BREAKING: Target Test Prep releases Brand New 2026 On Demand GMAT prep course

Redeem

slowing the growth or damaging

This topic has expert replies
Post new topic Locked
Previous Topic Next Topic
User avatar
MBA Student
Posts: 1194
Joined: Sat Aug 16, 2008 9:42 pm
Location: Paris, France
Thanked: 71 times
Followed by:17 members
GMAT Score:710

slowing the growth or damaging

by gmat740 » Sun Jun 21, 2009 10:24 pm
856
There is no consensus on what role, if any, is played by acid rain in slowing the growth or damaging forests in the eastern United States.

(A) slowing the growth or damaging
(B) the damage or the slowing of the growth of
(C) the damage to or the slowness of the growth of
(D) damaged or slowed growth of
(E) damaging or slowing the growth of

Why is OA E better than A
Top
Source: — Sentence Correction |
User avatar
Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts
Posts: 253
Joined: Fri Dec 26, 2008 8:39 pm
Thanked: 8 times
Followed by:1 members

Re: slowing the growth or damaging

by BlindVision » Sun Jun 21, 2009 10:50 pm
gmat740 wrote:856
There is no consensus on what role, if any, is played by acid rain in slowing the growth or damaging forests in the eastern United States.

(A) slowing the growth or damaging
(B) the damage or the slowing of the growth of
(C) the damage to or the slowness of the growth of
(D) damaged or slowed growth of
(E) damaging or slowing the growth of

Why is OA E better than A
For these types with OR in them, I read them this way...

Choice "A": what role, if any, is played by acid rain in : slowing the growth forests in the eastern United States. OR what role, if any, is played by acid rain in : damaging forests in the eastern United States.

Answer "E": what role, if any, is played by acid rain in : damaging forests in the eastern United States. OR what role, if any, is played by acid rain in : slowing the growth of forests in the eastern United States.

"E" clearly looks correct from this perspective.
Life is a Test
Top
Legendary Member
Posts: 1799
Joined: Wed Dec 24, 2008 3:03 am
Thanked: 36 times
Followed by:2 members

by goelmohit2002 » Mon Jun 22, 2009 11:22 am
Can someone please explain why "D" is wrong...
Top
Senior | Next Rank: 100 Posts
Posts: 43
Joined: Tue Feb 24, 2009 3:12 am
Thanked: 3 times
GMAT Score:730

by chintanjadwani » Mon Jun 22, 2009 11:37 am
read the answer choice ''d '' by removing the OR part and u'll get the idea...

played by acid rain in the damaged growth of forests ...

no the growth of forests is not damaged, infact the rain is damaging it.

so D changes the meaning of the sentence...

hope it helps Mohit.. :)
Top
Legendary Member
Posts: 1799
Joined: Wed Dec 24, 2008 3:03 am
Thanked: 36 times
Followed by:2 members

by goelmohit2002 » Mon Jun 22, 2009 12:11 pm
chintanjadwani wrote:read the answer choice ''d '' by removing the OR part and u'll get the idea...

played by acid rain in the damaged growth of forests ...

no the growth of forests is not damaged, infact the rain is damaging it.

so D changes the meaning of the sentence...

hope it helps Mohit.. :)
Thanks. But why the same is not the case with "E" ?

Damanging the growth of forests...

why in "E" we say damaging forests ?

Basically why damaged modifies growth in "D"...

But damaging modifies forests in "E"....

Please tell what I am missing here.
Top
Junior | Next Rank: 30 Posts
Posts: 22
Joined: Fri Jun 19, 2009 7:58 am
Thanked: 2 times

Re: slowing the growth or damaging

by kidcorpo » Mon Jun 22, 2009 12:31 pm
gmat740 wrote:856
There is no consensus on what role, if any, is played by acid rain in slowing the growth or damaging forests in the eastern United States.

(A) slowing the growth or damaging
(B) the damage or the slowing of the growth of
(C) the damage to or the slowness of the growth of
(D) damaged or slowed growth of
(E) damaging or slowing the growth of

Why is OA E better than A
A implies that we are slowing either the growth OR damage of the forests. In other words, A allows the sentence to read as slowing growth or slowing damage. Slowing damage doesn't make sense.

E allows the sentence to be read as either damaging the forest or slowing the growth of the forest; not slowing the damage of the forest.
Top

GMAT/MBA Expert

User avatar
GMAT Instructor
Posts: 2228
Joined: Wed Dec 27, 2006 3:28 pm
Location: Montreal, Canada
Thanked: 639 times
Followed by:694 members
GMAT Score:780

by Stacey Koprince » Wed Jul 29, 2009 1:36 pm
Received a PM asking me to respond. I don't see the author listed for this problem. If you'd like my take, please cite the author and then I'll be happy to add my 2 cents!
Please note: I do not use the Private Messaging system! I will not see any PMs that you send to me!!

Stacey Koprince
GMAT Instructor
Director of Online Community
Manhattan GMAT

Contributor to Beat The GMAT!

Learn more about me
Top
Legendary Member
Posts: 1799
Joined: Wed Dec 24, 2008 3:03 am
Thanked: 36 times
Followed by:2 members

by goelmohit2002 » Wed Jul 29, 2009 6:30 pm
Stacey Koprince wrote:Received a PM asking me to respond. I don't see the author listed for this problem. If you'd like my take, please cite the author and then I'll be happy to add my 2 cents!
Hi Stacey,

Above question is Q#53 of OG-10.

Thanks
Mohit
Top
Junior | Next Rank: 30 Posts
Posts: 23
Joined: Mon Dec 01, 2008 4:59 pm
Location: salt lake city

by vishalogy » Wed Jul 29, 2009 6:39 pm
I think we can rule out "D" because it changes the tense - "damaged", "slowed" not consistent with "is". Besides, the past tense changes the meaning and reflects that the damage was done in the past and no new damage is being done now.
If we separate the parallel elements, A - reads:
" is played by acid rain in slowing the growth forests or damaging forests" - OF is missing
E reads:
" is played by acid rain in damaging forests or slowing the growth of forests"

E with the preposition "of" sounds better.
wish
Top

GMAT/MBA Expert

User avatar
GMAT Instructor
Posts: 2228
Joined: Wed Dec 27, 2006 3:28 pm
Location: Montreal, Canada
Thanked: 639 times
Followed by:694 members
GMAT Score:780

by Stacey Koprince » Thu Jul 30, 2009 1:21 pm
vishalogy's got it. We've got parallel elements, so the sentence should be able to be constructed two separate ways, once with each parallel element independently. We can't say "slowing the growth forests," as A does.

Someone also had a question about D. Try it again:
"what role is played by acid rain in damaged forests"
Are we talking about forests that are already damaged and then the acid rain comes along? Or are we talking about an action - acid rain comes along and damages the forests? It's the latter, so D doesn't work.
Please note: I do not use the Private Messaging system! I will not see any PMs that you send to me!!

Stacey Koprince
GMAT Instructor
Director of Online Community
Manhattan GMAT

Contributor to Beat The GMAT!

Learn more about me
Top
Legendary Member
Posts: 1799
Joined: Wed Dec 24, 2008 3:03 am
Thanked: 36 times
Followed by:2 members

by goelmohit2002 » Fri Jul 31, 2009 8:31 pm
Stacey Koprince wrote: Someone also had a question about D. Try it again:
"what role is played by acid rain in damaged forests"
Are we talking about forests that are already damaged and then the acid rain comes along? Or are we talking about an action - acid rain comes along and damages the forests? It's the latter, so D doesn't work.
Hi Stacey,

But only reason that OG gives for kicking out D is.... "Choice D also changes the meaning of the sentence by making both damaged and slowed refer to growth."

Can you please help understand how the above problem is there in D and not in E ?

Thanks
Mohit
Top

GMAT/MBA Expert

User avatar
GMAT Instructor
Posts: 2228
Joined: Wed Dec 27, 2006 3:28 pm
Location: Montreal, Canada
Thanked: 639 times
Followed by:694 members
GMAT Score:780

by Stacey Koprince » Mon Aug 03, 2009 11:20 am
Oh, I see how they explained it. Yes, you could read it that way too (and, grammatically, you have to, actually), because "damaged" and "slowed" are parallel.

I was reading it based upon what I knew the meaning should be, logically. The original sentence is trying to discuss two possible effects of acid rain: slowing the growth of forests and damaging those same forests.

D says:
what role is played by acid rain in [damaged or slowed] growth of forests.

or = parallelism signal
the two -ed words are parallel and function as adjectives; they apply equally to the next noun (growth):
what role is played by acid rain in damaged growth
what role is played by acid rain in slowed growth

Now, because of the parallelism, I have "damaged growth" but the original sentence didn't say the growth was damaged. It just said the forests were damaged. (Well, potentially damaged - that's the debate, of course.)

(Note: and if you wanted to read it as "damaged" applies to forests, then you'd have "what role is played by acid rain in damaged forests" - which is also wrong, as I noted before. Either way, it's wrong. :))

In E, we've got:
what role is played by acid rain in [damaging or slowing the growth of] forests.

or = parallelism signal
the two -ed words are parallel and function as nouns this time (gerunds); they each apply equally to the rest of the sentence:
what role is played by acid rain in damaging forests
what role is played by acid rain in slowing <the growth of> forests

Now, you're actually describing the actions potentially taking place: damaging and slowing. "the growth of" is just extra modifying info. Slowing what? Slowing the growth.
Please note: I do not use the Private Messaging system! I will not see any PMs that you send to me!!

Stacey Koprince
GMAT Instructor
Director of Online Community
Manhattan GMAT

Contributor to Beat The GMAT!

Learn more about me
Top
Legendary Member
Posts: 1799
Joined: Wed Dec 24, 2008 3:03 am
Thanked: 36 times
Followed by:2 members

by goelmohit2002 » Mon Aug 03, 2009 11:48 am
Thanks a lot Stacey for the awesome reply!!

Can you please look in one small related parallelism doubt.....at the following thread and share your opinion on the thread...(as over on that thread we fellow btg members are not able to come to conclusion why "it" is not required in one of the options)

https://www.beatthegmat.com/pyramids-of- ... tml#176296

Probably i suppose it has something to do with the rule that without comma + and has the same subject as of the clause before and....

But I am not so sure about this rule and its usage....can you please correct me if I am wrong and tell if there is anything more to it....

Many thanks in Advance.
Mohit
Top
User avatar
Newbie | Next Rank: 10 Posts
Posts: 2
Joined: Mon Aug 03, 2009 3:15 pm

by catherineB » Mon Aug 03, 2009 4:49 pm
Can someone please explain why "C" is wrong?
Top

GMAT/MBA Expert

User avatar
GMAT Instructor
Posts: 2228
Joined: Wed Dec 27, 2006 3:28 pm
Location: Montreal, Canada
Thanked: 639 times
Followed by:694 members
GMAT Score:780

by Stacey Koprince » Mon Aug 10, 2009 2:07 pm
C: the official explanation would probably say something like "the slowness of the growth of" is awkward. It's also the case that "slowness" changes the original meaning. The original meaning is about slowing growth - think, there's a certain growth rate, and that rate is declining over time.

"Slowness of the growth" just means something is slow to grow in general. It doesn't mean that the rate of growth is declining over time.
Please note: I do not use the Private Messaging system! I will not see any PMs that you send to me!!

Stacey Koprince
GMAT Instructor
Director of Online Community
Manhattan GMAT

Contributor to Beat The GMAT!

Learn more about me
Top
Post new topic Locked