Re: Beneath the soil of the Malheur National Forest in eastern

Do you mean that the sentence should look like this?

Beneath the soil of the Malheur National Forest in eastern Oregon, a fungus has for centuries been slowly weaving its way through the roots of trees, AND to become the largest living single organism known to humans.

If this is it, then the answer is no, simply because the two verbs are not parallel.
And moreover, if I say "the fungus has been weaving (...), to become"<== that "to become" implies a voluntary action ("I studied hard to get a good grade").

Also A has a misplaced adverb as daagh says.

A uses the structure "to become". This is an "infinitive" and infinitives express "intent". So, a possible interpretation is that the fungus has "intentionally" weaved its way so as to become the largest living single organism.

This is clearly nonsensical. One should be aware of this, especially if there is an option with better meaning clarity (as option C here) is present.

Beneath the soil of the Malheur National Forest in eastern Oregon, a fungus <------that has been slowly weaving its way through the roots of trees for centuries has become the largest living single organism known to humans.

" that " refers to the preceding noun – fungus and the entire part of the sentence after that modifies fungus.

So Correct answer is option (C)

But i am somehow not convinced with the answer choice because, the question stem has "to" which says intent or purpose. But the answer choice completely distorts the meaning of the sentence. Please explain.

sumanainampudi
If the original has a purpose to become, then I am afraid it is wrong. No fungus is going to grow to become the largest living organism as if it is taking part in a competition. These phenomena occur as a matter of nature than intent.
Should we not amend a wrong notion found in the original?

Is optional A wrong only because of meaning ?? I mean does it have an issues regarding grammar ?
Pls help .

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kumar

A) has for centuries been slowly weaving its way through the roots of trees, to become --- major problems are the split adverb and the inappropriate setting off the infinitive with a comma.

By setting off the infinitive with a comma, you run the risk of making the main clause non-essential and render the whole choice a fragment with neither a subject nor a verb. This is a solid grammatical error.

Hi,

The reason I shortlisted A and C is because, they use "has been", others use "has". Since, "has been" indicates an action that may be still continuing, and that seems probable for the fungus mentioned in the sentence. Then, I selected C, because A had the infinitive use. Let me know, if this is not right, or perhaps would not work in all scenarios.

Thanks,
Bhawana

Bbhawini
your reasoning is not only correct but also focused. keep it up. Rest assured that such a selective POE will work in almost 90 to 95 percent of the cases, leaving aside a few topics with five splits.

Beneath the soil of the Malheur National Forest in eastern Oregon, a fungus has for centuries been slowly weaving its way through the roots of trees, to become the largest living single organism known to humans.

(A) has for centuries been slowly weaving its way through the roots of trees, to become -- illogical -- the fungus has no intent to become the largest...
(B) has slowly woven its way through the roots of trees for centuries, and so becoming - parallelism issue -- clause and verb-ing
(C) that has been slowly weaving its way through the roots of trees for centuries has become - Correct
(D) that has for centuries slowly woven its way through the roots of trees and has become -- no verb for the subject fungus
(E) that, having slowly woven its way through the roots of trees for centuries, to become - same as D

Answer C

Hi @Bunnel
Can you please explain this que. ?

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