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Pollination

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Pollination

by GmatKiss » Sun Apr 29, 2012 12:26 pm
Tropical bats play important roles in the rain forest ecosystem, aiding in the dispersal of cashew, date, and fig seeds; pollinating banana, breadfruit, and mango trees: and indirectly help produce teauila by pollinating agave plants.

A.pollinating banana, breadfruit, and mango trees; and indirectly help produce
B.pollinating banana, breadfruit, and mango trees; and indirectly helping to produce
C. pollinating banana, breadfruit, and mango trees; and they indirectly help to produce
D.they pollinate banana, breadfruit, and mango trees; and indirectly help producing
E.they pollinate banana, breadfruit, and mango trees; indirectly helping the producing of
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by gmatblood » Sun Apr 29, 2012 12:46 pm
GmatKiss wrote:Tropical bats play important roles in the rain forest ecosystem, aiding in the dispersal of cashew, date, and fig seeds; pollinating banana, breadfruit, and mango trees: and indirectly help produce teauila by pollinating agave plants.

A.pollinating banana, breadfruit, and mango trees; and indirectly help produce
B.pollinating banana, breadfruit, and mango trees; and indirectly helping to produce
C. pollinating banana, breadfruit, and mango trees; and they indirectly help to produce
D.they pollinate banana, breadfruit, and mango trees; and indirectly help producing
E.they pollinate banana, breadfruit, and mango trees; indirectly helping the producing of
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by ice_rush » Sun Apr 29, 2012 2:18 pm
My pick [spoiler](B)[/spoiler]. bats play important roles..aiding..pollinating and helping, but the semicolons are throwing me off. If an expert can comment on the semicolon usage with respect to this sentence, that would be great.

What's the OA and source?
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by vk_vinayak » Sun Apr 29, 2012 10:17 pm
GmatKiss wrote:Tropical bats play important roles in the rain forest ecosystem, aiding in the dispersal of cashew, date, and fig seeds; pollinating banana, breadfruit, and mango trees: and indirectly help produce teauila by pollinating agave plants.

A.pollinating banana, breadfruit, and mango trees; and indirectly help produce
B.pollinating banana, breadfruit, and mango trees; and indirectly helping to produce
C. pollinating banana, breadfruit, and mango trees; and they indirectly help to produce
D.they pollinate banana, breadfruit, and mango trees; and indirectly help producing
E.they pollinate banana, breadfruit, and mango trees; indirectly helping the producing of
The question contains a colon after mango trees, while the answer choice A has semicolon. Please correct that.

As far as I know, the sentence on either sides of the semicolon should be able to stand alone as a complete sentence. Hence I ruled out A, B, and C. Also, there is a conjunction at the beginning of second half in each of A, B, C and D. semicolon and conjunctions serve the same purpose; only one of them should be used.

None of the answers look convincing to me. What is the source and explanation?
- VK

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by gtr02 » Mon Apr 30, 2012 10:52 pm
vk_vinayak wrote:
GmatKiss wrote:Tropical bats play important roles in the rain forest ecosystem, aiding in the dispersal of cashew, date, and fig seeds; pollinating banana, breadfruit, and mango trees: and indirectly help produce teauila by pollinating agave plants.

A.pollinating banana, breadfruit, and mango trees; and indirectly help produce
B.pollinating banana, breadfruit, and mango trees; and indirectly helping to produce
C. pollinating banana, breadfruit, and mango trees; and they indirectly help to produce
D.they pollinate banana, breadfruit, and mango trees; and indirectly help producing
E.they pollinate banana, breadfruit, and mango trees; indirectly helping the producing of
The question contains a colon after mango trees, while the answer choice A has semicolon. Please correct that.

As far as I know, the sentence on either sides of the semicolon should be able to stand alone as a complete sentence. Hence I ruled out A, B, and C. Also, there is a conjunction at the beginning of second half in each of A, B, C and D. semicolon and conjunctions serve the same purpose; only one of them should be used.

None of the answers look convincing to me. What is the source and explanation?
the source is legit, i was thrown off by the same thing you mentioned
source is og13 sc question #26
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by vk_vinayak » Tue May 01, 2012 2:59 am
the source is legit, i was thrown off by the same thing you mentioned
source is og13 sc question #26
Ok, so, can you please post the official explanation?

Thanks,
- VK

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by gtr02 » Tue May 01, 2012 7:19 am
vk_vinayak wrote:
the source is legit, i was thrown off by the same thing you mentioned
source is og13 sc question #26
Ok, so, can you please post the official explanation?

Thanks,
attaching OE
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by rajcools » Tue May 01, 2012 7:44 am
as per manhattan SC -
a minor use of the semicolon is to separate items that themselves contain commas

Ex - I listen to Earth,Wind & Fire ; Wow,Owls ; and Blood, Sweat & Tears.

So B is correct...
@experts - do questions based on this rule of ";" appear in GMAT???
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by e-GMAT » Tue May 01, 2012 11:39 am
Hi All,

Tropical bats play important roles in the rain forest ecosystem, aiding in the dispersal of cashew, date, and fig seeds; pollinating banana, breadfruit, and mango trees; and indirectly help produce tequila by pollinating agave plants.

(a) as it is from above
(b) pollinating banana, breadfruit, and mango trees; and indirectly helping to produce
(c) pollinating banana, breadfruit, and mango trees; and they indirectly help to produce
(d) they pollinate banana, breadfruit, and mango trees; and indirectly help producing
(e) they pollinate banana, breadfruit, and mango trees: indirectly helping the producing of

The confusion regarding the use of semicolon in this sentence is very valid. So far, we have seen construction in which semicolons are always followed by independent clauses. However, here we have phrases that are connected through semicolon. In fact, in this sentence semicolons have been used as comma to separate various entities in a parallel. This does not mean that semicolon will not perform the earlier function anymore.

In this sentence, we have too many commas because every entity in the parallel list has three examples. If there were commas all across the sentence, it would be little cumbersome to identify the entities in the parallel list. then Hence, use of semicolon becomes imperative here to distinguish between the examples of a particular entity and the next entity in the parallel list.

Needless to say that option B is the correct answer because this is the only choice with all parallel entities in the list - aiding...; pollinating...; and helping....

Now use of colon in choice E is not correct because after the first entity there is a semicolon and this must be maintained throughout.

Hope this helps.
Shraddha
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by rajcools » Tue May 01, 2012 12:16 pm
The confusion regarding the use of semicolon in this sentence is very valid. So far, we have seen construction in which semicolons are always followed by independent clauses. However, here we have phrases that are connected through semicolon. In fact, in this sentence semicolons have been used as comma to separate various entities in a parallel. This does not mean that semicolon will not perform the earlier function anymore.
Hi Shraddha,

in this sentence semicolon is not followed by independent clauses ; it is just used for parallelism. I am confused by your last line - This does not mean that semicolon will not perform the earlier function anymore.

Please clear the doubt
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by vietmoi999 » Thu Aug 22, 2013 1:08 am
semicolon is used at a level lower than the level of comma

new thing to learn
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