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Bowerbirds derive their name from the elaborate bowers of sticks and twigs that the males build to garner positive attention from females that may develop into a formal courtship over time.


A) the elaborate bowers of sticks and twigs that the males build to garner positive attention from females that may develop into

B) the male birds, who build elaborate bowers of sticks and twigs in order to garner positive attention from females, possibly developing into

C) the elaborate stick-and-twig bowers that the males build to garner positive attention from females, who may develop into

D) the fact that the male birds build elaborate stick-and-twig bowers, garnering positive attention from females and possibly developing

E) the male birds that build elaborate stick-and-twig bowers with the goal of garnering positive attention from females that may develop

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by Gitika_Lakhotia » Mon Oct 08, 2018 11:03 am
The bower birds derive their name from the bowers that the male birds create, and not from the male birds themselves.
Therefore, answer choice B and E can be eliminated as the meaning of the sentence changes.

In answer choice C, "females, who may develop into" incorrectly implies that the female birds may may develop into a formal courtship over time. This makes n sense. So, eliminate C.

In answer choice D, the parallel structure garnering attention ... and ... developing a formal courtship introduces a meaning error. Both modifiers refer back to the main clause: males build bowers, garnering attention from females (this part is okay) and males build bowers, developing a formal courtship (this part is not okay). Who are the males developing a formal courtship with? The bowers? The females are no longer represented as part of the formal courtship-and they should be.

There is no grammatical error in answer choice A and the sentence structure is also logical. So, IMO A.