With + Noun + Participle is always wrong when it contains a full action (somebody doing something).
Here Somebody is 'animal' and something is ' overcompensating'. Why we treated this case as an exception to the rule?
macjas wrote:
Starfish, with anywhere from five to eight arms, have a strong regenerative ability, and if one arm is lost it quickly replaces it, sometimes by the animal overcompensating and growing an extra one or two.
(A) one arm is lost it quickly replaces it, sometimes by the animal overcompensating and
(B) one arm is lost it is quickly replaced, with the animal sometimes overcompensating and
(C) they lose one arm they quickly replace it, sometimes by the animal overcompensating,
(D) they lose one arm they are quickly replaced, with the animal sometimes overcompensating,
(E) they lose one arm it is quickly replaced, sometimes with the animal overcompensating,
JusTLucK04 wrote:
Can you please give your expert opinion on B vs E..
Thank You
Dear
JusTLucK04,
I am happy to respond to your p.m.
I realize this is an official question, but I would call this problem one of GMAC's clunkers. It has a clear answer, but it falls short of the standards that the GMAT normally has on SC. In particular, the
"with" + [noun] + [participial phrase] structure, as a substitute for a clause, is often something GMAC has considered wrong in other, better written questions, but here it is simply unavoidable. To
umeshpatil, I would say: in the active voice, neither "
with" nor "
by" is ideal; for a new action, ideally we should have a whole new clause.
First of all, the first part is more elegant in
(B):
(B) one arm is lost it is quickly replaced = concise and elegant
(E) they lose one arm it is quickly replaced = awkward
The former focuses exclusively on one subject, "one arm;" it has rhetorical focus. The latter jumps back and forth between two subjects --- the "
starfish" and the "
one arm." If
(E) were entirely active, "
if they lose one arm, they replace it," then there would be a consistent subject and consistent active voice. As it stands,
(E) juxtaposes two subjects and also juxtaposes active vs. passive voice, all in a tiny clause. It's very awkward.
One crucial split in this sentence is the placement of the word "
sometimes" --- exactly what should this word modify? We are already talking about the event in which the starfish loses an arm. Obviously, if the arm is replace, the animal is always the one who replaces it. The "
sometimes" refers to the events in which multiple arms replace a single arm --- that sometimes happens. The placement in
(E),
(E) ...
sometimes with the animal overcompensating ...
suggests that sometimes the animal's action replaces the arm, and sometimes is something other than the animal replacing the arm. That's nonsensical. By contrast,
(B) has:
(B) ...
with the animal sometimes overcompensating and ...
Yes. It's the overcompensating that happens only sometimes, but it is always the action of the animal.
Finally, for the split at the end: this is one respect in which
(B) is not ideal. I think it is awkward to put those two participles in parallel, "
overcompensating and growing ..." Really, those are not two separate actions. Instead, the latter is an explanation of the former: what do we mean that starfish "overcompensates"? We mean that the starfish sometimes grows extra arms. It is an explanation of the same action, not a new action. Therefore, I think putting the two participles in parallel is less than ideal. It would be much better to give them the relationship that
(E) has: "
overcompensating, [
that is to say]
growing ..."
So
(B) is the best answer, but it is not ideal. In fact, the entire question is not ideal, and it's no surprise that the GMAT got rid of it in its current material.
Let me know if anyone has any further questions.
Mike
![Smile :-)](https://cdn.gmatclub.com/cdn/files/forum/images/smilies/1f603.png)