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aarkay87
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The health benefits of tea have been the subject of much research; in Updated on: 21 May 2021, 01:25
Originally posted by aarkay87 on 27 Dec 2020, 01:12.
Last edited by aarkay87 on 21 May 2021, 01:25, edited 1 time in total.
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Hi egmat,

As per one of your articles on 'pronoun ambiguity', a pronoun can refer to the noun in a prepositional phrase or to a noun in the clause before the semi-colon. So, in options A, B & C, isn't it possible that the pronoun "its" can also refer to "tea" in the first clause or "camellia sinensis" in the second clause?

2) Request you to share the exact POE for this question?

Experts mikemcgarry, MartyTargetTestPrep

Could you please guide me further?

Regards
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The health benefits of tea have been the subject of much research; in 27 Dec 2020, 03:01
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aarkay87
1) Many community reply in the post suggests that option A, B & C are eliminated as use of "its" for plural subject, but its can also refer to "tea" in the first clause or "camellia sinensis" in the same clause.
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Hi aarkay87, in a clause, when a pronoun appears as part of introductory modifier, the pronoun refers to the noun immediately after the introductory modifier.

Here, the clause is:

in addition to its possibilities for preventing and inhibiting some forms of cancer, the brewed leaves of Camellia sinensis may also....

We have the following introductory modifier here: in addition to its possibilities for preventing and inhibiting some forms of cancer.

So, the pronoun its will refer to the brewed leaves, the noun immediately after the introductory modifier. However, the issue is that its is singular, while brewed leaves is plural.

p.s. Our book EducationAisle Sentence Correction Nirvana discusses this concept of Pronouns in Introductory modifiers. Have attached the corresponding section of the book, for your reference.
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The health benefits of tea have been the subject of much research; in 07 Mar 2021, 03:59
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aren't preventing and inhibiting gerunds here? If yes, then how possibly, an adverb, modifies them?? PLease help
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The health benefits of tea have been the subject of much research; in 02 May 2021, 20:40
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GMATGuruNY - why can't "ITS" stand for Camellia sinensis (which is singular) ?

I thought the "its" stood for Camellia sinensis and could not eliminate A/B/C because of S-V error as other's have recommended
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The health benefits of tea have been the subject of much research; in 03 May 2021, 02:06
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jabhatta2
GMATGuruNY - why can't "ITS" stand for Camellia sinensis (which is singular) ?

I thought the "its" stood for Camellia sinensis and could not eliminate A/B/C because of S-V error as other's have recommended
Show more


because its not CS but leaves that play a role.


The health benefits of tea have been the subject of much research; in addition to its possibilities for preventing and inhibiting some forms of cancer, the brewed leaves of Camellia sinensis may also play a role in reducing the risk of heart disease and stroke.
read again:
in addition to its possibilities for preventing and inhibiting[/u] some forms of cancer,
the brewed leaves of Camellia sinensis may also play a role i
subject == brewed leaves->plural
( its non underline part, so we need to take as it)

To avoid such errors, you pay attention to sentence structure: Subject, verb , what is what then you will be able to spot many low hanging fruits very easily:)

I hope it helps.
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The health benefits of tea have been the subject of much research; in 21 May 2021, 04:05
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aarkay87
Hi egmat,

As per one of your articles on 'pronoun ambiguity', a pronoun can refer to the noun in a prepositional phrase or to a noun in the clause before the semi-colon. So, in options A, B & C, isn't it possible that the pronoun "its" can also refer to "tea" in the first clause or "camellia sinensis" in the second clause?

2) Request you to share the exact POE for this question?

Experts mikemcgarry, MartyTargetTestPrep

Could you please guide me further?

Regards
Show more
"Its" could refer to "tea." However, if "its" refers to "tea," then the sentence still doesn't work, because the meaning conveyed is not logical.

For instance, if we decide that "its" refers to "tea" in the original version, then what follows the semicolon conveys the following illogical meaning:

in addition to tea's possibilities ..., the brewed leaves of Camellia sinensis may also play a role in reducing the risk of heart disease and stroke

So, if we use that pronoun reference, the sentence is saying that "the brewed leaves ... may play a role" "in addition to tea's possibilities."

How exactly is playing a role in addition to possibilities? It's not.
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The health benefits of tea have been the subject of much research; in 21 May 2021, 07:02
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pk6969
aren't preventing and inhibiting gerunds here? If yes, then how possibly, an adverb, modifies them?? PLease help
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While a gerund is used as a noun, it still has verb characteristics. So, a gerund can be correctly modified by an adverb.

Consider these examples.

I like playing. - "Playing" is a gerund that serves as a direct object of "like."

I like playing endlessly. - "Endlessly" correctly modifies "playing."
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The health benefits of tea have been the subject of much research; in 23 May 2021, 21:54
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GMATNinja souvik101990 EMPOWERgmatVerbal

Experts, could you please provide an explanation for each of the answer choices here. I got the right answer but I don't have a good reason for it.

Thank you!
___
(A) in addition to its possibilities for preventing and inhibiting

(B) in addition to its possibilities to prevent or inhibit

(C) besides the possibility that it prevents and inhibits

(D) besides the possible preventing and inhibiting of

(E) besides possibly preventing or inhibiting
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The health benefits of tea have been the subject of much research; in 26 May 2021, 15:20
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GMATNinja souvik101990 EMPOWERgmatVerbal

Experts, could you please provide an explanation for each of the answer choices here. I got the right answer but I don't have a good reason for it.

Thank you!
___
(A) in addition to its possibilities for preventing and inhibiting

(B) in addition to its possibilities to prevent or inhibit

(C) besides the possibility that it prevents and inhibits

(D) besides the possible preventing and inhibiting of

(E) besides possibly preventing or inhibiting
Show more

Thanks for the question UserMaple5!

Let's dive in:

The health benefits of tea have been the subject of much research; in addition to its possibilities for preventing and inhibiting some forms of cancer, the brewed leaves of Camellia sinensis may also play a role in reducing the risk of heart disease and stroke.

(A) in addition to its possibilities for preventing and inhibiting

(B) in addition to its possibilities to prevent or inhibit

(C) besides the possibility that it prevents and inhibits

(D) besides the possible preventing and inhibiting of

(E) besides possibly preventing or inhibiting

The first thing we noticed is the use of the pronoun it/its. First, we aren't 100% sure what this is referring to: research or the brewed leaves of the Camellia sinensis? If it is supposed to refer to the brewed leaves, that's another problem: it/its is a singular pronoun that's trying to refer to a plural antecedent.

For these reasons, let's eliminate options A, B, & C due to a vague/mismatched pronoun.

Now that we have it narrowed down to only 2 options, let's look at those more closely:

(D) besides the possible preventing and inhibiting of

Okay, we have two problems with this option. First, it's overly wordy - option E covers the same information in fewer words. Second, we don't like the phrase "preventing AND inhibiting" here. It's not likely that the tea can both prevent AND inhibit cancer at the same time. If it can prevent cancer, then there's no need to inhibit it. If it can inhibit cancer, that means it won't be able to prevent it.

(E) besides possibly preventing or inhibiting

We like option E much better. It's more concise, and it makes more logical sense to say that the tea could prevent OR inhibit cancer.

We hope that helps! Keep tagging us at EMPOWERgmatVerbal if you have any other questions!
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The health benefits of tea have been the subject of much research; in 10 Jun 2021, 06:54
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I was between A and E for this one because of parallelism between the verbs and ended up picking E because it seemed cleaner for me than A. However, I'm not sure why A is wrong, grammatically speaking.
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The health benefits of tea have been the subject of much research; in Updated on: 05 Jul 2022, 07:14
Originally posted by jabhatta2 on 20 Jul 2021, 07:17.
Last edited by jabhatta2 on 05 Jul 2022, 07:14, edited 2 times in total.
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aarkay87
Hi egmat,

As per one of your articles on 'pronoun ambiguity', a pronoun can refer to the noun in a prepositional phrase or to a noun in the clause before the semi-colon. So, in options A, B & C, isn't it possible that the pronoun "its" can also refer to "tea" in the first clause or "camellia sinensis" in the second clause?

2) Request you to share the exact POE for this question?

Experts mikemcgarry, MartyTargetTestPrep

Could you please guide me further?

Regards
"Its" could refer to "tea." However, if "its" refers to "tea," then the sentence still doesn't work, because the meaning conveyed is not logical.

For instance, if we decide that "its" refers to "tea" in the original version, then what follows the semicolon conveys the following illogical meaning:

in addition to tea's possibilities ..., the brewed leaves of Camellia sinensis may also play a role in reducing the risk of heart disease and stroke

So, if we use that pronoun reference, the sentence is saying that "the brewed leaves ... may play a role" "in addition to tea's possibilities."

How exactly is playing a role in addition to possibilities? It's not.
Show more

Hi MartyTargetTestPrep - I too thought Its CAN refer back to "Tea"

You mention its grammatically possible but from a meaning perspective it would not make sense in the context of the idiom In addition to X,Y

Could you explain that a bit more about why it would not make sense from a meaning perspective in the context of In addition to X,Y ?

Is it because X and Y (in the idiom In addition to X,Y ) have to be the SAME noun OR for some other reason ?

In addition to TEA'S possibilities for A and B, brewed leaves of Camellia sinensis may also do C
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the terrible mistake in choice D is that "the preventing/inhibiting" is a noun. a noun can not refer to the subject "leaaves" , so, the preventing/inhibiting is not caused by "leaves" but is a general action/noun. this is not logical

choice D means

besides preventing of xxx by Mr. A, the leaves also do yyy. this is meaningless

in choice E, preventing/inhibiting is participle, which contain some feature of adjective and verb and, so, which refer/modify "leaves". this means action of preventing/inhibiting is done by "leaves". this is logical.
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The health benefits of tea have been the subject of much research; in 05 Jul 2022, 00:47
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ExpertsGlobal5,

In your explanation above, you have mentioned that "besides" and "in addition to" are used as conjunctions. Can you illustrate this rule by few examples? And how is parallelism not maintained in the earlier options and is maintained in Option E?

Can you throw some light on this?

Best,
KD
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The health benefits of tea have been the subject of much research; in Updated on: 05 Jul 2022, 09:06
Originally posted by jabhatta2 on 05 Jul 2022, 07:20.
Last edited by jabhatta2 on 05 Jul 2022, 09:06, edited 6 times in total.
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Hi avigutman - wanted to discuss the possessive pronoun adjective (= 'its' )

I believe the possessive pronoun adjective (=its) has two plausible antecedents
- Antecedent 1 : tea
- Antecedent 2 : Camellia sinensis

Below is a meaning analysis if i was to insert any of these two antecedents
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screenshot 9.png [ 74.87 KiB | Viewed 1822 times ]

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The health benefits of tea have been the subject of much research; in Updated on: 05 Jul 2022, 10:41
Originally posted by jabhatta2 on 05 Jul 2022, 07:35.
Last edited by jabhatta2 on 05 Jul 2022, 10:41, edited 22 times in total.
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I think if i insert [=its] with the two plausible antecedents, does it make meaningful sense with the modifier "in addition to..." ?

I am struggling to articulate why the meaning is a bit strange but here below is my attempt

First, a simpler analogy

Quote:

Yesterday was a terrible night for JD and Avi; In addition to JD's wallet, Avi lost his car.

Red = noun (wallet)
Blue = clause

I think this statement is okay because
- Avi lost his own car
- Avi lost JD's wallet

The verb "LOST" makes sense with the two nouns (Avi's car and JD's wallet)

Therefore, In addition to makes sense because Avi can lose both items
Show more

In my 1st sentence in the screenshot, i think the meaning is wrangled because

Quote:
the brewed leaves of Camellia sinensis play a role in X
the brewed leaves of Camellia sinensis play tea's possibilities

The brewed leaves of Camellia sinensis CANNOT PLAY tea's possibilities ...thus, "In addition to" does not make meaningful sense
Show more

In the 2nd sentence in the screenshot, the meaning is wrangled because

Quote:
the brewed leaves of Camellia sinensis play a role in X
the brewed leaves of Camellia sinensis play Camellia sinensis’ possibilities

The brewed leaves of Camellia sinensis CANNOT PLAY Camellia sinensis’ possibilities ...thus, "In addition to" does not make meaningful sense
Show more
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The health benefits of tea have been the subject of much research; in 05 Jul 2022, 12:19
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jabhatta2
I think if i insert [=its] with the two plausible antecedents, does it make meaningful sense with the modifier "in addition to..." ?

I am struggling to articulate why the meaning is a bit strange but here below is my attempt

First, a simpler analogy

Quote:

Yesterday was a terrible night for JD and Avi; In addition to JD's wallet, Avi lost his car.

Red = noun (wallet)
Blue = clause

I think this statement is okay because
- Avi lost his own car
- Avi lost JD's wallet

The verb "LOST" makes sense with the two nouns (Avi's car and JD's wallet)

Therefore, In addition to makes sense because Avi can lose both items

In my 1st sentence in the screenshot, i think the meaning is wrangled because

Quote:
the brewed leaves of Camellia sinensis play a role in X
the brewed leaves of Camellia sinensis play tea's possibilities

The brewed leaves of Camellia sinensis CANNOT PLAY tea's possibilities ...thus, "In addition to" does not make meaningful sense

In the 2nd sentence in the screenshot, the meaning is wrangled because

Quote:
the brewed leaves of Camellia sinensis play a role in X
the brewed leaves of Camellia sinensis play Camellia sinensis’ possibilities

The brewed leaves of Camellia sinensis CANNOT PLAY Camellia sinensis’ possibilities ...thus, "In addition to" does not make meaningful sense
Show more
Hi, jabhatta2 thanks for asking.
For me this comes down (as usual) to the non-underlined text at the end:
Quote:
the brewed leaves of Camellia sinensis may also…
Show more
Whatever came before this phrase has to describe another thing that the brewed leaves of Camellia sinensis (plural) do.

Posted from my mobile device
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The health benefits of tea have been the subject of much research; in 10 Feb 2023, 02:35
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ExpertsGlobal5
Dear Friends,

Here is a detailed explanation to this question-
x97agarwal
The health benefits of tea have been the subject of much research; in addition to its possibilities for preventing and inhibiting some forms of cancer, the brewed leaves of Camellia sinensis may also play a role in reducing the risk of heart disease and stroke.


(A) in addition to its possibilities for preventing and inhibiting

(B) in addition to its possibilities to prevent or inhibit

(C) besides the possibility that it prevents and inhibits

(D) besides the possible preventing and inhibiting of

(E) besides possibly preventing or inhibiting

Meaning is crucial to solving this problem:
Understanding the intended meaning is key to solving this question; the intended core meaning of this sentence is that the brewed leaves of Camellia sinensis may prevent or inhibit some forms of cancer, and they may play a role in reducing the risk of heart disease and stroke.

Concepts tested here: Meaning + Pronouns + Parallelism + Idioms + Awkwardness/Redundancy

• "possibility + of" and "possibility + that" are the correct, idiomatic constructions.
• Any elements linked by a conjunction ("in addition" and “besides” in this case) must be parallel.

A: This answer choice incorrectly uses the singular pronoun "its" to refer to the plural noun "leaves". Further, Option A fails to maintain parallelism between the verb phrase "play a role" and the noun phrase "its possibilities"; please remember, any elements linked by a conjunction ("in addition" in this sentence) must be parallel. Additionally, Option A uses the unidiomatic construction "possibilities for"; please remember, "possibility + of" and "possibility + that" are the correct, idiomatic constructions. Besides, Option A uses the needlessly wordy phrase "in addition to its possibilities", leading to awkwardness and redundancy.

B: This answer choice incorrectly uses the singular pronoun "its" to refer to the plural noun "leaves". Further, Option B fails to maintain parallelism between the verb phrase "play a role" and the noun phrase "its possibilities"; please remember, any elements linked by a conjunction ("in addition" in this sentence) must be parallel. Additionally, Option B uses the unidiomatic construction "possibilities to"; please remember, "possibility + of" and "possibility + that" are the correct, idiomatic constructions. Besides, Option B uses the needlessly wordy phrase "in addition to its possibilities", leading to awkwardness and redundancy.

C: This answer choice incorrectly uses the singular pronoun "it" to refer to the plural noun "leaves". Further, Option C alters the meaning of the sentence through the phrase "prevents and inhibits"; the use of "and" incorrectly implies that the brewed leaves of Camellia sinensis may both prevent and inhibit some forms of cancer; the intended meaning is that the brewed leaves of Camellia sinensis may either prevent or inhibit some forms of cancer. Additionally, Option C fails to maintain parallelism between the verb phrase "play a role" and the noun phrase "the possibility"; please remember, any elements linked by a conjunction ("besides" in this sentence) must be parallel. Besides, Option C uses the needlessly wordy phrase "besides the possibility", leading to awkwardness and redundancy.

D: This answer choice alters the meaning of the sentence through the phrase "preventing and inhibiting"; the use of "and" incorrectly implies that the brewed leaves of Camellia sinensis may both prevent and inhibit some forms of cancer; the intended meaning is that the brewed leaves of Camellia sinensis may either prevent or inhibit some forms of cancer. Further, Option D fails to maintain parallelism between the active verb phrase "play a role" and the present participle ("verb+ing" - "preventing" and "inhibiting" in this sentence) phrase "the possible preventing and inhibiting"; please remember, any elements linked by a conjunction ("besides" in this sentence) must be parallel. Besides, Option D uses the needlessly wordy phrase "the possible preventing and inhibiting of", leading to awkwardness and redundancy.

E: Correct. This answer choice avoids the pronoun error seen in Options A, B, and C, as it uses no pronouns. Further, Option E uses the phrase "preventing or inhibiting", conveying the intended meaning - that the brewed leaves of Camellia sinensis may either prevent or inhibit some forms of cancer. Additionally, Option E maintains parallelism between the active verb phrases "play a role" and "preventing or inhibiting". Moreover, Option E avoids the idiomatic error seen in Options A and B, as it uses the adverb "possibly" rather than the noun "possibilities". Besides, Option E is free of any awkwardness or redundancy.

Hence, E is the best answer choice.

All the best!
Experts' Global Team
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Great detailed explanation ExpertsGlobal5. One question I'm finding it hard to see the parallelism here? How is "play a role" parallel with "preventing or inhibiting" ? Do you mean parallel with "in reducing" here? the -ing parallelism? Again not sure why is the need for parallelism here? Thanks for your time in advaned.
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