The discovery of a fiber-reinforced rock formed in the depths

The discovery of a fiber-reinforced rock formed in the depths of an underwater dormant volcano in Italy and resembling ancient Roman concrete could help explain the unusual rise in the water level of the Tyrrhenian Sea that led to the evacuation of an Italian port city and inspired the development of durable building materials in the future.

Sentence core: The discovery [...] could help explain the rise that

1. led to the evacuation
2. inspired the development

first off, the parts highlighted in yellow are modifiers for the rock and are parallel, we need this construction: modifier is parallel to modifier

A) Italy and resembling ancient Roman concrete could help explain the unusual rise in the water level of the Tyrrhenian Sea that led to the evacuation of an Italian port city and inspired

B) Italy and resembled ancient Roman concrete could help explain the unusual rise in the water level of the Tyrrhenian Sea that, leading to the evacuation of an Italian port city, inspired
violates parallelism as discussed at the start; resembled acts as a verb here; verb is not parallel to modifier

C) Italy, resembling ancient Roman concrete could help explain the unusual rise in the water level of the Tyrrhenian Sea that led to the evacuation of an Italian port city, and could inspire
violates parallelism as discussed at the start; also it is not clear what resembles concrete - the discovery? eliminate

D) Italy and resembling ancient Roman concrete could help explain the unusual rise in the water level of the Tyrrhenian Sea that led to the evacuation of an Italian port city, and inspire

E) Italy and that resembles ancient Roman concrete could help explain the unusual rise in the water level of the Tyrrhenian Sea that led to the evacuation of an Italian port city, and inspire
E clearly violates parallelism


down to A and D; lets set them up one below another

A) Italy and resembling ancient Roman concrete could help explain the unusual rise in the water level of the Tyrrhenian Sea that led to the evacuation of an Italian port city and inspired
D) Italy and resembling ancient Roman concrete could help explain the unusual rise in the water level of the Tyrrhenian Sea that led to the evacuation of an Italian port city, and inspire

inspire is wrong in D (it should be in past-tense)
comma is not required when you have two elements (and those elements don't have modifiers)
D is gone.

Answer: A

^Okay, I screwed up. GyMrAT has it right in my opinion. It should be D.

"could help explain" and "inspired" are not parallel in A. We need them to be parallel.

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^Okay, strike that as well because the OA is not D. workout, can you please provide an OE?
Also, what is the source of this question?

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OA: D
so ignore the last edit

Tough question n i think it is D..

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Please provide explanations on why you think option D is the correct choice. Doing so you can actively participate in the discussion. Also, others can help if they find errors in your analysis.
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Tough one!
(C) Could is parallell. Could inspire ll could help explain.

Not sure though if it is the right one.

I think the answer is D.

A) Italy and resembling ancient Roman concrete could help explain the unusual rise in the water level of the Tyrrhenian Sea that led to the evacuation of an Italian port city and inspired :help and inspired are not parallel

B) Italy and resembled ancient Roman concrete could help explain the unusual rise in the water level of the Tyrrhenian Sea that, leading to the evacuation of an Italian port city, inspired :discovery is noun and resembled is verb. Therefore not parallel.

C) Italy, resembling ancient Roman concrete could help explain the unusual rise in the water level of the Tyrrhenian Sea that led to the evacuation of an Italian port city, and could inspire : what is resembling modifying? So out.

D) Italy and resembling ancient Roman concrete could help explain the unusual rise in the water level of the Tyrrhenian Sea that led to the evacuation of an Italian port city, and inspire : correct.

E. Italy and that resembles ancient Roman concrete could help explain the unusual rise in the water level of the Tyrrhenian Sea that led to the evacuation of an Italian port city, and inspire :also close, but discovery doesn't resemble ancient Roman concrete. so out

The discovery of a fiber-reinforced rock formed in the depths of an underwater dormant volcano in Italy and resembling ancient Roman concrete could help explain the unusual rise in the water level of the Tyrrhenian Sea that led to the evacuation of an Italian port city and inspired the development of durable building materials in the future.

Meaning - A fibre rienforced rock was discovered. This rock is formed in the depths of an underwater dormant volcano & resembles ancient roman concrete. This discovery could help to explain the rise in water of the Tyrrhenian sea. The rise in water level led to the evacuation of the Italian port city. The discovery could also help to inspire the development of durable building materials in the future.

Cutting off the fluff we get "The discovery xxxxxxx could help explain xxxxxx and inspire xxxxx"

Participle parallelism required for "formed.....and resembling", both "formed" & "resembling" modify "fiber-reinforced rock"

Parallel structure required for "explain...and inspire" , both modifying "the discovery"

Answer D is correct.


Thanks,
GyM
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This is a very good question. It boils down to A and D so let me give it a shot

A) Italy and resembling ancient Roman concrete could help explain the unusual rise in the water level of the Tyrrhenian Sea that led to the evacuation of an Italian port city and inspired
D) Italy and resembling ancient Roman concrete could help explain the unusual rise in the water level of the Tyrrhenian Sea that led to the evacuation of an Italian port city, and inspire

Here, the parallelism can be between
1. "that led" and "inspire" - in this case the verb would be inspired
2. could help explain and inspire - in this case it would stay as inspire.

So, what inspired? The unusual rise in the water level of the Tyrrhenian or The discovery of a fiber-reinforced rock? Clearly it's the discovery and therefore, the parallelism should be between the two properties of the said discovery that is : it could help explain and inspire.

Hence, A is out.

The discovery of a fiber-reinforced XXXX could help explain and inspire XXXX

D is the answer

Do give kudos if it helped, I have just started to comment under answers

D for me

Notice that *formed* and *resembling* are parallel as both serves as modifier

A) and inspired-> seems like saying that unusual rise of water levels inspired the development of durable building material

B) the discovery resembled--that's non - sensical
( after the parallel marker *and*, go from right to left and check what resemble can be parallel to - - - > formed - - - > does not make sense

C) lacks the main verb

The discovery of blah blah blah, more modifiers, and could explain. ( sentence does not make sense)

E) what is *that resembles* parallel to?

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The OA C is ambiguous. resembling seems to modify the discovery..

My pick: C

A/B can be eliminated because
they convey somewhat of an illogical meaning. The options are saying that the "unsual rise in the water" inspired the development of the durable material.

D can be eliminated on almost the same basis. We don't really know what part of the sentence "and inspired" is referring to. Is it saying "the discovery could help explain and inspire..." OR "The discovery could help explain unusual rise in the water level that led to the evacuation of an Italian port city, and inspire...". If the latter, then the meaning becomes illogical as option A's/B's. If former, then option D would be correct. Since the meaning could go either way, we can eliminate option D.

E can be eliminated because it is not parallel.

C is right because now we have one strict meaning which is that the discovery could help explain AND could inspire.

Posted from my mobile device

shekhu sandman13

My mistake. The OA is option D. I apologize.
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But the "ing word" directly modifies the noun in the previous clause
so, in option c , resembling should directly modify the rock.

I have a confusion between C and D
Can anyone please state the exact difference between 'and resembling' and "resembling"

It will be very helpful.
Thankyou

Nikhil : It's a very nice question, can you please share the source?
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It's one of the questions that if you understand its meaning correctly you will able to solve it, and vice versa.

The meaning:
- The discovery of..
- & resembling ..
- BOTH could help .. & ..

That said, the discovery // resembling
explain//inspire

Mistakes are:
Formed // Resembling .. WRONG
Led // Inspired .. WRONG

It's all about the meaning
and remember: GMAC is biased against non-native speakers, to beat this test you should think as a native speaker otherwise you're screwed.