Researchers have found entombed in Burmese amber a 102-million-year-old tick grasping the feather of a Velociraptor, providing the first direct evidence that the tiny pests drank dinosaur blood.
(A) entombed in Burmese amber a 102-million-year-old tick grasping the feather of a Velociraptor, providing
(B) entombed in Burmese amber a 102-million-year-old tick grasping the feather of a Velociraptor and providing
(C) a 102-million-year-old tick grasping the feather of a Velociraptor entombed in Burmese amber and providing
(D) a 102-million-year-old tick grasping the feather of a Velociraptor entombed in Burmese amber, which provided
(E) a 102-million-year-old tick, entombed in Burmese amber, grasping the feather of a Velociraptor and providing
OA A
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Researchers have found entombed in Burmese amber a 102-milli
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This question is primarily testing MODIFIERS and LOGICAL PARALLELISM.
Researchers have found entombed in Burmese amber a 102-million-year-old tick grasping the feather of a Velociraptor, providing the first direct evidence that the tiny pests drank dinosaur blood.
(A) entombed in Burmese amber a 102-million-year-old tick grasping the feather of a Velociraptor, providing
The placement of the modifier "entombed" may sound strange to some ears, but there is nothing grammatically or logically incorrect with this construction.
(B) entombed in Burmese amber a 102-million-year-old tick grasping the feather of a Velociraptor and providing
- the list "grasping and providing" implies that these are both parallel actions that the tick is performing. The tick alone isn't directly providing evidence; the fact that this tick is grasping the feather is providing the evidence.
(C) a 102-million-year-old tick grasping the feather of a Velociraptor entombed in Burmese amber and providing
- ambiguous modifier: "the feather of a velociraptor entombed..." makes it sound like the velociraptor (or its feather, since modifiers can 'hop' over a preposition to modify a whole noun phrase) was entombed, and the tick is perhaps grasping the amber. Other answers make clearer that the tick + feather is the thing entombed in amber.
- same parallelism/meaning issue as in B.
(D) a 102-million-year-old tick grasping the feather of a Velociraptor entombed in Burmese amber, which provided
- same ambiguous modifier as in C.
- "which provided" makes it sound like the amber itself (or perhaps the feather or the velociraptor) is the thing providing evidence. We don't want to use a noun modifier here; it is the entire idea that this tick is grasping the feather than provides evidence, so we want to use an adverbial modifier such as "providing..." to modify that whole clause.
(E) a 102-million-year-old tick, entombed in Burmese amber, grasping the feather of a Velociraptor and providing
- same parallelism issue as in B.
The answer is A.
Researchers have found entombed in Burmese amber a 102-million-year-old tick grasping the feather of a Velociraptor, providing the first direct evidence that the tiny pests drank dinosaur blood.
(A) entombed in Burmese amber a 102-million-year-old tick grasping the feather of a Velociraptor, providing
The placement of the modifier "entombed" may sound strange to some ears, but there is nothing grammatically or logically incorrect with this construction.
(B) entombed in Burmese amber a 102-million-year-old tick grasping the feather of a Velociraptor and providing
- the list "grasping and providing" implies that these are both parallel actions that the tick is performing. The tick alone isn't directly providing evidence; the fact that this tick is grasping the feather is providing the evidence.
(C) a 102-million-year-old tick grasping the feather of a Velociraptor entombed in Burmese amber and providing
- ambiguous modifier: "the feather of a velociraptor entombed..." makes it sound like the velociraptor (or its feather, since modifiers can 'hop' over a preposition to modify a whole noun phrase) was entombed, and the tick is perhaps grasping the amber. Other answers make clearer that the tick + feather is the thing entombed in amber.
- same parallelism/meaning issue as in B.
(D) a 102-million-year-old tick grasping the feather of a Velociraptor entombed in Burmese amber, which provided
- same ambiguous modifier as in C.
- "which provided" makes it sound like the amber itself (or perhaps the feather or the velociraptor) is the thing providing evidence. We don't want to use a noun modifier here; it is the entire idea that this tick is grasping the feather than provides evidence, so we want to use an adverbial modifier such as "providing..." to modify that whole clause.
(E) a 102-million-year-old tick, entombed in Burmese amber, grasping the feather of a Velociraptor and providing
- same parallelism issue as in B.
The answer is A.
Ceilidh Erickson
EdM in Mind, Brain, and Education
Harvard Graduate School of Education
EdM in Mind, Brain, and Education
Harvard Graduate School of Education
