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Expert way to eliminate the wrong choices.

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Expert way to eliminate the wrong choices.

by catseye » Wed Apr 20, 2011 8:30 am
There is no consensus on what role, if any, is played by acid rain in slowing the growth or damaging forests in the eastern United States.
(A) slowing the growth or damaging
(B) the damage or the slowing of the growth of
(C) the damage to or the slowness of the growth of
(D) damaged or slowed growth of
(E) damaging or slowing the growth of

Hi honorable experts,

Would you please explain how to eliminate A, C, and D?

Thanks.
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by raunekk » Wed Apr 20, 2011 9:08 am
I came down to A and E

A can be avoided for being wordy.

However, E alters the meaning a bit.

Confused between A and E.
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by AIM GMAT » Wed Apr 20, 2011 9:31 am
I am not an expert but will try to answer your query .

There is no consensus on what role, if any, is played by acid rain in slowing the growth or damaging forests in the eastern United States.

Well the underlined portion must be parallel , if the sentence is written in separate complete form then the issue can be understood .Hope you are not confused with the below effort.

(A) slowing the growth or damaging -- [There is no consensus on what role, if any, is played by acid rain in slowing the growth forests in the eastern United States OR damaging forests in the eastern United States]

(B) the damage or the slowing of the growth of -- [There is no consensus on what role, if any, is played by acid rain in the damage forests in the eastern United States OR the slowing of the growth of forests in the eastern United States]

(C) the damage to or the slowness of the growth of -- [There is no consensus on what role, if any, is played by acid rain in the damage to forests in the eastern United States OR the slowness of the growth of forests in the eastern United States]

(D) damaged or slowed growth of -- [There is no consensus on what role, if any, is played by acid rain in damaged forests in the eastern United States OR slowed growth of forests in the eastern United States ]

(E) damaging or slowing the growth of -- [There is no consensus on what role, if any, is played by acid rain in damaging forests in the eastern United States OR slowing the growth of forests in the eastern United States ]

Hope that helps.
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by raunekk » Wed Apr 20, 2011 9:41 am
Hi Aim Gmat

Thanks for the explanation.

I retained A for the same reason.

however, I felt E changes the meaning a bit...

A ) Slowing the growth or damaging forests

E) damaging or slowing the growth of

Doesn't it sounds as if words "damaging" and "slowing" are both referring to " the growth" rather than "the forest" ??
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by smackmartine » Wed Apr 20, 2011 9:45 am
@raunekk : "damaging the growth of forest" is correct


IMO E

A)"slowing the growth or damaging forest" is not parallel
B)"of the growth of" (doesn't sound good)
C)the damage to or the slowness of --not parallel
D)as it an ongoing process "damaged" is incorrect
E) "damaging or slowing" parallel- Correct (better than all other sentences)
Last edited by smackmartine on Wed Apr 20, 2011 10:17 am, edited 2 times in total.
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by AIM GMAT » Wed Apr 20, 2011 9:46 am
raunekk wrote:Hi Aim Gmat

Thanks for the explanation.

I retained A for the same reason.

however, I felt E changes the meaning a bit...

A ) Slowing the growth or damaging forests

E) damaging or slowing the growth of

Doesn't it sounds as if words "damaging" and "slowing" are both referring to " the growth" rather than "the forest" ??
A says "slowing the growth forests " -- > OF is missing , it should be slowing the growth OF forests .So i guess its not just about the meaning , you can now eliminate A on grammatical grounds .
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by bubbliiiiiiii » Wed Apr 20, 2011 9:57 am
I have the same question as put forth by Raunekk.

Moreover, whats wrong in C ?

I think since A,C and D are already eliminated then probably B should be the answer!

But even in B, I see a flaw of missing to/of after damage.

the damage [of/to]
or
the slowing of the growth of
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by AIM GMAT » Wed Apr 20, 2011 10:01 am
bubbliiiiiiii wrote:I have the same question as put forth by Raunekk.

Moreover, whats wrong in C ?

I think since A,C and D are already eliminated then probably B should be the answer!

But even in B, I see a flaw of missing to/of after damage.
(B) the damage or the slowing of the growth of -- [There is no consensus on what role, if any, is played by acid rain in the damage forests in the eastern United States OR the slowing of the growth of forests in the eastern United States]

The bold part is noun , it should be verb .
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by raunekk » Wed Apr 20, 2011 10:08 am
@ AIM GMAT

Yeh you have a point there...

If that is the case, E alone stands as the right answer.

However, I still have the problem with the meaning of E..

Can you or any expert help?
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by AIM GMAT » Wed Apr 20, 2011 10:44 am
raunekk wrote:
Doesn't it sounds as if words "damaging" and "slowing" are both referring to " the growth" rather than "the forest" ??

However, I still have the problem with the meaning of E..

Can you or any expert help?
Well yes the words "damaging " and "slowing" are referring to FORESTS not GROWTH . You can ask the question , what role is played by acid rain ?

In E, we've got:
what role is played by acid rain in [damaging or slowing the growth of] forests.

or = parallelism signal
the two -ed words are parallel and function as nouns this time (gerunds); they each apply equally to the rest of the sentence:
what role is played by acid rain in damaging forests
what role is played by acid rain in slowing <the growth of> forests

Now, you're actually describing the actions potentially taking place: damaging and slowing. "the growth of" is just extra modifying info. Slowing what? Slowing the growth

Courtesy of above explanation :- Stacey (MGMAT instructor)
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by Stuart@KaplanGMAT » Wed Apr 20, 2011 11:17 am
catseye wrote:There is no consensus on what role, if any, is played by acid rain in slowing the growth or damaging forests in the eastern United States.
(A) slowing the growth or damaging
(B) the damage or the slowing of the growth of
(C) the damage to or the slowness of the growth of
(D) damaged or slowed growth of
(E) damaging or slowing the growth of
Hi!

When we have an "or" list, each item needs to be able to stand alone in the sentence. "Slowing the growth forests" makes no sense - we definitely need an "of" between "growth" and "forests". Accordingly, we can eliminate (A).

(B) lacks parallelism; "the damage" and "the slowing" aren't similar.

(C) uses more words than necessary - unless you've eliminated everything else for grammatical reasons, eliminate overly wordy answers.

(D) also uses awkward language - "damaged or slowed growth of" isn't how we'd normally express this thought.

(E) is fine - "damaging" is parallel to "slowing", we're "slowing the growth OF forests" and, since "damaging" isn't followed by a preposition at all, it applies directly to "forests".

The sentence would be even clearer if we said "slowing the growth of or damaging", but since that's not an option, (E) it is!
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by catseye » Thu Apr 21, 2011 9:11 pm
@Stuart Kovinsky,

Thanks for wonderful explanation.

What is the problem in using "the slowness of the growth of forests"?

Thanks.
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