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Confusion about Past Participle

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Confusion about Past Participle

by ayushiiitm » Wed Jul 21, 2010 9:38 pm
First discovered more than 30 years ago, Lina's sunbird, a four-and-a-half-inch animal found in the Phillipines and that resembles 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. Same as above
b. found in the Phillipines and that, resembling
c. found in the Phillipines and resembling
d. that is found in the Phillipines and it resembles
e. that is found in the Phillipines, resembling


In this question, the key lies in the fact that found is past participle and resembling is a present participle. Hence the construction is parallel.

However, my doubt is about how to identify a past participle. Past participle should have been together with 'auxillary form of verb. Where is that in this sentence?

For Past participle, the rules are
past condition
subject is acted upon
passive voice

But I am not able to put any of the rules on 'found' to accept it as past participle and not verb in past tense

OA is C
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by pradeepkaushal9518 » Wed Jul 21, 2010 10:43 pm
action starts in past still valid in present tense hence resembling is correct.
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by GMATGuruNY » Thu Jul 22, 2010 1:15 am
ayushiiitm wrote:First discovered more than 30 years ago, Lina's sunbird, a four-and-a-half-inch animal found in the Phillipines and that resembles 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. Same as above
b. found in the Phillipines and that, resembling
c. found in the Phillipines and resembling
d. that is found in the Phillipines and it resembles
e. that is found in the Phillipines, resembling


In this question, the key lies in the fact that found is past participle and resembling is a present participle. Hence the construction is parallel.

However, my doubt is about how to identify a past participle. Past participle should have been together with 'auxillary form of verb. Where is that in this sentence?

For Past participle, the rules are
past condition
subject is acted upon
passive voice

But I am not able to put any of the rules on 'found' to accept it as past participle and not verb in past tense

OA is C
In answer choice C, found and resembling are verbs that functioning as modifiers, so our concern is not tense but parallelism.

...a four-and-a-half-inch animal found in the Philippines and resembling a hummingbird...

Perhaps you're confused because the verb found can be used correctly in different ways:

John found the book. (past tense)
A book found in every library, Pride and Prejudice has been enjoyed by countless readers. (found is an adjective modifying the noun book)
The book was found by John. (passive voice)
John has found the book. (present perfect)

Whereas many verbs have several forms, (John wrote the book, John writes the book, the book was written by John), the verb to find has only find, finds and found.

(To confuse things further, we also have the verb to found, which means to establish).

To determine how the verb found is being used, you have to examine the sentence.

Hope this helps!
Last edited by GMATGuruNY on Thu Jul 22, 2010 8:04 am, edited 1 time in total.
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by GMATMadeEasy » Thu Jul 22, 2010 6:23 am
Could you explain in detail why A is incorrect ?

The construction used "and that resembles" how could it be correct that is if we want to modify part of modifier preceding "and" .
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by GMATGuruNY » Thu Jul 22, 2010 6:31 am
GMATMadeEasy wrote:Could you explain in detail why A is incorrect ?

The construction used "and that resembles" how could it be correct that is if we want to modify part of modifier preceding "and" .
...a four-and-a-half-inch animal found in the Phillipines and that resembles a hummingbird...

In the above excerpt from A, the modifiers (highlighted in red) are not parallel.

The following would be acceptable (if a bit wordy):

...a four-and-a-half-inch animal that is found in the Phillipines and that resembles a hummingbird...

Hope this helps!
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by GMATMadeEasy » Thu Jul 22, 2010 6:36 am
Also, Could you explain how the Correct answer C is parallel ? What role "Found" plays here and what role "resembling" ?

I am little confused here :( .
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by GMATMadeEasy » Thu Jul 22, 2010 6:39 am
GMATGuruNY wrote:
GMATMadeEasy wrote:Could you explain in detail why A is incorrect ?

The construction used "and that resembles" how could it be correct that is if we want to modify part of modifier preceding "and" .
...a four-and-a-half-inch animal found in the Phillipines and that resembles a hummingbird...

In the above excerpt from A, the modifiers (highlighted in red) are not parallel.

The following would be acceptable (if a bit wordy):

...a four-and-a-half-inch animal that is found in the Phillipines and that resembles a hummingbird...

Hope this helps!

Perfect Thank you very much. It helps to clarify a huge dobut. However, Could you look at my post for explanatio nof correct answer C as well.
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by GMATGuruNY » Thu Jul 22, 2010 6:47 am
GMATMadeEasy wrote:Also, Could you explain how the Correct answer C is parallel ? What role "Found" plays here and what role "resembling" ?

I am little confused here :( .
As noted in my earlier post, found and resembling are verbs functioning as modifiers; each is an adjective modifying the noun animal.

...a four-and-a-half-inch animal found in the Philippines and resembling a hummingbird...

What kind of animal? An animal found in the Philippines.
What kind of animal? An animal resembling a hummingbird.

Does this help?
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by GMATMadeEasy » Thu Jul 22, 2010 7:08 am
@GMATGuruNY : makes sense now and it helps absolutely.

In fact , present participle and past particilple both are playing role of adjective as part of their job ,hence , can be accepted as parallel.
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by ayushiiitm » Thu Jul 22, 2010 7:39 am
Thanks Mitch,
Great explanation.

The best part is the realization of the fact that we dont need to remember, whether its participle or not
(because that would confuse).

We just need to check that actions of two words are same (Here they both are adjectives)
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by muralithe1 » Thu Jul 22, 2010 5:16 pm
Hi Gmatguru,
I am not sure why E is wrong.

It seems to be correct ....Please correct me...thanks
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by GMATGuruNY » Thu Jul 22, 2010 5:30 pm
muralithe1 wrote:Hi Gmatguru,
I am not sure why E is wrong.

It seems to be correct ....Please correct me...thanks
Here's E:

First discovered more than 30 years ago, Lina's sunbird, a four-and-a-half-inch animal that is found in the Phillipines, 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.

E is incorrect because the modifiers that is found and resembling (highlighted in red above) are not parallel.

Hope this helps!
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by muralithe1 » Thu Jul 22, 2010 5:35 pm
Thanks a lot GMATguru ..Now it makes clear to me...
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by pnk » Thu Jul 22, 2010 7:37 pm
GMATGuruNY wrote:
muralithe1 wrote:Hi Gmatguru,
I am not sure why E is wrong.

It seems to be correct ....Please correct me...thanks
Here's E:

First discovered more than 30 years ago, Lina's sunbird, a four-and-a-half-inch animal that is found in the Phillipines, 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.

E is incorrect because the modifiers that is found and resembling (highlighted in red above) are not parallel.

Hope this helps!
Hi Mitch,

'comma+ resembling' modify animal - is a participle modifier; 'that is found...' is a adjective modifier. Both modify animals. But these two modifiers are not connected by any connector....so they need not be parallel.

I could not understand. Pls help me.
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by barcebal » Thu Jul 22, 2010 8:07 pm
The parallelism issue almost threw me off too.

I think it's a bit confusing because you see "found" and "resembling" and think "How am I going to get them to match?" I realized that I wanted to say "is found" and "resembles", which isn't an option. At that point I realized that the first modifier is in the passive voice and the second is in the active voice which helped me realize that the supposed tense of the verb can't match because we're dealing with a passive voice-sounding and active voice-sounding modifier.
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