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SC Problm

by jogi1984 » Thu Sep 15, 2011 5:11 am
Scientists have recently discovered what could be the
largest and oldest living organism on Earth, a giant
fungus that is an interwoven filigree of mushrooms and
rootlike tentacles spawned by a single fertilized spore
some 10,000 years ago and extending for more than
30 acres in the soil of a Michigan forest.
(A) extending
(B) extends
(C) extended
(D) it extended
(E) is extending
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by GmatKiss » Thu Sep 15, 2011 6:16 am
jogi1984 wrote:Scientists have recently discovered what could be the
largest and oldest living organism on Earth, a giant
fungus that is an interwoven filigree of mushrooms and
rootlike tentacles spawned by a single fertilized spore
some 10,000 years ago and extending for more than
30 acres in the soil of a Michigan forest.
(A) extending
(B) extends - Not parallel with spawned
(C) extended - PAST
(D) it extended - PAST
(E) is extending - Not parallel with spawned
IMO:A
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by zaarathelab » Thu Sep 15, 2011 12:20 pm
jogi1984 wrote:Scientists have recently discovered what could be the
largest and oldest living organism on Earth, a giant
fungus that is an interwoven filigree of mushrooms and
rootlike tentacles spawned by a single fertilized spore
some 10,000 years ago and extending for more than
30 acres in the soil of a Michigan forest.
(A) extending
(B) extends
(C) extended
(D) it extended
(E) is extending
This is a classical problem that tests one's knowledge of participles and parallelism.

Here, the past participle 'spawned' needs to be parallel to the present participle 'extending'. By the way, a past participle can be made parallel to a present participle.

C AND D suggest that the fungus has stopped extending - no reason to believe that

B and E are verbs and not participles

Hence A
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by gunjan1208 » Thu Sep 15, 2011 9:56 pm
I fell for C again despite once I attempted it in OG.

Great Explanation for present and past participle. Thank you!
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by VivianKerr » Fri Sep 16, 2011 8:10 am
IMO: A

It always helps to simplify the sentence as much as possible.

Scientists (subject) have recently discovered (verb)..._______, (beginning of descriptive phrase) a giant fungus that (beginning of relative clause) is ________ spawned... and extending for more than _____.

Because of the "that" we can see it's all part of the description and not an action verb.
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