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Visitors to the park - from OG 11

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Visitors to the park - from OG 11

by shulapa » Fri Mar 27, 2009 1:35 pm
Hi,

I am reposting a question that I feel I still don't understand the reasoning given to the right answer:

Visitors to the park have often looked up into the leafy canopy and saw monkeys sleeping on the branches, whose arms and legs hang like socks on
a clothesline.

(A) saw monkeys sleeping on the branches, whose arms and legs hang
(B) saw monkeys sleeping on the branches, whose arms and legs were hanging
(C) saw monkeys sleeping on the branches, with arms and legs hanging
(D) seen monkeys sleeping on the branches, with arms and legs hanging
(E) seen monkeys sleeping on the branches, whose arms and legs have hung

OA: D




---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My analysis of the question
First, the question tests the pronoun reference the modifier. A, B, and E can be ruled out because the have the pronouns "whose" which refer wrongly to branches instead of to monkeys.

The issue I am still puzzled about is how to choose between the past simple verb "saw" in option C and the present perfect version "have seen" in D. Some claim that this is a parallelism issue and because the first verb, have looked, is in present perfect, the second should be as well.
However, I can show a simple example in which tenses change and still the parallelism remain: "I was walking and then suddenly I saw him".

I would most appreciate your opinions on the matter.
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by gmat740 » Sat Mar 28, 2009 5:24 pm
Tense is more important first than the tenses.
Visitors to the park have often looked up into the leafy canopy and saw monkeys sleeping on the branches,
The event is present perfect because the visitors still keep on going to the park as they have been doing in the past and accordingly they have been seeing monkeys.
"I was walking and then suddenly I saw him"
.


The example you gave is a perfect past tense sentence. You have not been walking everyday and seeing him(from past to present the event is not continued, in fact it is over in the past)

You must read the rules for Present perfect and Past perfect, then your confusion will be clear

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by TedCornell » Sat Mar 28, 2009 6:56 pm
Visitors have looked up and saw... uses the present perfect "have looked" along with the simple past "saw"
shulapa wrote:"I was walking and then suddenly I saw him".
gmat740 pointed out that the example you gave fails to demonstrate a correct transition from the present perfect to the past.

Actually, the past perfect of to walk is "had walked" ("was walking" is the past continuous aka past progressive)

The past perfect cannot correctly be used along with past to express two actions that occur at the same time. By definition, the past perfect refers to a past action that occurs prior to a simple past action

"I had seen him well before he walked unto the street."

You would have a hard time coming up with a good sentence that uses the present perfect and the simple past to express two actions that occur at the same time.

"Visitors have looked up and saw" Incorrect

Shulapa, you make a good point though that parallelism typically but not always require the same tense. Your example illustrates this point.
shulapa wrote:"I was walking and then suddenly I saw him".
(I study with OG and GMATFix verbal flashcards)
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by gmat740 » Sat Mar 28, 2009 8:32 pm
The Teachers Thought that Jim had cheated in the Exam


For two different events that occurred in the past,we use past perfect

past perfect == later event (simple past) + former event (had + past participle)

Jim gave the exam and(might have cheated) but the teachers thought about it after Jim's event

I hope this is a proper explanation for Past perfect
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by rs2010 » Sat Mar 28, 2009 8:50 pm
Parallelism

Have oftern look needs have seen...D E

whose is wrongly placed in E.

D
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by nasa » Sat Mar 28, 2009 10:34 pm
Ted, Shulpa,

"I was walking and then suddenly I saw him."

This sentence does is ambiguous in its time-sequence it conveys.

I was walking and then suddenly ... => walking stopped when you saw him, you are referring to compelted action and so usage of walking is incorrect. . It should be

I saw him, suddenly, while I was walking,

walking should be paralleled with another progressive erb only ..like
I was dreaming and walking!
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by TedCornell » Sat Mar 28, 2009 10:42 pm
good points nasa. "While" is a much better transition here than "and". I like "while" or "as" to express that "to see" happened in the midst of "to walk"

I saw him as I was walking (or reverse order)
I saw him while I was walking (or reverse order)
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by Stacey Koprince » Fri Apr 03, 2009 1:50 pm
Received a PM asking me to respond.

Good discussion of tense issues above.

In the problem at the top, we have a compound verb structure (that is, we have one subject paired with two verbs, and the two verbs are connected by the conjunction "and").

Visiters have looked and saw (original sentence)

"and" is also a parallelism marker. When we have either a compound subject (dogs and cats) or a compound verb (ate and slept), we need to make those items parallel.

So we need parallelism in this case because we have a compound verb.

"have looked" is not parallel to "saw" because they are in different tenses; if the items that need to be parallel are verbs, then the two verbs do need to be in the same tense.

"have looked" is not part of the underline, so it must be right. The parallel structure for the verb "to see" is "have seen."

In this case, we have a further little complicated feature: we've already said the "have" once (for "have looked") and the sentence doesn't repeat it for the "have seen" part. That's okay, though, because the parallel structure allows us to apply the "have" to both participles in the compound verb: looked and seen. (See this post in which we discuss elliptical constructions: https://www.beatthegmat.com/comparison-w ... 33571.html. Those kinds of constructions can apply to parallel structures too, not just the comparisons discussed in that post.)

Note: this is one of the ways they can make a sentence like this harder than it would otherwise be. You probably wouldn't have been confused if the choices had said either "have saw" or "have seen"! :)
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