SC:is descended or has descended ?

[ilyana777]

Thank you for your replies (I've posted in a few threads), Ron!

You have good intuition. I took the test in May. Now I'm preparing to teach the GMAT (I hope it doesn't prevent me from posting here). That's why I'm interested in all these small details. I'm sure some students must be asking the same questions as I do.

But what about my example of the (presumably) similar structure:
I have a key to unlock the door.
Keys to unlock doors, and evidence to suggest something - now I think that it is essentially the same infinitive usage here and in our problem.

[RonPurewal]

Now I'm preparing to teach the GMAT (I hope it doesn't prevent me from posting here).

As long as you don't advertise (explicitly or implicitly) any services that compete with ours, you can keep posting.

In other words, you can keep posting here, as long as you never refer to yourself as an "instructor", "tutor", "teacher", "expert", or anything similar, in any post on this forum.

Unless you teach for us.
(:

That's why I'm interested in all these small details. I'm sure some students must be asking the same questions as I do.

If your students are obsessed with small details, the best response is to nudge them back toward thinking about the big things.

In fact, this is one of the main reasons why SC is included on the GMAT exam in the first place. There are a small handful of major themes, and TONS of tiny nitpicky things that, in the final analysis, are little more than distractions.
Among other things, they're testing your ability to see through the small stuff, and detect the larger themes consistently.

[RonPurewal]

But what about my example of the (presumably) similar structure:
I have a key to unlock the door.
Keys to unlock doors, and evidence to suggest something - now I think that it is essentially the same infinitive usage here and in our problem.

The base grammatical structure is the same, but the meaning is not the same.
a key to unlock the door
a way to contact your friends from another country
etc.
--> in these constructions, there's a definite sense of PURPOSE. The explicit purpose of the key is to unlock the door; it was created for that purpose, and does not exist for any other reason. Same thing with the "way" -- it's something you think of explicitly as a way to contact your friends.

In evidence to suggest xxxxx, the same sense of purpose is not there. The evidence does not exist for that reason, nor was it "created" with a purpose in mind -- it's just there. But people can deduce certain things by looking at it.

[ilyana777]

Thank you very much!

I think now I've nailed it:
A thoughtful reader could elicit from this book a few ideas about community to deepen his understanding of human nature.
"To deepen ... understanding" isn't exactly a purpose of ideas or a reader, but these ideas can help with it.

Unless you teach for us.
(:

I would love to! And maybe in a few years I will apply for the job when I decide to retake the test (I scored 740 -- don't have 99th percentile).

[RonPurewal]

Thank you very much!

I think now I've nailed it:
A thoughtful reader could elicit from this book a few ideas about community to deepen his understanding of human nature.
"To deepen ... understanding" isn't exactly a purpose of ideas or a reader, but these ideas can help with it.

In this sentence, "to xxxx" is describing the entire action. That's also allowed. (Lots of modifiers can describe either nouns or actions, depending on context. This is one of them.)

E.g., Every day, my brother runs home from the office to get cardiovascular exercise.
--> This sentence is fine. It should be completely clear that "to get ... exercise" is describing the whole action that comes before it (since an office obviously doesn't provide exercise).

By the way, make sure you aren't trying to remember these things as "rules". There's no way that would get you past a rudimentary understanding.
Just remember examples.

E.g., think about how you would tell whether a sentence in Russian (assuming it's your native language) is correct or incorrect.
Would you apply "rules"? Almost certainly not. Unless it's an extremely weird/literary sentence construction, you'd just compare it to a bunch of sentences that already exist in your head.
You should try to do the same here, as much as possible.

[Gloria G]

Australian embryologists have found evidence that suggests that the elephant is descended from an aquatic animal, and its trunk originally evolved as a kind of snorkel.
A. that suggests that the elephant is descended from an aquatic animal, and its trunk originally evolved
B. that has suggested the elephant descended from an aquatic animal, its trunk originally evolving
C. suggesting that the elephant had descended from an aquatic animal with its trunk originally evolving
D. to suggest that the elephant has descended from an aquatic animal and its trunk originally evolved
E. to suggest that the elephant is descended from an aquatic animal and that its trunk originally evolved

Source:GMATprep OA E.

I chose ans. D which was incorrect.
Ron, could please explain which one is correct-'has descended' or 'is descended'

well, you already know the answer to this question: the one that appears in the correct answer is correct.

so, i'll assume that you're asking WHY "is descended" is correct, and not WHICH ONE.

"has descended" means "has moved downward". this can be in either a literal sense (he has descended to sea level from a height of 8000 feet) or a metaphorical sense (i don't want to descend to the level of common street thugs), but it can't refer to ancestry.

if you mean to discuss ancestry, which is clearly the case here, then you must use "is descended".

Ron, sorry to bring this up again.
I still have a question on "descend". In your reply, you said

"has descended" means "has moved downward". this can be in either a literal sense (he has descended to sea level from a height of 8000 feet) or a metaphorical sense (i don't want to descend to the level of common street thugs), but it can't refer to ancestry.
if you mean to discuss ancestry, which is clearly the case here, then you must use "is descended".

But what I am thinking is that ,in E,whether"to suggest that the elephant HAS descended from an aquatic animal...." is correct.
"descended" also has a meaning of "come from; be connected by a relationship of blood, for example". So i assumed that HAS DESCENDED FROM can refer to ancestry?

thanks~~~

[RonPurewal]

But what I am thinking is that ,in E,whether"to suggest that the elephant HAS descended from an aquatic animal...." is correct.
"descended" also has a meaning of "come from; be connected by a relationship of blood, for example". So i assumed that HAS DESCENDED FROM can refer to ancestry?

thanks~~~

No. That would be "is descended", not "has descended".

The post you quoted contains everything I can really tell you about this.

By the way, the chance that the current GMAT would test something like this is very, very low.

[ericyuan0811]

D and E are the only answer choices that exhibit parallelism. In other words, you cannot eliminate A/B/C for parallelism reasons because they are not even trying to make things parallel. Remember, for parallelism to be an issue, you need a parallel marker or a comparison marker, and a comma-and is not a parallel marker if it joins two independent clauses..

hi Tim

in (D) to suggest that the elephant has descended from an aquatic animal and its trunk originally evolved

the OG explanation says the above blue parts are not parallel(OG12 no.128)
i am confused
can you help me figure it out? thanks a lot!

[RonPurewal]

D and E are the only answer choices that exhibit parallelism. In other words, you cannot eliminate A/B/C for parallelism reasons because they are not even trying to make things parallel. Remember, for parallelism to be an issue, you need a parallel marker or a comparison marker, and a comma-and is not a parallel marker if it joins two independent clauses..

hi Tim

in (D) to suggest that the elephant has descended from an aquatic animal and its trunk originally evolved

the OG explanation says the above blue parts are not parallel(OG12 no.128)
i am confused
can you help me figure it out? thanks a lot!

This issue is treated earlier in the thread.

[cshen02]

If your students are obsessed with small details, the best response is to nudge them back toward thinking about the big things.

In fact, this is one of the main reasons why SC is included on the GMAT exam in the first place. There are a small handful of major themes, and TONS of tiny nitpicky things that, in the final analysis, are little more than distractions.
Among other things, they're testing your ability to see through the small stuff, and detect the larger themes consistently.

Ron,
Read the above analysis and like it very much :) thank you for shedding light on SC strategy.
This thread has a lot of discussion on the usage of with. I went through OG and collected correct sentences that have "with" in them. The finding is that many "with"s modify verbs, and when "with" modifies noun, it obey the "touch rule". Does "with" jump modify? Can "with" lead clauses? Is there "with" + past participle?

Cheers!
Chen

[RonPurewal]

This thread has a lot of discussion on the usage of with. I went through OG and collected correct sentences that have "with" in them. The finding is that many "with"s modify verbs, and when "with" modifies noun, it obey the "touch rule". Does "with" jump modify? Can "with" lead clauses? Is there "with" + past participle?

Cheers!
Chen

* Please re-post this question where it belongs"”in the general verbal folder.

* Please provide examples of the constructions you're asking about. (Just make them up yourself.)
Without such examples, I can't really tell what you are asking.

[HanzZ]

Hello Ron,

Could you please explain what is the structure of "its trunk originally evolving" in choice B? I am wondering whether it is absolute phrase.

Could you please also give some examples where this kind of structure is used correctly?

In addition, the SC guide mentions a type of modifier named subgroup modifier; I'm confused about the difference between it and absolute phrase.
Is the following a subgroup modifier:
The thirteen original British colonies in North America, some formed as commercial ventures, others as religious havens, each had...

Thank you very much!

[ilyana777]

"Its truck originally evolving" in choice B is an absolute phrase. It is not wrong per se.
However, comparing E with B, we find that it is more logical to express two thoughts (the elephant is descended and its truck originally evolved) as two parallel clauses rather than make one of them a modifier.

Absolute phrase:

* Is set off by punctuation marks (commas, brackets, dashes)

* Usually modifies the entire clause

* Usually consists of:
Noun + participle (present or past) + some modifiers (sometimes)
(Sometimes instead of a participle there is an infinitive;
The participle "being" is often omitted)

* an absolute phrase cannot contain a finite verb (=a verb used in some tense: comes, has grown, will be, can make).

Examples:
Jupiter's moon Europa has long been considered far too cold to support life, its 60 square miles of water thought to be frozen from top to bottom.

His mind on other matters, Jordan didn’t notice the growing storm.

The children set off for school, faces glum, to begin the fall term.

The audience filed out, some to return home, others to gather at the pub.
--- by the way, this sentence looks extremely like our problem "The thirteen original British colonies in North America, some formed as commercial ventures, others as religious havens..."
I’ve never heard of a subgroup modifier and always thought that in "13 colonies"-problem we have an unusual case of an absolute phrase. I wrote "unusual" because in that problem "some formed as commercial ventures, others as religious havens" seems to modify a noun rather than a whole clause.

! We can have two absolute phrases in a row and connected only by a comma without a problem ! (see the last example)


* Some participle and infinitive phrases are common expressions that are considered absolute. They behave as prepositions. Since they do not need to attach to a particular word, they can be placed at the beginning (or end) of a sentence without dangling.

Financially speaking, Bob's lifestyle changes worked well.
Talking of music, have you heard the new band at Taco Jack's?
A storm is brewing, judging by the dark clouds.
To get back to the main point, the budget needs to be bigger.
The food was mediocre, to say the least.

Source: https://www.noslangues-ourlanguages.gc. ... e-eng.html

P.S. To Ron: I wrote you a message through PM system on beatthegmat a month ago, but it has been stuck in my Outbox ever since. I edited and submitted it once more, so maybe it’s been delivered by now.

[RonPurewal]

From a purely mechanical standpoint, the modifier in choice B is fine, as explained in Ilyana's post above.

However, the modifier doesn't make sense in context.
"...its trunk originally evolving..." would have to describe the previous action.
In other words, this evolution (of the trunk) would need to have been a component of the elephant's evolution from an aquatic animal.

That doesn't make sense, though. A "snorkel" is something that's only useful in water, so, the "snorkel" (= the predecessor of the trunk) must have been a part of the AQUATIC animal's anatomy. So, this modifier doesn't make sense.

The presentation in the correct answer (as 2 separate facts), on the other hand, works.

[aditya8062]

hi RON
on page 5 TIM has written a post (4th in number) .he has written the following stuff :

Because the ",and" construction here joins two independent clauses, it is not a case of parallelism. "and" can be used either to join independent clauses OR as a parallel marker, not both. In other words, if you use "and" to join two independent clauses, you needn't be concerned about whether the clauses are parallel.

i somehow find this bold portion confusing .i have seen your videos in which you have talked of parallelism with "AND" .is "comma +AND" not suppose to follow parallelism when it is joining two independent clauses ?

in fact i feel that TIM has made this point a little confusing . i feel that "AND" always introduce parallelism, though i agree that because "parallelism" is absolute so at times we might get a nonsensical meaning as is happening in option A

A says : Australian embryologists have found evidence that suggests that the elephant is descended from an aquatic animal, and its trunk originally evolved as a kind of snorkel.

my reasoning as why parallelism in A is nonsensical : to make a parallelism work we need to put"things" in parallel only when they are suppose to be parallel and only when "those things" can be listed as item 1 and item 2 in a parallel list .this is not happening in A (because the TWO BLUE portions in A are neither "things" that are suppose to be parallel nor they can be listed as item 1 and item 2 ,although the word "comma +AND" makes them parallel by default)

kindly confirm if my logic is correct
thanks and regards