your structure clause1 and clause2 both should be IC.

Hope this helps in clarifying certain doubts.
If you find this post helpful, please kudo

Thanks a lot..Friend..for this .It really helped a lot..

I agree that B seems to be the best of the 5 options... But it will be of great help if you could clarify this small doubt of mine...

By saying that clause1, modifier, and clause 2
I meant that option B should have been players, that have been discarded as trash, and transports

Yes I agree that that has here been used as a non essential modifier
But just see the following sentence

The boy, who is standing at the door, is my brother

Here who is a non essential modifier. In this sentence the Noun modifier who is standing at the door is placed separately BETWEEN 2 COMMAS AND CAN BE EASILY DISTINGUISHED IN THE WHOLE SENTENCE. Also we now get the sense of the sentence even by skipping this clause and reading the remaining sentence as The boy is my brother

Furthermore, In the question that have been discarded as trash is a noun modifier that actually modifies the players
And I MAY BE WRONG HERE but if we dont put comma (,) before and the noun modifier that have been discarded as trash appears to mix with the main sentence and

The whole sentence would look like
The new “e-waste” salvage company collects electronic waste items, such as old cellular telephones and broken personal music players, that have been discarded as trash and transports them to state facilities for recycling.

Now we could not differentiate between the 2 main identities which we are talking about i.e. the collection of electronic wastes and transporting them.

Because the noun modifier which was earlier distinctive and clear is no more clear as it was....

I know there may be flaws in my approach and understanding of the rule here. But I hope you help me in getting this concept clear

I hope you get my doubt now..

PLEASE HELP ME...

The construction of option B is NOT Clause 1 , AND Clause 2.

If there were two clauses, then the construction would be:
The salvage company collects, and IT transports. ( 2 clauses are added by "and", comma required)

There is only one clause with 2 parallel verbs:
The salvage company collects and transports. (2 verbs are added by "and", no comma )

Add modifier 1: such as old cellular telephones and broken personal music players (non-essential modifier)
Add modifier 2: that have been discarded as trash (essential modifier referring to "electronic waste items" - this is an exception of the modifier touch rule).

So the complete construction is:
Subject + verb1 + object +, non-essential modifier, + essential modifier referring to object + verb 2.

In case your doubt is not cleared, please post again.

I see people's explanation of parallelism for "collects" & "transports", but my question what is the plural subject here to know regardless that it should be "transports" (e.g., in case I missed the parallelism mentioned above)

Thanks

Not plural subject, but singular - "collects" & "transports" are singular verbs - the subject of these verbs is "The new “e-waste" salvage company ".

Hey, I understand that Option E is wrong because there's a clear subject verb error.
However, when you look closely at B & E, the only difference apart from the SV Error, is the usage of "have been discarded" in B, presenting a past perfect tense, instead of "are discarded" in A, which is also incorrect I assume?

Is B right for this past perfect construction? You'll notice a 2:2:1 split among options for "are discarded", "have been discarded", and "discarding"
One major thing I believe is overlooked in this thread.
mikemcgarry GMATNinja generis hazelnut MikeScarn daagh egmat souvik101990
Help!

Hi sharathnair14 , in answer to the highlighted question: yes, the verb tense is correct.
I doubt that the issue has been overlooked; the verb is correct.
I can understand how you might think that the issue had been ignored. The perfect tenses are hard, and present perfect is kinda weird because it refers to actions in the past.

(Sidebar: I don't care what you call these verb tenses as long as you understand how they are used, but if terminology matters, this construction is not past perfect. It's present perfect. See the footnote.*)

We use present perfect to talk about events that happened at an unspecified time before now.

More specifically, we use present perfect to talk about repeated actions that began in the past; that have effect in or that matter in the present; that are connected to the present; and that have no specified, finished time.

Option B in the sentence:
The new “e-waste” salvage company collects electronic waste items, such as old cellular telephones and broken personal music players, that have been discarded as trash and transports them to state facilities for recycling.

Generally, present perfect connects actions in the past that continue and those actions' effects in the present.
The exact time of the action is unspecified.

Present perfect is correct in this instance because the clause players that have been discarded:
1) conveys action in the past that has a relationship with the present
The discarded players are just sitting there as waste, probably in a landfill.
They don't degrade easily.
They can be used in the present after having been recycled.
Presumably, they can be recycled for profit.

2) conveys that an action has taken place many times before now (repeated action)
Many of these discarded players exist—enough that they are used as examples of things that inspired the formation of a new company

3) emphasizes the present effect of a past action, and the exact time of the action is neither important nor mentioned (similar to #1)
More effects in the present that the discarded players create:
Recycling them equals less non-degradable waste and re-use of materials.

Knowing when not to use present perfect is probably the better thing to master.**
If a time period is specified and finished, do not use present perfect.

The other four options have fatal errors.
This verb in B is not an error; its use is appropriate.

Hope that helps.



* PRESENT PERFECT CONSTRUCTION and PAST PERFECT CONSTRUCTION

Present perfect, active: HAS/HAVE + past participle
-- People who have discarded personal music players as trash often do not realize that the gadgets can be recycled.
Present perfect, passive: HAS/HAVE + BEEN + past participle (verbED)
-- [. . . players, that have been discarded as trash]

Past perfect, active: HAD + past participle (verbED)
-- The word HAD agrees with both singular and plural subjects.
Past perfect, passive: HAD + BEEN + participle
Past perfect in this construction would be . . . that had been discarded as trash

**We cannot use present perfect

when the past time is specific and finished.
Specific and finished? Examples: last year/month/week • yesterday, this morning • when he was younger • in [date], in 2013)

Incorrect: I have talked to him on the phone last week.
Correct: I talked to him on the phone last week.

Incorrect: The envelopes have been addressed in July.
Correct: The envelopes were addressed in July.

Correct, time unspecified and NOT finished: The leader has been lying for years.
-- Is the leader still the leader and are we talking about the present?
-- Did he suddenly stop lying? No?
Then this way is incorrect: The leader lied for years.

HERE and HERE are overviews of present perfect.
Do not worry too much about this issue. The area is murky. GMAC will almost always give you another reason to reject the choice if the present perfect is incorrect.

Oh well generis, I just realized about the present perfect part. I'll come back to this post and look at it in the morning. 3 AM in India! Thanks a ton.