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Sandpiper

by gmat009 » Tue Oct 14, 2008 8:39 pm
Like the grassy fields and old pastures that the upland sandpiper needs for feeding and nesting when it returns in May after wintering in the Argentine Pampas, the sandpipers vanishing in the northeastern United States is a result of residential and industrial development and of changes in farming practices.

A.the sandpipers vanishing in the northeastern United States is a result of residential and industrial development and of changes in
B.the bird itself is vanishing in the northeastern United States as a result of residential and industrial development and of changes in
C.that the birds themselves are vanishing in the northeastern United States is due to residential and industrial development and changes to
D.in the northeastern United States, sandpipers’ vanishing is due to residential and industrial development and to changes in
E.in the northeastern United States, the sandpipers’ vanishing, a result of residential and industrial development and changing

Which one is better A or B and why
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by acecoolan » Tue Oct 14, 2008 9:02 pm
I would go with 'B' because thats a better construction.

The 'sandpipers vanishing' in B seems a pretty odd construction. I feel that the comparison is between the grassy fields and the sandpiper (though implicitly it is the act of vanishing thats being compared)
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by stop@800 » Tue Oct 14, 2008 9:36 pm
https://www.beatthegmat.com/2-sc-questio ... .html#9945
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by pbanavara » Tue Oct 14, 2008 9:46 pm
its B
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by Bidisha800 » Tue Oct 14, 2008 10:09 pm
Let's remove additional wordings and re-read the sentence :

Like the grassy fields and old pastures that .... , the bird itself is vanishing ....

"Like X and Y, the Z" is correct where X, Y, and Z are all nouns.

In (A) "Sandpipers vanishing" makes no sense (sounds funny too !!)
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by rohangupta83 » Wed Oct 15, 2008 3:28 am
B it is
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by lunarpower » Wed Jul 01, 2009 3:28 pm
the answer is (b).

(a)
if you write "the sandpipers vanishing", then "sandpipers" is the subject ("vanishing" is a modifier describing that subject). the subject "sandpipers" doesn't agree with the singular verb "is".

GENERAL NOTE:
this sentence starts out with "like the grassy fields and old pastures...". the COMPARISON here is between those fields and pastures (which are disappearing) and the bird (which is also disappearing); therefore, to make this comparison valid, the next sentence MUST start with "the bird" or "the sandpiper". it can't start with anything else.

(c)
invalid comparison; this clause starts with "that the birds are vanishing...", rather than with the bird itself.
this choice is also hopelessly awkward, although it may take a native speaker's eye to see that.

(d)
invalid comparison; the subject of this clause is the sandpipers' vanishing, rather than the sandpiper itself.
the prepositional phrase "in the NE united states" is also inserted in a bad place; you generally don't want to create such occlusions in a comparison.
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