Gavinone, a compound formed in plants when they burn, is

Question

Gavinone, a compound formed in plants when they burn, is largely responsible
for the natural re-greening of forests after a fire, and may be useful   for 
restoring vegetation to former mining areas, reviving endangered plant species,
and for    advancing weed control.

A. for restoring vegetation to former mining areas, reviving endangered plant species, and for

B. for restoring vegetation to former mining areas, reviving endangered plant species, and

C. for restoring vegetation to former mining areas and reviving endangered plant species, and for

D. in the restoration of vegetation to former mining areas, reviving endangered plant species, and for

E. to restore vegetation to former mining areas, revive endangered plant species, and for

OE to follow.

Qoofi · Answer

There can be 2 format of answers to this question and we find one type of format in the given choices

"For x, for y and for z" or "for x, y,z "
the 2nd format is seen in Option B, hence the correct solution

Option A - Missing "For reviving"
Option C - Extra "and" and missing "for"
Option D , E- Parallelism missed

Devon · Answer

Gavinone, a compound formed in plants when they burn, is largely responsible
for the natural re-greening of forests after a fire, and may be useful  for 
restoring vegetation to former mining areas, reviving endangered plant species,
and for  advancing weed control.

A. for restoring vegetation to former mining areas, reviving endangered plant species, and for  Not parallel

B. for restoring vegetation to former mining areas, reviving endangered plant species, and

C. for restoring vegetation to former mining areas and reviving endangered plant species, and for  Not parallel

D. in the restoration of vegetation to former mining areas, reviving endangered plant species, and for  Not parallel

E. to restore vegetation to former mining areas, revive endangered plant species, and for  Not parallel

B

avohden · Answer

Official Explanation

Answer B   - Anytime you see a series or list on Sentence Correction (here, a series of three things for which Gavinone may be useful), look for a problem with parallel structure. The three items here must appear in parallel form. In this sentence, the first and third are each preceded by "for". In such a series, the best structure is to just have the first item preceded by "for" (i.e., "for X, Y, and Z"). The "for" applies to each item in the series. Sometimes you may use "for" before each item in the list ("for X, for Y, and Z"), though that is usually a weaker construction. But using "for" before the first and third items, but not the second ("for X, Y, and for Z"), will never be correct. So we immediately eliminate (A). (B) fixes the problem directly by simply removing the "for" before the third item. Also check to make sure that (B) maintains the parallel form of all three items. It does, with "restoring . . . reviving . . . and advancing". So choice (B) is correct.

Note that (C) does maintain parallel structure of the items themselves ("restoring . . . reviving . . . and advancing"). However, (C) violates parallel structure by using "for X and Y, and for Z". So (C) is incorrect.

(D) uses the wordy "in the restoration of". The correct "for restoring" uses only 2 words to say the same thing. But the major problem is that "in the restoration of" violates parallel structure since the second and third items use the "-ing" construction. Note that if the second and third items (especially with the third item not being underlined) used the "in the (noun) of" structure, then the first item would need to use it as well, to establish parallel structure, even though the sentence would be wordy. (E) violates parallel structure by using "to X, Y, and for Z". So (E) is incorrect.

Helium · Answer

A list in the underlined portion of the sentence automatically raises the  issue of parallelism . The rule is that a list of items must have all the items in the same form. Here, the list is introduced with the word "for." To maintain parallelism, this word can be used once at the beginning to apply to all of the items of the list, as in  for restoring ... reviving ... and advancing, or it can be repeated for each item, as in for restoring ... for reviving ... and for advancing.  But it cannot be used on just two of the items, as in the original sentence, which reads, "for restoring ... reviving ... and for advancing." The right answer must correct this issue.

A scan of the beginnings of the choices reveals a  3-2 split , with (A), (B), and (C) retaining the word "for" at the beginning of the list, while (D) and (E) remove it. Which grouping is correct depends on the rest of the list, however, so don't dwell too much on these differences. Proceed to evaluate the choices more closely.

(A) can be eliminated, since it contains the error noted in the initial analysis.

(C) incorrectly combines the first two items into one compound item connected by  "and."  There is nothing in the original sentence to suggest these items should be combined, so this slight change in meaning is not logically justified. Eliminate (C).

(D) creates an even worse parallelism problem. (D) ends up with "in the  restoration ... reviving ... and for advancing. " The second and third items are in -ing form, while the first is not, and the third item is the only one introduced with "for."

(E) also creates a worse parallelism problem, with " to restore ... revive ... and for advancing ." Each of these three items is in a different form.

(B) fixes the problem directly, by simply removing the "for" before the third item. (B) reads "for restoring ... reviving ... and advancing." (B) is correct.

Abhishek009 · Answer

Gavinone , a compound formed in plants when they burn,  is largely responsible for the natural re-greening of forests after a fire, and may be useful for 
  restoring  vegetation to former mining areas, 
 reviving  endangered plant species, 
 and advancing  weed control.

Thus  Answer must be (B)

NiruSinghal · Answer

Can 'reviving endangered plants' be a modifier to 'restoring vegetation to former mining areas'?

mayursurya · Answer

B is the correct answer 
it corrects the parallelism error  for restoring ... reviving ... and advancing 
and removing for from the last term which makes B correct choice.

Gavinone, a compound formed in plants when they burn, is

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GMAT Sentence Correction (SC - EA only) Questions

Gavinone, a compound formed in plants when they burn, is

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