AART, a procedure that replicates heart arteries

Question

AART, a procedure that replicates heart arteries using  carbon nanotubes. enables people
with a weak heart to be able to participate in sports and to lead  a healthy life like a normal
person.

A. carbon nanotubes, enables people with a weak heart to be able to participate in sports
and to lead

B. carbon nanotubes; which enables people with a weak heart to partiCipate in sports to
lead

C. carbon nanotubes, to enable people with a weak heart to participate in sports and to

D. carbon nanotubes, enables people with a weak heart to participate in sports and to
lead

E. carbon nanotubes, enabling people with a weak heart to participate in sports and to
lead

earnit · Answer

It is pretty evident that the choice is between option D and Option E.

Would be really helpful if anyone could explain why is D (enables) preferred over E (enabling).
 
Is it the parallelism? Does both the words modify 'procedure'?

DmitryFarberMPrep · Answer

This is very similar to #55 from the OG, including the redundant "enables people . . . to be able" in (A).

Here's the deal with (D) vs. (E):

"Enables" is a verb, so we can say "AART . . . enables people to . . . "

"Enabling" is a modifier. If we say "AART, a procedure that . . . , enabling . . . " we never have a verb for our subject! It would be like saying "My cousin, Richard, thinking he is so smart." That's not a sentence until I actually give Richard a verb: "My cousin, Richard, thinking he is so smart, decided to take the GMAT today without preparing."

bhumit · Answer

Hi,

Can someone please explain why 'to be able to participate' is redundant here. Why is it wrong to assume that the device simply makes the person ready or equipped enough to participate, necessitating the use of 'to be able to', and not actually 'making' the person participate in sports activities? Is it because of the presence of 'enables' that we don't need 'to be able to'? Please help...

Thanks

DmitryFarberMPrep · Answer

You've got it. "Enables . . . to be able" is what is redundant. It's like saying "There's a chance that it could possibly happen" or "I'm prepared to be ready to go."

DmitryFarberMPrep · Answer

There are a few big problems with (B).

First, "which enables" is a noun modifier, so it needs to modify the preceding noun. However, we want to modify AART, so this doesn't work. Even if we wanted to modify "carbon nanotubes," we would then need to say "enable" rather than "enables."

An even quicker way to spot this modifier problem is to notice that the word "which" is preceded by a semicolon. This means that the two parts of the sentence should be independent clauses that can work as sentences on their own. Let's look at them:

AART, a procedure that replicates heart arteries using carbon nanotubes

which enables people with a weak heart to participate in sports to lead a healthy life like a normal person.

Notice that neither of these is a complete sentence. The first one has a subject (AART) with no verb, while the second one is a modifier ("which . . . ") with nothing to modify. This makes the use of a semicolon here incorrect.

In fact, even if we put these two pieces together with a comma, we still wouldn't have a sentence! I see "AART . . . a procedure . . . which . . .," but we still have no verb for AART. This is a big problem. This "sentence" is all subject and modifiers, with no action! (Yes, there are verbs in the sentence, but they are all in the modifiers.)

One last problem is in the modifier itself:

which enables people with a weak heart to participate in sports to lead

We're missing the word "and"! I can't say "this program allows me to teach to learn." We need something to link those items.

Other than that, I love (B).

I hope this helps.

anshulmangal · Answer

AART, a procedure that replicates heart arteries by using carbon nanotubes, enables people with a weak heart to be able to participate in sports and to lead a healthy life like a normal person.

can we break the sentence like this-- AART, enables
-people with a weak heart to participate in sports and to lead a healthy life like a normal person.
If from (people ---person) is a separate phrase then how to "participate" and "to lead "modify enables. And if not dont you think enables(v) comes on one side of "and "and another side is no verb which is grammatically in correct.

EducationAisle · Answer

Hi Anshul, it's actually like this:

AART, enables people with a weak heart:
 
(i) to participate in sports and

(ii) to lead a healthy life like a normal person.
 
So, parallelism is between two infinitives:  to participate  and  to lead .

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AART, a procedure that replicates heart arteries

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AART, a procedure that replicates heart arteries

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