scrub jay can remember

[jlucero]

Just one question on this one:
If we remove "although" in the example sentence above, would it still follow the rule, that is, would the participle modifier still modify the subject or the placement of the participle modifier change the meaning of the sentence.

thank you very much in advance

Oh I think I know the answer; please correct me if I'm wrong.

James still played with his son, tired of the day long activity. => son is tired

Tired of the day long activity, James still played with his son => James tired

James, tired of the day long activity, still played with his son => James tired

Am I right?
Is there any other way this sentence could be written (in terms of placement of modifier) & we could device another meaning

Different meanings. "Although exhausted..." is an adverbial modifier (modifies the ONE verb (with its subject) in the sentence), "exhausted..." is a noun modifier (can modify James or Son depending on its placement).

Since those are the only two nouns, that modifier wouldn't fit in well anywhere else in the sentence with another (clear) meaning.

[divineacclivity]

Right, right, now I remember that it is clearly explained in your SC Manhattan book how the placement of a participle modifier in a sentence changes the meaning of the sentence.
So, my self reply on my previous post is good, right i.e. son is tired in the sentence: "James still played with his son, tired of the day long activity"

thank you very much

[jlucero]

I doubt you'd ever see a modifier used like this on the GMAT because of the ambiguity of meaning- as Ron said, this is "wonky". The tricky part about your example is that your modifier "tired of the day-long activity" follows a comma and seems to modify a part of the sentence further away than son. I wouldn't say that your examples are wrong, but I would say that if the GMAT wanted to refer to the son as being exhausted, it would use something like a relative pronoun to more clearly express that idea:

James still played with his son, who was tired of the day long activity.

[divineacclivity]

Cool, thanks.

[tim]

:)

[divineacclivity]

What's wrong with option A?

Thanks in advance

the lowest-hanging fruit on that choice is the verb (at the beginning), which is plural. this is inconsistent with the subject "scrub jay", which is singular.

there's also the problem with "if [participle]" -- a modifier that, by convention, refers to the SUBJECT of the sentence (not the proximate noun).
for instance:
Animal 1 will attack animal 2 if injected with enough of the hormones related to aggression.
--> in this sentence it is animal 1, not animal 2, that is being injected with hormones.

so, choice (a) (as well as (c) and (e)) implies that the bird itself is "stored long enough to have rotted" -- an interesting idea, but certainly not the intended meaning of the sentence.

Animal1 in the above example is a proper noun. Would if [participle] still modify the subject in the following sentence?
The story telling would stop, if interfered with a loud noise.

[tim]

your example is not grammatically correct, so i cannot analyze whether things are modifying what they're supposed to. i'm not being pedantic here by the way; there are two fundamentally different meanings this sentence could take on depending on what it looks like once you've created a grammatically correct sentence. right now of course the sentence has no meaning whatsoever. can you try again so we can help you?

[gaurav1a2b]

Can anybody explain why e is wrong grammatically.

[RonPurewal]

Can anybody explain why e is wrong grammatically.

* "tends (not) VERBing" is unidiomatic.

* as discussed earlier in the thread, "if stored long enough..." illogically implies that the bird itself, rather than the treat, has been "stored long enough to have rotted".

[thanghnvn]

Dear Ron and Manhantan experts, pls help

this question talks of modifier "conjuction+participle"
that is why I want to ask why choice C in question 17 og 13 is wrong. pls help.

second thing.
why "while willing" in choice E in following question is wrong? this question from gmatprep.

Unlike computer skills or other technical skills, there is a disinclination on the part of many people to recognize the degree to which their analytical skills are weak.
(A) Unlike computer skills or other technical skills, there is a disinclination on the part of many people to recognize the degree to which their analytical skills are weak.
(B) Unlike computer skills or other technical skills, which they admit they lack, many people are disinclined to recognize that their analytical skills are weak.
(C) Unlike computer skills or other technical skills, analytical skills bring out a disinclination in many people to recognize that they are weak to a degree.
(D) Many people, willing to admit that they lack computer skills or other technical skills, are disinclined to recognize that their analytical skills are weak.
(E) Many people have a disinclination to recognize the weakness of their analytical skills while willing to admit their lack of computer skills or other technical skills.

[thanghnvn]

A scrub jay can remember when it cached a particular piece of food in a particular place, researchers have discovered, and tend not to bother to recover a perishable treat if stored long enough to have rotted.

A. tend not to bother to recover a perishable treat if
B. they tend not to bother recovering a perishable treat
C. tending not to bother recovering a perishable treat if
D. tends not to bother recovering a perishable treat
E. tends not bothering to recover a perishable treat if

OA: D

I am confused about the structure of parallelism. What's wrong with option A?

Thanks in advance

Ron can easily explain why A is wrong because Ron is a native and so He can understand the intended meaning a few seconds after reading the original senence. for non natives, we have to make hard effort to understand the intended meaing when we read the original sentence. if we do not focus on finding the intended meaing at the first read, we think that "remember" is parrallel with"tend" and we are wrong. if we focus on finding the meaning at first read, we find out , after at least 30 seconds, not 5 seconds, which Ron used to do the same job, that the intended meaning is "can remember" is parallel with "tends".

Ron, do you agree that you understand the intended meaning nearly immediately after you finish reading the original sentence for most sc questions.?

but for me and non native, we need at least 30-60 seconds to finish the same job. the process of trying to understand the intended meaing at first read dose not alway give us the intended meaning but this step is important for non native and save us time for many reasons.

sc gmat is designed to make it very hard for non native to realize the intended meaning at the first read . even we feel that the cheating of meaing is played by gmat sc. The reason is not that gmat sc want to disadvantage non native. The reason is that gmat sc want us to convey the exact focus of meaning and gmat sc plays this game to test our ability to do convey the exact focus of meaning. Many wrong answers on sc are grammatical but wrong just because the focus of meaing is changed and the illogicness is not clear. In this problem, the illogicness of parallelism between "can remember" and "can tend" is hard to realize for non native but it is still illogic.
all above things make a situation that it is easy to understand a sc explanation but we still fail on the sc. I think focusing actively on meaning is solution for non native. native persons do not need to do focusing, they do focusing naturrally already.

I just want to explain why non native do not realize A is incorrect.

[jlucero]

A scrub jay can remember when it cached a particular piece of food in a particular place, researchers have discovered, and tend not to bother to recover a perishable treat if stored long enough to have rotted.

A. tend not to bother to recover a perishable treat if
B. they tend not to bother recovering a perishable treat
C. tending not to bother recovering a perishable treat if
D. tends not to bother recovering a perishable treat
E. tends not bothering to recover a perishable treat if

OA: D

I am confused about the structure of parallelism. What's wrong with option A?

Thanks in advance

Ron can easily explain why A is wrong because Ron is a native and so He can understand the intended meaning a few seconds after reading the original senence. for non natives, we have to make hard effort to understand the intended meaing when we read the original sentence. if we do not focus on finding the intended meaing at the first read, we think that "remember" is parrallel with"tend" and we are wrong. if we focus on finding the meaning at first read, we find out , after at least 30 seconds, not 5 seconds, which Ron used to do the same job, that the intended meaning is "can remember" is parallel with "tends".

Ron, do you agree that you understand the intended meaning nearly immediately after you finish reading the original sentence for most sc questions.?

but for me and non native, we need at least 30-60 seconds to finish the same job. the process of trying to understand the intended meaing at first read dose not alway give us the intended meaning but this step is important for non native and save us time for many reasons.

sc gmat is designed to make it very hard for non native to realize the intended meaning at the first read . even we feel that the cheating of meaing is played by gmat sc. The reason is not that gmat sc want to disadvantage non native. The reason is that gmat sc want us to convey the exact focus of meaning and gmat sc plays this game to test our ability to do convey the exact focus of meaning. Many wrong answers on sc are grammatical but wrong just because the focus of meaing is changed and the illogicness is not clear. In this problem, the illogicness of parallelism between "can remember" and "can tend" is hard to realize for non native but it is still illogic.
all above things make a situation that it is easy to understand a sc explanation but we still fail on the sc. I think focusing actively on meaning is solution for non native. native persons do not need to do focusing, they do focusing naturrally already.

I just want to explain why non native do not realize A is incorrect.

It's definitely a difficult task to conquer SC for non-native speakers. However, the GMAT is a test designed to see if you are prepared for b-school at an English-speaking institution. So, fair or unfair, it's an honest assessment about your readiness for preparing to get an MBA. I understand your frustration, but it's something that all b-school students have to be able to do.

[jlucero]

Dear Ron and Manhantan experts, pls help

this question talks of modifier "conjuction+participle"
that is why I want to ask why choice C in question 17 og 13 is wrong. pls help.

second thing.
why "while willing" in choice E in following question is wrong? this question from gmatprep.

Unlike computer skills or other technical skills, there is a disinclination on the part of many people to recognize the degree to which their analytical skills are weak.
(A) Unlike computer skills or other technical skills, there is a disinclination on the part of many people to recognize the degree to which their analytical skills are weak.
(B) Unlike computer skills or other technical skills, which they admit they lack, many people are disinclined to recognize that their analytical skills are weak.
(C) Unlike computer skills or other technical skills, analytical skills bring out a disinclination in many people to recognize that they are weak to a degree.
(D) Many people, willing to admit that they lack computer skills or other technical skills, are disinclined to recognize that their analytical skills are weak.
(E) Many people have a disinclination to recognize the weakness of their analytical skills while willing to admit their lack of computer skills or other technical skills.

A lot of questions in one post about different questions- be sure to split these up into different posts next time or google search for explanations.

1) #17 in the OG has a different issue than this problem. It's issue is that although X... is used improperly. If you have the OG, it explains the difference there.

2) unlike-computer-skills-or-other-technical-skills-t8375.html

[Suapplle]

Auxiliary verbs can have singular/plural forms. Is/are or have/has are examples.

He is running.
They are running.

At the same time, I find myself doubting whether tend is really an auxiliary verb in this sentence. I'm not 100% sure on this, but I'm going to say that this might be a better example of when things are so far away from other parts of the sentence, it's best to restate any part of the sentence that is intended in the later parallel element.

John will run and eat. (easy and concise)
John will run to the school on Main Street before the bell rings and will play with his dog at home. (needs to restate the future intention with will)

Hi,instructor,I still do not understand why "tend" can't parallel with "can",
in GMAT,
John will run to the school on Main Street before the bell rings and will play with his dog at home. (needs to restate the future intention with will)
The second "will" must be added?please clarify,thanks!

[RonPurewal]

Hi,instructor,I still do not understand why "tend" can't parallel with "can"

In the right context, any verb can be parallel to any other verb.

The only verbs that absolutely can't be parallel, ever, are verbs that don't agree (i.e., one singular, one plural). That wouldn't work because, if you have verbs in parallel, then they have the same subject.

The reason why "tend" is wrong here has nothing to do with parallelism. "Tend" is wrong because it's plural, while "scrub jay" is singular.