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655-705 (Hard)|   Meaning/Logical Predication|   Modifiers|   Verb Tense/Form|                           
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Sound can travel through water for enormous distances, prevented from 13 Nov 2022, 14:49
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Sound can travel through water for enormous distances, prevented from dissipating its acoustic energy as a result of boundaries in the ocean created by water layers of different temperatures and densities.

(A) prevented from dissipating its acoustic energy as a result of
(B) prevented from having its acoustic energy dissipated by
(C) its acoustic energy prevented from dissipating by
(D) its acoustic energy prevented from being dissipated as a result of
(E) preventing its acoustic energy from dissipating by
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Hi Experts,
People says:
In choice A, ''prevented'' is going to modify 'distance' as there is a COMMA before 'prevented'.

My query is:
if this is the case how ''prevented'' modifies 'its acoustic energy'' and ''created'' modifies ''ocean'' without having COMMA?
Thanks__
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Sound can travel through water for enormous distances, prevented from 13 Nov 2022, 14:54
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Quote:
Sound can travel through water for enormous distances, prevented from dissipating its acoustic energy as a result of boundaries in the ocean created by water layers of different temperatures and densities.

(A) prevented from dissipating its acoustic energy as a result of
(B) prevented from having its acoustic energy dissipated by
(C) its acoustic energy prevented from dissipating by
(D) its acoustic energy prevented from being dissipated as a result of
(E) preventing its acoustic energy from dissipating by
Show more
Hi Experts,
Is it necessary to have possessive pronoun (e.g., its) with the STARTING PART of absolute phrase all the times if we're going to have an 'absolute phrase' (its acoustic energy prevented from....)?
Thanks__
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Sound can travel through water for enormous distances, prevented from Updated on: 15 Nov 2022, 06:03
Originally posted by egmat on 14 Nov 2022, 01:28.
Last edited by egmat on 15 Nov 2022, 06:03, edited 2 times in total.
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TheUltimateWinner

Hi Experts,
People says:
In choice A, ''prevented'' is going to modify 'distance' as there is a COMMA before 'prevented'.

My query is:
if this is the case how ''prevented'' modifies 'its acoustic energy'' and ''created'' modifies ''ocean'' without having COMMA?
Thanks__
Show more

Hey TheUltimateWinner

Happy to help.

In choice A, ", prevented...densities" works as a Comma+Verb-ed modifier. Such modifiers are capable of modifying either the preceding noun or the preceding clause(action).

Now, "distances prevented from dissipating its acoustic energy" makes hardly any sense, for the simple reason that distances don't dissipate energy. If anything, it's the medium through which the energy passes that causes the dissipation of the energy.

Similarly, "prevented" does not tell us the manner of "sound travelling through water for enormous distances".

Hence, choice A conveys the illogical meaning:


    Sound can travel..., prevented from dissipating its acoustic energy...

This begs the question, 'how can something travel prevented from doing something?'. "Prevented" is not a manner of 'travelling'. Come to think of it, not even "sound" is prevented from dissipating energy. It's the boundaries between the layers of water that dissipate the acoustic energy of sound. So, we have a classic example of illogical predication on our hands.

The acoustic energy of sound is prevented from dissipating by boundaries between the layers of water. This is the logical idea that needs to be constructed and conveyed.

This is why, the correct choice uses what we at e-GMAT call a "Noun + Noun Modifier", a.k.a. an Absolute Phrase.



Coming to your second question: how do 'prevented' and 'created' modify their preceding nouns?
Well, that's because 'prevented' and 'created' are examples of Verb-ed modifiers (past participles). Such modifiers can be placed either right before or right after the nouns they modify, even without commas. For example:

    a. The man standing in the corner is my uncle. (Verb-ing modifier 'standing')
    b. The cookies baked by your mom are delicious. (Verb-ed modifier 'baked')



I hope this helps improve your understanding.

Happy Learning!

Abhishek
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Sound can travel through water for enormous distances, prevented from 14 Nov 2022, 01:36
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Hi Experts,
Is it necessary to have possessive pronoun (e.g., its) with the STARTING PART of absolute phrase all the times if we're going to have an 'absolute phrase' (its acoustic energy prevented from....)?
Thanks__
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Hey TheUltimateWinner

No, it is not necessary. This purely depends on the idea being conveyed. For example:

    a. Tina baked a cake, a dessert that was finger-licking good.

We would need a possessive only when the noun in the Noun+Noun Modifier belongs to the subject or an object in the preceding clause.


I hope this helps.

Happy Learning!

Abhishek
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Sound can travel through water for enormous distances, prevented from 14 Nov 2022, 12:04
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TheUltimateWinner

Hi Experts,
Is it necessary to have possessive pronoun (e.g., its) with the STARTING PART of absolute phrase all the times if we're going to have an 'absolute phrase' (its acoustic energy prevented from....)?
Thanks__

Hey TheUltimateWinner

No, it is not necessary. This purely depends on the idea being conveyed. For example:

    a. Tina baked a cake, a dessert that was finger-licking good.

We would need a possessive only when the noun in the Noun+Noun Modifier belongs to the subject or an object in the preceding clause.


I hope this helps.

Happy Learning!

Abhishek
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Thank you very much for the kind response.
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Sound can travel through water for enormous distances, prevented from 14 Nov 2022, 12:15
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TheUltimateWinner

Hi Experts,
People says:
In choice A, ''prevented'' is going to modify 'distance' as there is a COMMA before 'prevented'.

My query is:
if this is the case how ''prevented'' modifies 'its acoustic energy'' and ''created'' modifies ''ocean'' without having COMMA?
Thanks__

Hey TheUltimateWinner

Happy to help.

In choice A, ", prevented...densities" works as a Comma+Verb-ing modifier. Such modifiers generally modify the Verb in the preceding clause and agree with the subject of that clause. Hence, choice A conveys the illogical meaning:

    Sound can travel..., prevented from dissipating its acoustic energy...

This begs the question, 'how can something travel prevented from doing something?'. "Prevented" is not a manner of 'travelling'. Come to think of it, not even "sound" is prevented from dissipating energy. It's the boundaries between the layers of water that dissipate the acoustic energy of sound. So, we have a classic example of illogical predication on our hands.

The acoustic energy of sound is prevented from dissipating by boundaries between the layers of water. This is the logical idea that needs to be constructed and conveyed.

This is why, the correct choice uses what we at e-GMAT call a "Noun + Noun Modifier", a.k.a. an Absolute Phrase.



Coming to your second question: how do 'prevented' and 'created' modify their preceding nouns?
Well, that's because 'prevented' and 'created' are examples of Verb-ed modifiers (past participles). Such modifiers can be placed either right before or right after the nouns they modify, even without commas. For example:

    a. The man standing in the corner is my uncle. (Verb-ing modifier 'standing')
    b. The cookies baked by your mom are delicious. (Verb-ed modifier 'baked')



I hope this helps improve your understanding.

Happy Learning!

Abhishek
Show more
Quote:
In choice A, ", prevented...densities" works as a Comma+Verb-ing modifier. Such modifiers generally modify the Verb in the preceding clause and agree with the subject of that clause.
Show more

if this types of modifier modify the preceding whole sentence (sub+verb) then why do we need 'adverbial modifier' ('verb+ing' after COMMA)? So, are you saying that COMMA+verbED and COMMA+verbING play the same roles in a sentence?

Quote:
Well, that's because 'prevented' and 'created' are examples of Verb-ed modifiers (past participles). Such modifiers can be placed either right before or right after the nouns they modify, even without commas.
Show more
can i have few more examples on the basis of your statement, please?
Thanks for the support in the club!
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Sound can travel through water for enormous distances, prevented from 14 Nov 2022, 16:17
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Hi avigutman RonTargetTestPrep GMATNinja - I knocked out (A), (B) and (E) because of grammar

- Between (c) and (d) however – i chose (d) beause of the passive nature of (D)

Specifically, here is why I opted for something passive.

First, the difference between active vs passive
Active voice is preferred when – the focus is on the subject doing the action
vs
Passive voice is preferred when –you want to emphasize an action itself and the doer of the action is irrelevant or distracting.

Now coming to this sentence - there are 3 entities

Quote:

  • Sound
  • Sound’s acoustic energy
  • Boundaries
Show more

Question – can energy (not sound), can energy dissipitate by itself or (scenario 2) does energy need to be dissipitated (with the assistance of some 3rd factor) ?

I don’t know.
Furthermore, I am sure the GMAT doesn’t expect us to know.

Both scenarios are plausible

Question – can walls stop energy from dissipitating (by itself) OR can walls stop energy from being dissipitated (with the help of some 3rd factor) ?

Either case -- Walls can certainly enclose, preventing energy dissipitating (by itself) or prevernting energy from being dissipitated (with the help of some 3rd factor)

----------------------

Hence choosing between (c) and (d) - I didn’t want the ‘active voice’

Why ? because we, as GMAT students, cant know whether acoustic energy CAN dissipitate (by itself)

Thus, I looked for the passive voice, whereby you can emphasize the action itself without knowing who is behind the action. In fact in many situations, regarding passive voice - the doer of the action IS DROPPED completely.

Hence, I went for (D) because
- the 'doer' of the verb-ed (Dissipated) specifically in (D) is un-known or irrelevant
- the 'doer' of the ENTIRE PHRASE (prevented from being dissipated) is known - the wall

hence (D) seemed perfect.

Thoughts, on where I am going wrong with my strategy ?
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if this types of modifier modify the preceding whole sentence (sub+verb) then why do we need 'adverbial modifier' ('verb+ing' after COMMA)? So, are you saying that COMMA+verbED and COMMA+verbING play the same roles in a sentence?
Show more


Hey TheUltimateWinner

Please watch this video for a detailed explanation of this question. This should answer most of your queries.

Quote:
Well, that's because 'prevented' and 'created' are examples of Verb-ed modifiers (past participles). Such modifiers can be placed either right before or right after the nouns they modify, even without commas.
can i have few more examples on the basis of your statement, please?
Thanks for the support in the club!
Show more


Here are a few more examples of verb-ed modifiers placed before and after the noun they modify:

    a. The abandoned warehouse is haunted.
    b. The boat found at the bottom of the lake sank a hundred years ago.
    c. Beached whales seldom survive.
    d. Soldiers posted in extreme locations undergo months of endurance training.


I hope these examples suffice.


Hi jabhatta2

Please feel free to watch my detailed solution to this question in the link shared above. I've addressed each of your queries.

Best wishes,


Happy Learning!

Abhishek
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Hi avigutman RonTargetTestPrep GMATNinja - I knocked out (A), (B) and (E) because of grammar

- Between (c) and (d) however – i chose (d) beause of the passive nature of (D)

Specifically, here is why I opted for something passive.

First, the difference between active vs passive
Active voice is preferred when – the focus is on the subject doing the action
vs
Passive voice is preferred when –you want to emphasize an action itself and the doer of the action is irrelevant or distracting.

Now coming to this sentence - there are 3 entities

Quote:

  • Sound
  • Sound’s acoustic energy
  • Boundaries

Question – can energy (not sound), can energy dissipitate by itself or (scenario 2) does energy need to be dissipitated (with the assistance of some 3rd factor) ?

I don’t know.
Furthermore, I am sure the GMAT doesn’t expect us to know.

Both scenarios are plausible

Question – can walls stop energy from dissipitating (by itself) OR can walls stop energy from being dissipitated (with the help of some 3rd factor) ?

Either case -- Walls can certainly enclose, preventing energy dissipitating (by itself) or prevernting energy from being dissipitated (with the help of some 3rd factor)

----------------------

Hence choosing between (c) and (d) - I didn’t want the ‘active voice’

Why ? because we, as GMAT students, cant know whether acoustic energy CAN dissipitate (by itself)

Thus, I looked for the passive voice, whereby you can emphasize the action itself without knowing who is behind the action. In fact in many situations, regarding passive voice - the doer of the action IS DROPPED completely.

Hence, I went for (D) because
- the 'doer' of the verb-ed (Dissipated) specifically in (D) is un-known or irrelevant
- the 'doer' of the ENTIRE PHRASE (prevented from being dissipated) is known - the wall

hence (D) seemed perfect.

Thoughts, on where I am going wrong with my strategy ?
Show more
Both (C) and (D) tell us that the boundaries are what prevent the dissipation. This implies that the dissipation would happen if the boundaries weren't there. Since there's no mention of some external force required to DO the dissipating, it's reasonable to infer that the dissipation does not require an external force -- it just happens.

And that matches our experience and common sense. If you stand on the beach and scream across the ocean, someone on the other side isn't going to hear it -- the sound/acoustic energy fizzles out very quickly. Are there little dissipation gnomes that actively break up the energy from your scream? Nope. It just happens.

(D) makes it sound as though (1) some person/thing is actively trying to dissipate the sound and (2) the boundaries are preventing that person/thing from having its way. Can we prove that this isn't the case? Maybe not... but it seems like a stretch.

If your argument is that we just don't know, then, well, you can't use that difference as a decision point at all, and you have to base your decision on "by" vs "as a result of" (as explained in this post).

I hope that helps!
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GMATNinja

(D) makes it sound as though (1) some person/thing is actively trying to dissipate the sound and (2) the boundaries are preventing that person/thing from having its way.

Show more

Hi GMATNinja - Thank you for your response.

Based on the yellow highlight above - you mention that when it comes to (D) - One could interpret (in D) that boundaries is modifying being dissipated and not modifying "prevented"

But isn't that the case in (c) as well ?

If you look at screenshot below - Perhaps in (C) - boundaries is modifying dissipating and not modfying prevented

Based on meaning however -- boundaries is obviously referring to prevented in (C) and boundaries is logically referring to prevented in (D)

I dont think boundaries can logically be referring to dissipating (in C) or being dissipated (in D)

Thus, i am not sure if your point (#2) above - in the yellow highlight - stands as an objetion to (D)

Thoughts ?
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GMATNinja

(D) makes it sound as though (1) some person/thing is actively trying to dissipate the sound and (2) the boundaries are preventing that person/thing from having its way.


Hi GMATNinja - Thank you for your response.

Based on the yellow highlight above - you mention that when it comes to (D) - One could interpret (in D) that boundaries is modifying being dissipated and not modifying "prevented"

But isn't that the case in (c) as well ?

If you look at screenshot below - Perhaps in (C) - boundaries is modifying dissipating and not modfying prevented

Based on meaning however -- boundaries is obviously referring to prevented in (C) and boundaries is logically referring to prevented in (D)

I dont think boundaries can logically be referring to dissipating (in C) or being dissipated (in D)

Thus, i am not sure if your point (#2) above - in the yellow highlight - stands as an objetion to (D)

Thoughts ?
Show more
Yep, exactly! The boundaries are obviously doing the preventing (not the dissipating) in both (C) and (D). And what are they preventing? Dissipation. So our basic objection to (D) remains: being dissipated by what?

Keep in mind that this particular nuance won't likely help you much at all on test day, so it's probably not worth stressing over it too much -- we know that (C) is the answer, so trying to think about why (C) is better in GMAC's eyes is much more valuable than spending your time trying to defend (D). :)
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Yep, exactly! The boundaries are obviously doing the preventing (not the dissipating) in both (C) and (D). And what are they preventing? Dissipation. So our basic objection to (D) remains: being dissipated by what?
Show more

Hi GMATNinja - thank you for responding.

Regarding the basic objection to (d), you mention in the yellow highlight Being dissipated by what?

Question - why do you need an answer to the question in yellow ? Why the need to know this ?

"Being dissipated" is passive and the passive voice is employed exactly for this purpose. To hide the "DOER" of the "Being dissipated"


Take for example this simple sentence -

Animals are being killed : This is a complete sentence. Would you know - who is doing the killing ? No

Do you need to know who is the doer ? No
Do you need to know who is the doer for this sentence to make sense ? No

But the above sentence is perfectly clear that Animals are being killed. Who is the doer of the action - we dont know.

Simirlarly, in (D) - i was comfortable NOT KNOWING who is doing the action when Energy is being dissipated.
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GMATNinja

Yep, exactly! The boundaries are obviously doing the preventing (not the dissipating) in both (C) and (D). And what are they preventing? Dissipation. So our basic objection to (D) remains: being dissipated by what?

Hi GMATNinja - thank you for responding.

Regarding the basic objection to (d), you mention in the yellow highlight Being dissipated by what?

Question - why do you need an answer to the question in yellow ? Why the need to know this ?

"Being dissipated" is passive and the passive voice is employed exactly for this purpose. To hide the "DOER" of the "Being dissipated"


Take for example this simple sentence -

Animals are being killed : This is a complete sentence. Would you know - who is doing the killing ? No

Do you need to know who is the doer ? No
Do you need to know who is the doer for this sentence to make sense ? No

But the above sentence is perfectly clear that Animals are being killed. Who is the doer of the action - we dont know.

Simirlarly, in (D) - i was comfortable NOT KNOWING who is doing the action when Energy is being dissipated.
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Agreed -- not knowing the identity of the "dissipater" isn't a problem at all.

In your examples, you don't know who or what is performing the action, but you know that there IS in fact some unknown person or thing doing the action (e.g. the animals are being killed by some unknown person or thing).

Similarly, "being dissipated" suggests that some unknown person or thing is doing the action. The problem isn't that we don't know who or what it is -- the problem is that there shouldn't be ANY external person or thing doing the dissipating at all, as we've explained in our previous posts.

In other words, the external "dissipater" shouldn't even exist. So not knowing the dissipater's identity is irrelevant.
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Good question to know more about modifiers, phrase vs clause.
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Hi egmat, GMATNinja, KarishmaB.

I have a question on by vs as a result of. It is stated that by is used when there is an agent of an action, however here there is no action, the dissipation occurs because the boundary walls already exist. So shouldnt the correct form be prevented from dissipating as a result of the boundary walls? As the boundary walls are not agent but because of their existence the sound gets dissipated.
Thanks
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Sound can travel through water for enormous distances, prevented from 03 Nov 2023, 07:51
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arry232
Hi egmat, GMATNinja, KarishmaB.

I have a question on by vs as a result of. It is stated that by is used when there is an agent of an action, however here there is no action, the dissipation occurs because the boundary walls already exist. So shouldnt the correct form be prevented from dissipating as a result of the boundary walls? As the boundary walls are not agent but because of their existence the sound gets dissipated.

Thanks
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There is in fact an action in (C): "preventing". The act of preventing is done BY the boundaries (the boundaries prevent dissipation), so "by" is perfectly fine.

Not sure where that "rule" about "by" vs. "as a result of" comes from, but even if it exists, it's very subjective and something that the GMAT isn't really trying to test you on.

For more on (C) vs. (D), check out these posts:

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