The yield per acre of coffee berries varies enormously in

[RonPurewal]

more generally, this relationship to the entire clause is mandatory for comma + __ing, regardless of where it's placed.

e.g.,

Darryl, standing over seven feet tall, will be recruited heavily by the nation's top college basketbal programs.
--> makes sense (there's an obvious relationship between darryl's height and his potential as a basketball player)

Darryl, standing over seven feet tall, is an excellent candidate for surgical practice.
--> nonsense (height has nothing to do with whether someone would do well as a surgeon).

[Khush]

Hi Ron,

I rejected answer (C) only on the grounds of "is able to produce".

The original sentence uses "could produce" to convey possibility.

Does not "is able to produce" convey certainty?

[RonPurewal]

what's wrong with certainty?

"the yield ... various enormously" is stated as a fact, so we must know something about these statistics with certainty.

[RonPurewal]

if the statistic were presented as a hypothetical ("could produce..."), then the consequence (about yields) would logically have to be stated as a hypothetical, too.

[thanghnvn]

in choice C, the OA, "depending on" work as preposition phrase (pls look at the dictionary) and dose not work as "doing", a participle. if "depending on" works as a participle, doing, it is wrong. because "tree" can not depend on "its size".

B and D are wrong because they mean: tree is dependent on its size. This meaning is not logic.

[thanghnvn]

in this problem, namely, choice C, "depending on" dose not work as a participle.

[RichaChampion]

"Because" indicates cause and effect; "in that" generally just indicates some kind of correlation. If it's a cause-effect scenario, go with because.

Ron Sir,

As far as I know because also starts a Dependent Clause?

Do we have a Dependent Clause Here?


If I am correct that because opens a Dependent Clause -

C. enormously, because a single tree, depending on its size and on climate and altitude, is able to produce

Their is one more question sir. It happens many a time that main clause is distant and some other dependent clause comes in.

Now In option C the Verb+ Ing modifier will modify the DEPENDENT CLAUSE started by because or the main clause before "because"?

Lastly I have one question. Previously in this thread a student has asked you a question that if he can eliminate on this split - dependent Vs depending

dependent: adjective
depending: verb ing modifier

I am not a native speaker of english I am still unable top grasp the idea why is dependent wrong her.

B. enormously in that a single tree, dependent on its size and also on climate and altitude, is able to produce

If I am not wrong this is an adjectival modifier: , dependent on its size and also on climate and altitude, modifying tree

I couldn't differentiate How it changes meaning (for some time we can ignore other errors in option B)

N.B. As per my understanding adjectival modifier modifies Noun.

[RonPurewal]

i don't know any of the terminology you're using, so, i can't help you there -- but "dependent"/"depending" has already been addressed in this thread.

[BhupendraS95]

I am bumping this old thread because I have a query. I feel that in the choice C, "enormously, because a single tree, depending on its size and on climate and altitude, is able to produce", the italicized' on' could be done away as there is an open parallelism marker.

[Sage Pearce-Higgins]

Bumping old threads is absolutely fine. If I understand you correctly, you're saying that the word 'on' in answer C is unnecessary (perhaps you'd call it 'redundant') and, for that reason, answer C is incorrect. Since this is a GMAT Prep problem (i.e. gold standard), let's try to pick apart the problem with that line of reasoning.

I caution my students to be very careful with the topic of redundancy and concision - these topics are rarely tested on GMAT, and looking for redundancy and concision tends to cause, rather than prevent, errors. Basically, GMAT uses redundancy in much more crude and obvious ways than simply in the addition of a potentially unnecessary preposition. A sentence such as 'Prices rose by at least 10% or more.' is clearly repetitious: the phrase 'or more' just repeats the meaning of 'at least'. So, if you're going to look for redundancy, look for something more significant than just an unnecessary 'on'.

In the case of open markers, repeating short words can actually be useful to avoid confusion. Take this example: 'Next year we're going on holiday to Palermo in Italy and France.' Now, we might get mixed up with the parallelism and think the 'and' is joining Italy and France. To make the meaning clearer, adding in an extra 'to' helps: 'Next year we're going on holiday to Palermo in Italy and to France.'