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Hi Vishal!

One of the issues in E might help clear this up. Remember that if an SC sentence begins to stack up modifiers, we should check each on carefully:

(E) First discovered more than 30 years ago, Lina's sunbird, a four-and-a-half-inch animal that is found in the Philippines, resembling a hummingbird, has shimmering metallic colors on its head; a brilliant orange patch, bordered with red tufts, in the center of its breast; and a red eye.

"a four-and-a-half-inch animal" is correctly modifying the sunbird.
"that is found" is correctly modifying animal.
"in the Philippines" is correctly modifying where it was found.
"resembling a hummingbird" is a modifier that now appears to modify the Philippines rather than the animal - this is an issue!!

Hope this helps!

Whit

_________________
Whitney Garner
GMAT Instructor & Instructor Developer
Manhattan Prep

Contributor to Beat The GMAT!

Math is a lot like love - a simple idea that can easily get complicated

No Apologies Necessary!

In fact, I might have been a bit sloppy with the last explanation so let's see if I can clear things up. Let's start with a quick rundown of the uses of the verb+ing form (the present participle).

(1) Noun: When we use the verb+ing as a noun this is called a "gerund".
"Swimming is a great way to stay in shape."

(2) Verb: To be an actual verb, the present participle needs a helping verb such as is/are/was/were/will be/etc.
"We were swimming at the beach all day."

(3) Adjective (Noun Modifier): When the present participle is acting as an adjective, we attach it to the noun with NO COMMA (it can appear EITHER before OR after the noun).
"The fish swimming in the pond are beautiful." - we are describing the fish (they are the ones swimming)
"The swimming pool is a great place to cool off in the summer." - we are describing the pool (it is the swimming one)

(4) Adverb (Adverbial Modifier): When the present participle is acting as an adverb (modifying clauses or verbs), we attach it to the noun WITH A COMMA.
"We had a great day at the beach, swimming in the water and building sandcastles." - now we are describing the great day we had at the beach (it is telling more about the action), and both swimming and building are parallel.

Now, let's compare these to the answer choices.

(a) "resembles" is a verb and part of the "that" clause. This is NOT parallel to the noun modifier "found"(which animal? the one found..."). By the way, "found" is a past participle and can do basically the same jobs as a present participle.

(b) ", resembling" is an adverb, so it must modify the clause or phrase preceding it (that...has shining metallic colors) - so the resembling describes how it has a shining metallic color on its head. This is strange, but more importantly isn't really in line with the meaning of the sentence.

(c) "and resembling" is a noun modifier and is correctly parallel to the noun modifier "found". (which animal? the one resembling a hummingbird.)

(d) "and it resembles" is a main verb and IS parallel to "is found" BUT the presence of the "it" breaks the overall parallelism within the "that" clause. (I should be able to switch the items in a list...THAT X AND Y....So would we say: "That it resembles and is found"? NO the "it" doesn't work!

(e) ", resembling" is an adverb, so it must modify the clause or phrase preceding it (that is found in the Philippines"), so now saying "resembling a hummingbird" is telling us more about how it was found in the Philippines, which doesn't make any sense.

Therefore the only choice that works is choice C.

I really hope this helps clear up the confusion from my earlier response!

Whit

_________________
Whitney Garner
GMAT Instructor & Instructor Developer
Manhattan Prep

Contributor to Beat The GMAT!

Math is a lot like love - a simple idea that can easily get complicated