The earliest English settlers in Virginia failed to survive their firs

The earliest English settlers in Virginia failed to survive their first winter in the New World because of factors such as inadequate food supplies, harsh weather, and an inability to communicate with Native Americans.


A. an inability (correct)

B. that they were unable (Not parallel)

C. because they were unable (Same as B)

D. being unable (Same as B)

E. lacking an ability (Same as B)

Considering parallel structure, A is the best answer as other elements are also nouns. We can't add any other element like a clause to this sentence.

The earliest English settlers in Virginia failed to survive their first winter in the New World because of factors such as inadequate food supplies, harsh weather, and an inability to communicate with Native Americans.

You would need to close off the items in the first list before beginning the second parallel element and since we don't have "and" before "harsh weathers" we need to eliminate anything that would start a second independent clause.

Eliminate (C) and (D)

D. being unable - "being unable" - present participle of 'to be' and "unable" really isn't the most concise way to logically communicate another factor that inhibited their survival.
E. lacking an ability - this is really an inefficient way of saying "an inability". You would also say "lacking the ability" not "an ability"

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION
The original sentence contains a list of factors that kept the settlers from surviving their first winter in Virginia: "inadequate food supplies, harsh weather, and an inability to communicate with Native Americans." In lists of examples, all the examples must be parallel (in the same form). In this case, all the examples are nouns. This presents no error.
(A) CORRECT. This choice is correct as it repeats the original sentence.
(B) This choice is incorrect because "that they were unable to communicate with Native Americans" is a clause rather than a noun, thus violating the parallelism.
(C) This choice is incorrect because "and because they were unable to communicate with Native Americans" is a clause rather than a noun, thus violating the parallelism.
(D) This choice is incorrect because "and being unable to communicate with Native Americans" is a verb construction rather than a noun, thus violating the parallelism.
(E) This choice is incorrect because "and lacking an ability to communicate with Native Americans" is a verb construction rather than a noun, thus violating the parallelism.

VeritasKarishma GMATNinja daagh could you please explain how D and E are verb form instead of noun form as given in official explanation?

Some say the GMAT does not require you to know such technicalities. In fact, I think in the Official Guide 2020, when introducing the SC section, there is something even mentioned about knowing something that is wrong without knowing WHAT is wrong with it. (check it out!)

Let's take option (E) for example: It should feel awkward for inadequate food supplies to be parallel to lacking an ability

Our official explanation was a bit off, so we've rewritten it. The basic idea is that we don't want to use -ing forms to parallel nouns unless there isn't another suitable noun form available. See this official q for a good example: https://gmatclub.com/forum/building-on- ... l#p1107488

Another way to look at it is that "lacking" and "being unable" describe the people themselves ("lacking" can be an adjective), whereas supplies, weather, and inability can't refer to people. They can only be factors that affected the people.

All the factors after such as seem to be nouns at first glance.. But if one goes deeper, they should be adverbs. They are telling us why the settlers "failed" , which is a verb. Anything that modifies a verb should be an adverb.
For example, Ram works to make his ends meet.
The underlined is an adverbial phrase, since it tells us why they work , that is modifying a verb.

Going on similar logic, why are those factors not adverbs?

The earliest English settlers in Virginia failed to survive their first winter in the New World because of factors such as inadequate food supplies, harsh weather, and an inability to communicate with Native Americans.

All the factors after such as seem to be nouns at first glance.. But if one goes deeper, they should be adverbs. They are telling us why the settlers "failed" , which is a verb. Anything that modifies a verb should be an adverb.
For example, Ram works to make his ends meet.
The underlined is an adverbial phrase, since it tells us why they work , that is modifying a verb.

Going on similar logic, why are those factors not adverbs?

Hey DeepanshuGupta

Happy to help you with this.

You are partially correct in your meaning analysis. But here's where you've gone astray:

The earliest English settlers in Virginia failed to survive their first winter in the New World because of factors such as inadequate food supplies, harsh weather, and an inability to communicate with Native Americans.

Sentence Structure:

• The earliest English settlers in Virginia
  
  • failed to survive their first winter in the New World
    
    • because of factors
      
      • such as
        
        • inadequate food supplies,
        • harsh weather, and
        • an inability to communicate with Native Americans.

Observations:

• The phrasal preposition "because of" is what begins the adverbial modifier of "failed".
• Since every preposition takes a noun object, "because of" also requires an object. The object of "because of" is "factors".
• The phrase "such as X, Y, and Z" merely gives us examples of the "factors", where X = inadequate food supplies, Y = harsh weather, and Z = an inability to communicate with Native Americans.

So, you're right that this sentence contains an adverbial modifier telling us why the earliest English settlers in Virginia failed. However, that adverbial phrase is:

"because of factors such as inadequate food supplies, harsh weather, and an inability to communicate with Native Americans."

The words "supplies", "weather", and "inability" are indeed nouns given as examples of the "factors" that are behind the failure of those settlers.


I hope this helps improve your understanding of how deriving the Sentence Structure properly can help resolve such doubts with ease.

Happy Learning!

Abhishek

Thanks a lot. That was indeed helpful. I have recently started my GMAT-Prep. Just one more question.
So it means that is it a prepositional phrase serving as an adverbial phrase? Or the other way around?
In either cases, what is the broader in scope? I mean to say whether prepositional phrases include adverbial modifiers/phrases or vice-versa

DeepanshuGupta

Hey Deepanshu,

You're most welcome. Since you're just starting off with your GMAT Prep, it's extremely important that you first understand properly what the GMAT is a test of and what not. There are many misconceptions about this examination, and you could fall prey to any or all of them if you're completely relying on self-prep. One such example is to focus narrowly on grammar while missing the bigger picture that GMAT SC is more a test of reasoning and meaning than that of grammatical rules. A simple realization such as this can help you save a lot of time and effort during your prep.

So, I invite you to try out our free trial and read our blog articles on how to prepare for the various subsections of the GMAT. Let these be your guiding light with no strings attached. Trust me, it'll help.

Now, let me answer your question.

The "broader" thing to understand is that a Prepositional Phrase always behaves as a modifier of some kind. A prepositional phrase is formed by a preposition and its noun object. For example:

• in the morning
• at the zoo
• because of her
• in accordance with the rules

As you can see from the above, there are one-word and multi-word prepositions in English.

Now, prepositional phrases can be attached to only three parts of speech: Nouns, Verbs, and Adjectives. And these prepositional phrases modify that part of speech they are "logically" connected to. So, when they are attached to "nouns", they modify that noun as noun modifiers (adjectives). And when they are attached to "verbs" and "adjectives", they modify them as action modifiers or adjective modifiers (both called "adverbs"). Let's take a look at examples using the same phrases as above. See if you can identify the role of the prepositional phrase by deriving the meaning of the sentence.

1) My dad arrived in the morning.
2) The monkeys at the zoo are very playful.
3) I am happy because of her.
4) We acted in accordance with the rules.

In sentence 1, "in the morning" is an action modifier (adverb). It tells us the "time" of my dad's arrival. In sentence 2, "at the zoo" is a noun modifier (adjective). It tells us "which" monkeys. In sentence 3, "because of her" is an adjective modifier (adverb) telling us the "reason" for my happiness. Finally, in sentence 4, "in accordance with the rules" is another action modifier (adverb) telling us "how" we acted.

Notice how I focused on deriving the meaning of each application. As you go deeper into your prep, you will learn about various types of nouns, actions, noun modifiers, and action modifiers. Remember that all those could be modified by prepositional phrases.

To conclude, prepositional phrases behave as modifiers.

Now that you have that out of the way, go back to focusing on Meaning Analysis with this new understanding of prepositional phrases.

I hope this helps.

Happy Learning!

Abhishek