Sentence Correction

In a plan to stop the erosion of East Coast beaches,
the Army Corps of Engineers proposed building
parallel to shore a breakwater of rocks that would rise
six feet above the waterline and act as a buffer, so
that it absorbs the energy of crashing waves and
protecting the beaches.
(A) act as a buffer, so that it absorbs
(B) act like a buffer so as to absorb
(C) act as a buffer, absorbing
(D) acting as a buffer, absorbing
(E) acting like a buffer, absorb

OE

Parallelism; Idiom
The last part of the sentence describes the
breakwater and should consist of two
grammatically parallel phrases, absorbing ... and
protecting, in order to show two equal functions.
Act followed by like means to behave or comport
oneself and describes the action of a person: He
acted like a fool. Here, act as describes the function
of a thing; the breakwater ... acts as a buff er. As an
inanimate object, a breakwater cannot "behave"
itself; it must be performing some function.

OA C
But absorbing and protecting are modifying the entire preceding clause with subject as the Army Corps of Engineers and the main Verb proposed
This is Absurd !

I am probably wrong on this, but isn't the context of this sentence using "absorbing" as participle and it is modifying the preceding noun, buffer, as oppose to an adverb modifier?

uwhusky wrote:I am probably wrong on this, but isn't the context of this sentence using "absorbing" as participle and it is modifying the preceding noun, buffer, as oppose to an adverb modifier?

An-ing Modifer is also a participle modifier .
Participle Modifiers can also be Adverb Modifers
There is a comma before absorbing .
I Have already pasted what the OG Says and I dont understand it.

mundasingh123 wrote:

uwhusky wrote:I am probably wrong on this, but isn't the context of this sentence using "absorbing" as participle and it is modifying the preceding noun, buffer, as oppose to an adverb modifier?

An-ing Modifer is also a participle modifier .
Participle Modifiers can also be Adverb Modifers
There is a comma before absorbing .

I meant you're correct, but I was offering another possible usage here, which is that the participles are simply participles modifying the noun, not adverbs.

B & E are eliminated because they use the term act LIKE , which changes the meaning of the sentence because act LIKE implies that the rocks would resemble something similar to a buffer whereas act AS implies that the rocks would be a buffer against the waves.

A contains an ambiguous 'pronoun' - the word 'IT'!!! We are not certain what IT refers too - it could be the beaches, it could be the rocks.

D is probably the easiest to eliminate as the term 'acting as' is not parallel to 'would rise'

Hence the correct answer is C!! Choice C contains the correct term act AS and 'absorbing' correctly modifies buffer. I couldn't find a clear enough reason to eliminate this answer choice while the errors in the other 4 were clear enough for me to strike them off.

Your chances of success on tough questions increase considerably when you approach the answer choices looking for 4 incorrect answer choices and not 1 correct answer. You know that with Sentence Correction, you are almost always going to hate the right answer choice so it's more effective to find a reason to eliminate the same rather than to make sense of it.

IMO C, absorbing modifies preceding relative pronoun clause "that would rise six feet above the waterline and act as a buffer"

@uwhusky Could You Explain
Thanks to Ravish and Vikram for the Inputs but I was specifically looking for an explanation for the -ing Modifier .
I have no doubt that C is the best of the answer choices

I may not even be using this example correctly, so take it for what it's worth.

For example:

"Acting like a fool, John was caught between two closely parked cars."

"Acting like a fool" is modifying John, the closest noun to the modifier.

In this question, we can move the subordinate clause to the front:

"Absorbing the energy of crashing waves and protecting the beaches, a buffer..."

Does that make sense?

uwhusky wrote:I may not even be using this example correctly, so take it for what it's worth.

For example:

"Acting like a fool, John was caught between two closely parked cars."

"Acting like a fool" is modifying John, the closest noun to the modifier.

In this question, we can move the subordinate clause to the front:

"Absorbing the energy of crashing waves and protecting the beaches, a buffer..."

Does that make sense?

I Tried to think that way but the Main Verb is something else

What do you mean?

You have to be more clear on your questions, else it is sort of wasting time to go back and forth.

uwhusky wrote:What do you mean?

You have to be more clear on your questions, else it is sort of wasting time to go back and forth.

the Army Corps of Engineers proposed building
Proposed is the Main VErb here so how can you flip the sentence as u did in the last post .

I didn't flip the entire sentence, I was showing you how the subordinate clause can be used to modify the nearest noun.

In my example:


"Acting like a fool, John was caught between two closely parked cars."

The main verb of the sentence is "was caught," and "acting like a fool" modifying John doesn't change that.

uwhusky wrote:I didn't flip the entire sentence, I was showing you how the subordinate clause can be used to modify the nearest noun.

In my example:


"Acting like a fool, John was caught between two closely parked cars."

The main verb of the sentence is "was caught," and "acting like a fool" modifying John doesn't change that.

The sentence that You posted has only 1 verb and its very easy to think the way you proposed when We have only 1 verb But the SC thats the main topic of this thread has 2 verbs and the main verb is not what is modified further by the 2 -ing modifiers after the COMMA

The COMMA + -ING is a little messy grammatically. There are examples in the OG of it modifying the whole preceding clause; this makes less sense here because it is simply a proposal, and proposals don't absorb anything. There are examples of -ING participles modifying the noun prior, and that makes sense here, but the comma makes us wonder; "absorbing" would modify buffer unambiguously without the comma.

I hesitate to say it, but this might be an example of a collision between real English and GMAT English. It looks as though "absorbing . . ." is modifying "act as a buffer", explaining that action with two parallel. The problem is that I think this is not a use of the participle detailed anywhere in the OG.

mundasingh123 wrote:The sentence that You posted has only 1 verb and its very easy to think the way you proposed when We have only 1 verb But the SC thats the main topic of this thread has 2 verbs and the main verb is not what is modified further by the 2 -ing modifiers after the COMMA

Ok, but every sentence has only ONE main verb, so it doesn't matter that the sentence under discussion has several different participles, or partial verbs, there's only ONE main verb.

I think you're confusing yourself even more by trying to find faults within OG questions.

So is that what you really want to hear, that OG is wrong or something?