One of the earliest known birds with a beak and contour feat

[RonPurewal]

Hi Sunil,
Thanks a lot.

I see---Then it's comma+adverb+infinitive rather than comma+infinitive.

hi -- these structures wouldn't be different; adverbs don't alter the grammar of a structure. (neither do adjectives.)
i.e., adverbs and adjectives can change meaning, but not grammar.

i went and looked at the og12 #30 explanation -- and, honestly, i have no idea what it means (i don't know what a "nonrestrictive adjectival phrase" is). however, in that problem, i don't think "to protect" would work even if the comma were absent.
by the way, some 5-10% of the SC *explanations* in og12 are either flawed or outright incorrect; i guess this is one of them. (by contrast, the correct answers themselves are never flawed.)

[yuanhongzhi0830]

Hi Sunil,
Thanks a lot.

I see---Then it's comma+adverb+infinitive rather than comma+infinitive.

hi -- these structures wouldn't be different; adverbs don't alter the grammar of a structure. (neither do adjectives.)
i.e., adverbs and adjectives can change meaning, but not grammar.

i went and looked at the og12 #30 explanation -- and, honestly, i have no idea what it means (i don't know what a "nonrestrictive adjectival phrase" is). however, in that problem, i don't think "to protect" would work even if the comma were absent.
by the way, some 5-10% of the SC *explanations* in og12 are either flawed or outright incorrect; i guess this is one of them. (by contrast, the correct answers themselves are never flawed.)

Hi experts, my understanding is "probably to help it XXX" can not be a adv modifier to the entire clause or the subject "one of the earlist known birds", because "it", instead of "itself", is used in the sentence.
So I come up with this idea that the "probably to help it" is a modifer to "wings" (like nonesstial modifier or sth).
Please correct me if I am wrong.

[RonPurewal]

So I come up with this idea that the "probably to help it" is a modifer to "wings" (like nonesstial modifier or sth).
Please correct me if I am wrong.

In context, it's not modifying "wings"; it's modifying large clawlike "thumbs" on its wings.

Remember that, if a modifier can describe nouns, it can virtually always describe constructions of the form "noun + prep + other noun" as well.

[soumya_165]

nah, we can answer these; the OP just happened to post an enormous number of problems on the same day, so we ignored them over a certain maximum # so that we could allot some of our attention to other posters' material.

the Stickies at the top of each thread contain a list of banned sources. if your source isn't in the list, you can assume that it's ok.

--

breakdown of the above problem:
(a), (b)
these aren't sentences at all, since neither of them has a main verb.

(c), (e)
inconsistent pronouns: in (c) 'it' suddenly changes to 'them', and in (e) 'them' suddenly changes to 'it'.
in fact, you can eliminate ALL of the wrong answer choices on this pronoun issue alone; note that choice (d) is the only one of the five that contains consistent pronouns.

note that the pronouns MUST be singular, anyway, because they refer to 'one of the earliest known birds...' so even if you had an answer choice with both 'their' and 'them', it'd still be wrong.

Hi Ron,

In the above example, you have mentioned that even if the answer choice had 'their' and 'them' then also it would be wrong.

But in the following link 'Ben Ku' and 'Stacey' have mentioned that in the following sentence <Mary is one of the girls who come on Friday night.> who refers to girls.

Which one of the above 2 shall we consider it to be correct?

post37714.html?sid=c6c22a0a2547944a921756407ed483fc#p37714

[RonPurewal]

There's no contradiction; you're looking at two completely different, and unrelated, constructions.

For that example to be relevant, this problem would have to contain a construction like "One of the earliest known birds that were xxxx". That would work the same way, because "that were xxxx" describes the whole group of birds, not just the one we're talking about.

In this sentence, we're dealing with a completely different issue.
The first clue should be the fact that you're trying to compare "it" and "who" (!!). One of those is a pronoun that stands alone; the other is a modifier. So they're not at all comparable.

[soumya_165]

Thanks Ron. Now, I realized my mistake.

[RonPurewal]

Cool.

[AbhilashM94]

Ron,

I eliminated (A) & (B) on the logic that , with must refer to the previous clause not the noun preceding it.

For noun preceding it remove comma before WITH

here we are trying to refer to CS but the ,with refers to one of the earliest birds .....(clause).

Is this logic correct?

(A) with large clawlike "thumbs" on its wings, which probably helped them to
(B) with large clawlike "thumbs" on their wings, which probably helped it to

[RonPurewal]

The issue is much bigger than that.

Choices A and B aren't even sentences. There's no main verb in either of them.

In simpler form, those choices are like trying to write "Uruguay, with only 3 million people" as a complete sentence (instead of "Uruguay has only 3 million people").

[AnooshehK513]

Dear Ron,

Thank you for all the wonderful explanations.
I was wondering if the use of "which" is also another problem with the wrong answer choices. Which is suppose to refer to the thumbs, is there any ambiguity in the use of which here? Could it refer to wings instead of thumbs?

[StaceyKoprince]

It is the case that a comma-which modifier refers to a noun shortly before the comma, but it does not have to refer to the noun immediately before. It is okay for that modifier to refer to the closest "main" noun (in this case, thumbs), skipping over another noun that is also modifying that main noun (in this case, wings).

Here are two correct examples:

The box of nails, which is on the table, belongs to Sam.

The box of nails, which are each 2 inches long, belongs to Sam.

In the first case, the comma-which refers to the box. In the second case, the comma-which refers to the nails. You know which is which solely because of the verb—singular in the first case and plural in the second.

In the GMAT Prep problem referenced, the two nouns are both plural, but even then we can logically surmise that the modifier is talking about the thumbs, since the purpose of wings in general is to help birds fly—that is, pointing out that wings help birds fly is...kind of anti-climactic

I think the three choices that use the comma-which structure here all have other, stronger reasons to eliminate. Choices (A) and (B) are fragments and answer (C) uses both its and them to refer to Confuciusornis sanctus...it can't be both singular and plural at the same time.