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700+ Rainforests

by challenger63 » Fri Jan 25, 2013 6:36 am
With only 7 percent of the globe's surface area, rainforests contain more than half of the world's plant and animal species, and absorb more carbon dioxide than any other land-based ecosystem on earth.

A) With
B) As
C) Being
D) Despite having
E) Although accounting for

Source: VeritasPrep
OA: E
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by Jim@StratusPrep » Fri Jan 25, 2013 8:13 am
What is the source of this question? The only reason that I ask is that the second comma is incorrectly placed.
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by GMATGuruNY » Fri Jan 25, 2013 8:41 am
The SC above is modeled after the following official SC:
With only 5 percent of the world's population, United States citizens consume 28 percent of its nonrenewable resources, drive more than one-third of its automobiles, and use 21 times more water per capita than Europeans do.

(A) With
(B) As
(C) Being
(D) Despite having
(E) Although accounting for
Here -- as in the SC above -- the intention is to express a CONTRAST between statistics:
Only 5 percent of the world's population
But 28 percent of its renewable sources.
Eliminate A, B and C, since with, as and being do not imply contrast.

D states that United States citizens are HAVING 5 percent of the world's population -- a nonsensical meaning.
Eliminate D.

The correct answer is E.

The OA includes a VERBLESS CLAUSE.
In a verbless clause, the subject and verb are omitted, but their presence is understood.
Although [they are] accounting for only 5 percent of the world's population, United States citizens consume 28 percent of its nonrenewable resources.
Here, the words in brackets are omitted, but their presence is understood.

Similar reasoning can be applied to the SC above.
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by challenger63 » Fri Jan 25, 2013 8:43 am
Jim@StratusPrep wrote:What is the source of this question? The only reason that I ask is that the second comma is incorrectly placed.
What do you mean exactly?

To my mind, the second comma ",and absorb" is placed here for the goal of sequence, to solve ambiguity with the first "and" ("the world's plant and animal species"). Independent clause after the second comma is not required. Or I am wrong?

This is VeritasPrep question, screenshot enclosed.
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by Jim@StratusPrep » Fri Jan 25, 2013 8:43 am
I agree with you in terms of a verbal clause, but that is not what is created in this sentence - this sentence creates a comma splice. Either the comma must be removed or an additional verbal clause must be added so it is a list...
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by Jim@StratusPrep » Fri Jan 25, 2013 8:48 am
To clarify, the official sentence GMATGuru provided had 3 items in a list (consume, drive, and use), making the commas necessary. When you only have 2 items in the list no comma is used to show that it is a compound predicate with only 2 items.


Aside from this, E is the answer because it show contrast.
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by Tommy Wallach » Sat Jan 26, 2013 7:03 pm
Hey Challenger,

I understand what your point is, and I'll respond to it in just one post! : )

The original sentence said: "more than half of the world's plant and animal species, and absorb"

As has been noted by others, that final "and" doesn't need a comma before it. Why? Because even though it's not exactly pretty without a comma, there's no grammatical possibility of confusion. This is because "plant and animal species" are nouns, while "absorb" is a verb. It MUST be part of a separate parallelism: Let me give you another example (which, as far as I know, will not show up on the GMAT):

Dave really likes peanut butter and jelly and asparagus sandwiches.

Now, we have a problem. We would actually prefer to have a comma after "jelly," because there's no way to know if this is one sandwich (peanut butter and jelly and asparagus) or two sandwiches (peanut butter and jelly, and asparagus).

Does that help?

-t
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by challenger63 » Sat Jan 26, 2013 7:38 pm
Tommy Wallach wrote:Hey Challenger,

Does that help?

-t
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by ngk4mba3236 » Tue Apr 26, 2016 8:12 am
hi experts,
couple of qs on this sc.

1. can we say that the Verb-ing modifier accounting serves to modify the subject of the following clause "United States citizens" ?

2. in the non-underlined part, the antecedent of pronoun its seems to be the "world". right ?
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by ngk4mba3236 » Mon May 02, 2016 1:13 pm
experts,
any update on my above doubts ?

would much appreciate your clarifications. thank you!
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by GMATGuruNY » Mon May 02, 2016 5:33 pm
ngk4mba3236 wrote:hi experts,
couple of qs on this sc.

1. can we say that the Verb-ing modifier accounting serves to modify the subject of the following clause "United States citizens" ?
As noted in my post above, the OA implies the following:
Although they are accounting for only 5 percent of the world's population, United States citizens consume 28 percent of its nonrenewable resources.
Here, accounting serves not as a modifier but as the participle portion of the verb are accounting.
2. in the non-underlined part, the antecedent of pronoun its seems to be the "world". right ?
Correct.
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by ngk4mba3236 » Mon May 02, 2016 10:38 pm
GMATGuruNY wrote:
ngk4mba3236 wrote:hi experts,
couple of qs on this sc.

1. can we say that the Verb-ing modifier accounting serves to modify the subject of the following clause "United States citizens" ?
As noted in my post above, the OA implies the following:
Although they are accounting for only 5 percent of the world's population, United States citizens consume 28 percent of its nonrenewable resources.
Here, accounting serves not as a modifier but as the participle portion of the verb are accounting.
so,can we say that the followings are two takeaways:

1. for the verb-less clause, the implied subject of the verb-less clause will ALWAYS be the subject of the following clause,in GMAT.

right ?

2. a verb-ing modifier can never start with these keywords -- although/though/if/whether etc.

please let me know your thoughts!
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by ngk4mba3236 » Sat May 07, 2016 11:37 am
hi gmatguru,
could you please let me know your thoughts on the above concerns ?

thank you!
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by GMATGuruNY » Sun May 08, 2016 3:21 am
ngk4mba3236 wrote:
GMATGuruNY wrote:
ngk4mba3236 wrote:hi experts,
couple of qs on this sc.

1. can we say that the Verb-ing modifier accounting serves to modify the subject of the following clause "United States citizens" ?
As noted in my post above, the OA implies the following:
Although they are accounting for only 5 percent of the world's population, United States citizens consume 28 percent of its nonrenewable resources.
Here, accounting serves not as a modifier but as the participle portion of the verb are accounting.
so,can we say that the followings are two takeaways:

1. for the verb-less clause, the implied subject of the verb-less clause will ALWAYS be the subject of the following clause,in GMAT.

right ?
Almost.
The implied subject may also precede the verbless clause.
A better rule:
A subordinate verbless clause must refer to the same subject as the main clause that the subordinate verbless clause serves to modify.

Although accounting for only 5 percent of the world's population, United States citizens consume 28 percent of its nonrenewable resources.
Conveyed meaning:
Although [United States citizens are] accounting for only 5 percent of the world's population, United States citizens consume 28 percent of its nonrenewable resources.

Rising inventories, if not accompanied by corresponding increases in sales, can lead to production cutbacks that would hamper economic growth.
Conveyed meaning:
Rising inventories, if [rising inventories are] not accompanied by corresponding increases in sales, can lead to production cutbacks that would hamper economic growth.
2. a verb-ing modifier can never start with these keywords -- although/though/if/whether etc.

please let me know your thoughts!
Correct.
Last edited by GMATGuruNY on Mon May 09, 2016 2:14 am, edited 1 time in total.
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by ngk4mba3236 » Sun May 08, 2016 10:04 pm
GMATGuruNY wrote: The implied subject may also precede the verbless clause.
A better rule:
A subordinate verbless clause must refer to the same subject as the main clause.
based on the above precise rule, can you please let me know whether I'm correct in the following official qs:

Restorers say that if allowed to remove and replace the discolored layer of varnish on the Mona Lisa, the colors Leonardo da Vinci painted nearly five hundred years ago will once again shine through.
----> here the underlined part beginning with IF is a verb-less clause creating ambiguity because its implied subject structure wise(re grammatically) can be either "Restorers" or "the colors", but meaning wise the implied subject of this verb-less clause should be "Restorers" (because it seems that we've two main clauses here -- one beginning with "Restorers" and another with "the colors")
 right ?

so,this ambiguity is overcome in the oa in which verb-less clause beginning with IF is converted to a normal clause - if they are and the antecedent of "they" is "Restorers".

is this analysis correct ?
Last edited by ngk4mba3236 on Mon May 09, 2016 10:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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