Agricultural scientists continue to search for a strain of

Question

Agricultural scientists continue to search for a strain of wheat that is   hardy, disease-resistant and yields  more grain per acre.

A.hardy, disease-resistant and yields

B.hardy, resists disease, and that yields

C.hardy and disease-resistant and that yields

D.hardy and resist disease, yielding

E.hardy, disease-resistant, and yielding

pqhai · Accepted Answer

Tough one. This question is about parallelism.

Agricultural scientists continue to search for a strain of wheat that  is hardy, disease-resistant and yields  more grain per acre.

A.hardy, disease-resistant and yields
 Wrong.  Because "hardy" || disease-resistant, so there should be "and" between "hardy" and "disease-resistant" to make the parallel structure clear.

B.hardy, resists disease, and that yields
 Wrong.  If "that is"|| resists || yields ==> the second "that" is wrong. The correct structure should be: a strain of wheat that is hardy, resists disease and yields.....

C.hardy and disease-resistant and that yields
  Correct.   
"hardy" || "disease-resistant; 
"that is ...." || "that yields

D.hardy and resist disease, yielding
 Wrong.  "a strain" is singular ==> "resist" is wrong. Should be "resists".

E.hardy, disease-resistant, and yielding
 Wrong.  Although the structure is parallel, the meaning is wrong. "Hardy" and "disease-resistant" are characteristics of the strain of wheat, but "yielding" is the advantage of the grains, so we cannot put them together in a parallel structure.
 For example: 
My professor who is tall, black-hair and who teaches math is very smart. 
We can put "tall" and "black-hair" in one parallel structure, but cannot put "tall" + "black-hair" + "teach math". They are in different categories.

Hope it helps.

nhattruong1302 · Answer

Agricultural scientists continue to search for a strain of wheat that is  hardy, disease-resistant and yields  more grain per acre.

A. hardy, disease-resistant and yields 
 not parrallel: adj, adj and verb

B. hardy, resists disease , and that yields
 do not have connection between parallel list: "hardy" and "resists disease"

C.hardy and disease-resistant and that yields
 
D.hardy and resist disease,  yielding 
 change the meaning of the sentence
 
 E.hardy, disease-resistant, and yielding
not parrallel list: adj, adj, and V_ing

dheeraj24 · Answer

very good example of Parallelism . Initially i got wrong but after going to Pqhai explanations , i understood this . 
We should take "and" as a parallel marker and look for words joined by "and" ,check whether these words (joined by and ) have a similar priority or make up similar idea. 
Here in this question , hardy and disease -resistant are properties of strain of wheat. So these two properties have to made parallel by combing hardy "and" disease-resistant. These two properties make up similar idea/or of same rank.

Yields is advantage of Wheat and this should not be in parallel to Properties(hardy and disease resistant).So this is separated by "and" is made parallel to first "that is"
"that yields " || "that is".

Hence C:)

pksam · Answer

"is" should not be underlined.

tryambaks · Answer

Moderators,

Please update the question
 verb is should be out of underlined portion. Otherwise it does not make any sense.
 When verb comes out  of underline then Parallelism -  that is X ,Y and that yields  - makes sense
When verb is inside the underlined portion , it will be replaced by hardy in the beginning and form a fragment -  that hardy, disease-resistant  and that yields

Hence the question should be 
Agricultural scientists continue to search for a strain of wheat that  is    hardy, disease-resistant and yields  more grain per acre.

sayantanc2k · Answer

Good observation, thanks. ...changed.

Alamel · Answer

Wrt
E.hardy, disease-resistant, and yielding
Wrong. Although the structure is parallel, the meaning is wrong. "Hardy" and "disease-resistant" are characteristics of the strain of wheat, but "yielding" is the advantage of the grains, so we cannot put them together in a parallel structure.

is yielding more grain per acre is a characteristic of the strain, along with other characteristics hardy and disease resistant.
It is modifying the strain of wheat and is a noun phrase. So why is it wrong

sayantanc2k · Answer

Option E has a serious parallelism problem. "Hardy" and "disease-resistant" are adjectives,but " yielding" here is a verb in present continuous tense (is yielding), Two adjectives are wrongly made parallel to a present continuous verb.

("is yielding" is not a modifier - it is the verb for the subject "that")

Alamel · Answer

Hi thanks for the reply.

How is the role of yielding here different from the word throbbing in the below sentence
She has a headache that is painful, irritating and throbbing.
yielding - is a gerund and not a verb - correct me if i am wrong similar to throbbing in the above sentence

sayantanc2k · Answer

First, none of the -ing constructions in your sentence or in option E are gerunds - gerunds are nouns and here these -ing forms are either a verb or an adjective.

In your sentence:  throbbing  is an adjective - remove  painful  and  irritating . You are left with:
.... that is throbbing. - throbbing  is not a action by  pain  but an adjective referring to pain.

In option E:  yielding  is a verb. remove the two adjectives  hardy  and  disease-resistant . You are left with:
 ..that is yielding more grain per acre. - yielding  is an action by  wheat .

Alamel · Answer

got it thanks
just coz its -ing it need not be a gerund, the purpose of the word is what defines it role

sayantanc2k · Answer

Absolutely. Verb+ing could be a verb in progressive, a noun (gerund), an adjective or a present participle.

law258 · Answer

C is correct because hardy and disease-resistant are both adjectives, while yield is a verb --> hardy and disease should therefore be parallel to one another and yield will be treated separately.

aman15390 · Answer

Hi,

Correct me if I am wrong but as per my understanding VERB+ING can not stand alone as a verb, it needs a helping verb such as IS + VERB+ING or ARE + VERB+ING. A stand alone VERB+ING acts as an adjective and always modifies the noun.

The error i see in option E is the second part of the sentence is a FRAGMENT as it lacks verb.

Sirakri · Answer

Hi aman15390 , Yes, second IC in the option E doesn't have a subject.

Sidharth8 · Answer

A is wrong because ‘hardy’ does not parallel ‘disease-resistant’
B is wrong because it does not need the that. ‘that is’ has to parallel ‘resists’ and ‘yields’
C is correct ‘hardy’ parallels ‘disease-resistant’ and ‘that is’ parallels ‘that yields’
D is wrong because ‘a strain’ is obviously singular and ‘resists’ is plural.
E is wrong because ‘hardy’ and ‘disease’ resistant’ are qualities of the wheat, while ‘yielding’ is a quality of the grain. This means that they cannot be put together.
 
So, C is the only correct option

Kanika3agg · Answer

Agricultural scientists continue to search for a strain of wheat that is  hardy, disease-resistant and yields  more grain per acre.

Issues in this question - We don't know which elements are parallel in the list. First identify if there are two lists of parallelism or three elements in parallel.

There can be two list of parallelism - hardy, diseases -resistant and that is and that yields or hardy, resists diseases and yields.

Now, in this question, we have two lists of parallelism. identify this by checking two things - parallel lists should a)logically and b)grammatically parallel.

Logically, three elements can be parallel but these elements hardy, diseases -resistant are adjectives whereas yields more grain is a clause so that is not necessarily an error.

Grammatically, if you would see substitute "is" with every element of list and see if it makes sense.

is hardy, is diseases -resistant  and  is yields more grain per acre.

So, there are two lists. If that is the case, then we need a) "and" between hardy and diseases -resistant & b) that before yields to show two requirements.

Remove one parallel list - So, remove A, E. E can also be removed because it has verb-ing can't be parallel to adjectives. Eliminate D because that changes the meaning. Now, B and C are left.

In B, apply is before resists diseases which is incorrect. So, C is the answer.

A.hardy, disease-resistant and yields -

B.hardy, resists disease, and that yields

C.hardy and disease-resistant and that yields

D.hardy and resist disease, yielding

E.hardy, disease-resistant, and yielding

Crytiocanalyst · Answer

A.hardy, disease-resistant and yields
parallelism is missing therefore out

B.hardy, resists disease, and that yields
Similar reasoning as A

C.hardy and disease-resistant and that yields
THe meaning along with the parallelism is perfect therefore let us hang on to it

D.hardy and resist disease, yielding
parallelism issue in addition disease-resistant is more idiomatic therefore out

E.hardy, disease-resistant, and yielding
Even though parallel the meaning is out therefore out

THerefore IMO C

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