Sentence Correction

atulmangal wrote:But if i apply the rules stated in your post

"which" should stand for either
1) the closest noun, or
2) the closest noun + prepositional phrase,

In that case, which is referring to i think "box of nails" and this is also meaningful. Please correct me if m wrong???

i don't really see the difference here from what is written above - there is no functional difference between referring to "the box" and referring to "the box of nails". in the context of this sentence, "the box of nails" and "the box" are the same box, so just use whichever of those two references is easier for you to remember.

in any case, the rule that you have quoted here is correct - "which" is allowed to stand for either the preceding noun or the preceding noun + prepositional phrase; if there is any ambiguity, you'll have to use a combination of context and common sense to figure it out.
for example:
the Library of Congress in Washington DC, which has many millions of volumes on its shelves, is the world's largest physical library. --> in this sentence, it is clear from context that "which" stands for the library of congress (in washington dc); again, note that it's immaterial whether you interpret the referent as just "library of congress" or as "library of congress + prepositional phrase".

the Library of Congress in Washington DC, which has been the nation's capital since the government was moved from Philadelphia, is one of the most important reference libraries in the world. --> in this sentence, it is clear from context that "which" stands for washington dc, not the library.

GMATMadeEasy wrote:Question: Does Past participle at the end of the sentence ALWAYS refer to the subject/whole clause ?

I have in fact one OG12 question supporting this -- past participle at the end of the sentence modifying the subject. But what if the clause ends with a NOUN and is followed by a past participle, . In that case, we should use CONTEXT guide us or should always consider this as ambiguous ?

OG12 question (however OG didn't check this concept in this question)
Diabetes, together with its serious complications,ranks as the nation's third leading cause of death,surpassed only by heart disease and cancer.

in that sentence, you can still properly assign the modifier to the entire preceding clause: the modifier is describing the two causes of death that rank ahead of diabetes, and so can be legitimately interpreted as elaborating upon the statement that diabetes ranks as the nation's third leading cause of death.

--

note that any modifier that modifies a clause should also be fairly directly related to the subject of that clause -- so that, when a modifier refers to a clause, you can actually think of that modifier as referring to both the action and the subject of that clause.
for instance:
ryan always picks on his sister, angering his father. --> in this case, the modifier "angering his father" refers to both the subject (ryan) and the action (picks on his sister); it indicates that ryan is angering his father via these actions.
on the other hand,
ryan is always being bullied by other kids at school, angering his father --> again, the interpretation of the modifier refers to both the subject and the action; the resultant interpretation, in this case, is that ryan's father is angry at ryan for letting himself be bullied, not necessarily angry at the bullies.

rohu27 wrote:

when COMMA + PARTICIPLE is placed after just a noun (or noun + modifiers) -- as in the case of the x-ray emission problem -- then it's talking about a noun

Thanks Ron,
just to summarize for my understanding, in this sentence "called proton-induced x-ray emission" is modifying the noun " a technique ", so ideally it should be as close as possiblt to the noun. and i will trust meaning to know whether it is modifying the noun or the entire clause(As in example given by mundasingh) -> is this correct?

no, that's incorrect; that modifier isn't set off by commas.

if a participial modifier is NOT set off by commas, then it must modify a noun.
the only exception i've seen is "using" (see OG12 #11), which, apparently, can be used in the same way as "with" (as it is in that OG example). weird.
i haven't seen this with any other no-comma participial modifier in official problems, ever.

voodoo_child wrote:Does the touch rule (noun touch rule) apply to Where modifier ?

e.g.
Minnesota is the only one of the contiguous forty-eight states that still has a sizable wolf population and, where this predator remains the arch enemy of cattle and sheep.
(A) that still has a sizable wolf population, and where
(B) that still has a sizable wolf population, where
(C) that still has a sizable population of wolves, and where
(D) where the population of wolves is still sizable;
(E) where there is still a sizable population of wolves and where

I see that where modifier modifies Minnesota. Minnesota is spaced away from where clause. I believe that "where modifier" is a verb modifier and as per the rule, it can be spaced anywhere in the sentence ? Is my understanding correcT ?

it doesn't modify minnesota; it modifies "the only one (of the contiguous 48 states)".

this can be seen by noting that the sentence can be rearranged to the following:
the only one of the contiguous 48 states where xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx is minnesota.
this is a correct rephrasing of the sentence, an observation that proves that the modifier modifies "the only one of x", not "minnesota". (if it modified minnesota, it would have to be moved along with minnesota.)

as such, then, this modifier still conforms to the "noun + prep phrase" rule, since "the only one of the contiguous 48 states" is a noun + prep phrase (with the adjective "only" in front).

GMATMadeEasy wrote:@Ron: I found this OG12 question that I could relate to the above discussion in this thread: usage/role of past participle at the end of a clause. The past participle used is in non-underlined part but is used in the correct answer choice.

In the question below, past participle separated by comma at the end of the clause is modifying not the subject but the preceding noun. I understand it is a list of participles. But do we really need a comma before based bla bla in the correct sentence.


Building on civilizations that preceded them in coastal Peru, the Mochica developed their own elaborate society, based on cultivating such crops like corn and beans, the harvesting of fish and shellfish, and exploiting other wild and domestic resources.

(A) based on cultivating such crops like corn and beans, the harvesting of fish and shellfish, and
exploiting
(B) based on the cultivation of such crops as corn and beans, the harvesting of fish and seafood,
and the exploitation of
(C) and basing it on the cultivation of crops like corn and beans, harvesting fish and seafood, and the exploiting of
(D) and they based it on their cultivation of crops such as corn and beans, the harvest of fish and
seafood, and exploiting
(E) and they based it on their cultivating such crops like corn and beans, their harvest of fish and
shellfish, and they exploited

OA is B;Source OG 12 Q 28

this is an interesting observation, and one that shows that this particular type of modifier is not used in a way that is entirely consistent. (note that my original post on the topic contained the word "generally", for precisely this reason.)

i can tell you that these modifiers do preferentially apply to the subject of the preceding clause, especially if the modifiers are discussing qualities of people.
for instance, in the following sentence --
john looked at his wife, worried about the situation
-- the "worried" modifier would be attributed to john, not to his wife.

(these are things about which i've never consciously thought before, so it's interesting when you guys point them out.)

taking a wider view of this particular topic, i don't think that this sort of observation has ever been required to solve a problem -- so, if the issue is this annoying and inconsistent in general, it may be better to shelve it for the time being, so that you can concentrate on issues that will actually be required to solve the problems.
but ... excellent powers of observation!

voodoo_child wrote:Does the touch rule (noun touch rule) apply to Where modifier ?

e.g.
Minnesota is the only one of the contiguous forty-eight states that still has a sizable wolf population and, where this predator remains the arch enemy of cattle and sheep.
(A) that still has a sizable wolf population, and where
(B) that still has a sizable wolf population, where
(C) that still has a sizable population of wolves, and where
(D) where the population of wolves is still sizable;
(E) where there is still a sizable population of wolves and where

in response to the poster who asked about the above question --

although this problem is not my favorite sentence in the whole world, it is a very good illustrative example of the kinds of priorities that you must have in order to succeed at sentence correction.
in particular:
IF you try to approach this problem WITH A BUNCH OF MEMORIZED RULES, then it is quite hard.
on the other hand, IF you approach the problem WITH A CONCEPTUAL UNDERSTANDING OF PARALLELISM, then it's much easier.

here's what i mean:

remember -- PARALLELISM IS A BEAUTY CONTEST!
you don't need an exact analysis of every parallel structure, *IF* you are presented with a case in which one parallel structure is clearly SUPERIOR TO THE OTHER OPTIONS.
all you have to do, with parallelism, is pick the choice whose parallelism is BETTER than that of the surrounding choices!
if you see one choice that is very clearly more parallel than others, then it's right and the others are wrong.
*** DO NOT OVERANALYZE ***

in the problem quoted above, there are two interesting facts about minnesota: 1) minnesota still has a sizable wolf population, and 2) in minnesota the wolf is still the archenemy of cattle and sheep.
because these are both facts about minnesota and are both presented with equal priority, they should be parallel.

looking at the answer choices -- it may be difficult to pinpoint exactly what is wrong with (a) and (c), but it should be clear that the parallelism in (a)/(b)/(c)/(d) is FAR inferior to the parallelism in choice (e).

this is actually the intention of the test writers -- not only in this problem, but also in many, many others. if you can see the "big picture" of things like parallelism, then problems become more simple; if you get mired in details, then they become almost impossibly difficult.

it's actually sort of clever what they are doing here -- they have created a problem type that is a microcosm of the same kind of situation that occurs in business itself. in business, people who get caught up in tiny little details all the time become terribly ineffective at managing people and running companies; on the other hand, people who can see the "big picture" are better in management positions. therefore, they have created a test on which the same is true: getting caught up in tons of tiny little details will kill you, while a consistent ability to see a few key error types (parallelism, pronouns, subject-verb agreement, modifier placement) will probably get you further than knowing literally all of the other error types combined.

vikram4689 wrote:Hi Ron,

Please answer the following 3 ques.

1. I thought e) is wordier than c). So when we have wordy VS parallelism, do we go for parallelism.

considering that "wordiness" is not actually an error -- and that parallelism is absolutely the #1 error that you should be looking for -- definitely aren't.

2. Whether the 2 parts in c) are independent clauses.
Minnesota is the only one of the contiguous forty-eight states that still has a sizable population of wolves, and where this predator remains the arch enemy of cattle and sheep.
Clause 1: Minnesota is the only one of the contiguous forty-eight states that still has a sizable population of wolves
Clause 2: where this predator remains the arch enemy of cattle and sheep.

#1 yes, #2 no
"where" subordinates clause #2, in exactly the same way as "in which" would.

"where" refers to "only one of the contiguous forty-eight states" OR "Minnesota". I think it is "Minnesota" because it is the subject of 1st clause.

this difference is immaterial, because "the only one of the contiguous 48 states" and "minnesota" refer to exactly the same entity.

3. What does "this" refers to. I do not see any antecedent in any of the options. options either have "wolf population" (wolf used as adjective) OR "population of wolves" (wolves is object of preposition). Now pronoun can refer to object of preposition but they have to match in number. "This" is singular but "wolves" is plural. So i do not see any antecedent of "this"

"this" is not a pronoun, so these questions are not meaningful.
"this" is an adjective placed on the noun "predator". because no pronouns are involved, the difference between singular and plural is not an issue.