Agricultural scientist's search

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Agricultural scientist's search

by bhumika.k.shah » Sun Jan 31, 2010 8:14 am
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

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by bhumika.k.shah » Sun Jan 31, 2010 8:16 am
whats wrong with B???
damn i picked B and its wrong :(
bhumika.k.shah wrote: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

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by papgust » Sun Jan 31, 2010 8:42 am
B has a major problem of parallelism. "... strain of wheat that is hardy, resists disease, and that yields ..." has a bad parallelism. It starts with "is hardy" and continues listing descriptions about grain. Here, "is" is implicitly associated with the series of list items. "resists disease", which is not parallel to "hardy", also cannot associated with "is". You cannot say "is resists disease. So, it should be "disease-resistant".

Secondly, "hardy" and "disease-resistant" are different from "yields". The first two items are properties of grain, whereas the third item is the advantage of grain. These three items cannot be joined with a single conjunction "and". Only first 2 items could be joined and the third item must be separated from first 2 items.

So, C looks the best choice to me. ".. and that yields" is parallel to ".. that is hardy".

Let me know if you have any questions.

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by DeepakR » Sun Jan 31, 2010 8:43 am
I would go with A. Disease resistant is a character of the wheat whereas resists disease doesn't seem so.

-Deepak

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by soumyopriyosaha » Sun Jan 31, 2010 9:36 am
IMO C. What is the OA?

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by bhumika.k.shah » Sun Jan 31, 2010 10:09 am
Fantastic Explanation papgust! :-)

The OA is indeed C

Gosh! how confusing answer options can they make! :-(
papgust wrote:B has a major problem of parallelism. "... strain of wheat that is hardy, resists disease, and that yields ..." has a bad parallelism. It starts with "is hardy" and continues listing descriptions about grain. Here, "is" is implicitly associated with the series of list items. "resists disease", which is not parallel to "hardy", also cannot associated with "is". You cannot say "is resists disease. So, it should be "disease-resistant".

Secondly, "hardy" and "disease-resistant" are different from "yields". The first two items are properties of grain, whereas the third item is the advantage of grain. These three items cannot be joined with a single conjunction "and". Only first 2 items could be joined and the third item must be separated from first 2 items.

So, C looks the best choice to me. ".. and that yields" is parallel to ".. that is hardy".

Let me know if you have any questions.

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by Leo31 » Mon Jul 15, 2013 7:15 am
guys,
What not D?

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by Matt@VeritasPrep » Mon Jul 15, 2013 9:27 am
Leo31 wrote:guys,
What not D?
Good question, Leo - D has bad subject-verb agreement ("a strain of wheat that [...] resist disease").

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by Alamel » Sat Oct 01, 2016 1:50 am
Hi Experts,

Would B be correct if it was in the form
hardy, resists disease, and yields

And what is wrong with E
hardy, disease-resistant, and yielding
as it can be parallel in the form ---is hardy, is disease-resistant, and is yielding

is yielding------- is a noun phrase modifying the strain of wheat