To Ron!---After decreasing steadily

[tankobe]

After decreasing steadily in the mid-1990's, the percentage of students in the United States finishing high school or having earned equivalency diplomas increased in the last three years of the decade, up to 86.5 percent in 2000 from 85.9 percent in 1999 and 84.8 percent in 1998.

(A) finishing high school or having earned equivalency diplomas increased in the last three years of the decade, up to 86.5 percent in 2000 from 85.9 percent in 1999 and
(B) finishing high school or earning equivalency diplomas, increasing in the last three years of the decade, rising to 86.5 percent in 2000 from 85.9 percent in 1999 and from
(C) having finished high school or earning an equivalency diploma increased in the last three years of the decade, and rose to 86.5 percent in 2000 from 85.9 percent in 1999 and from
(D) who either finished high school or they earned an equivalency diploma, increasing in the last three years of the decade, rose to 86.5 percent in 2000 from 85.9 percent in 1999 and
(E) who finished high school or earned equivalency diplomas increased in the last three years of the decade, to 86.5 percent in 2000 from 85.9 percent in 1999 and

OA is E (highlight to reveal)

Ron, i can pick up the right choice, but i was confused by the who finished high school or earned and who finishing and earning.... As you said, when we use the latter phrase, the tense of the phrase accords to the tense of verb in main clause--increased. since increased is in past tense, it seems that in this context we can make a conclution that who finished high school or earned equals to whofinishing and earning....
But i know it does not, Ron, what is wrong?

[sanyalpritish]

If D is the Answer then its Either or is not //

[RonPurewal]

After decreasing steadily in the mid-1990's, the percentage of students in the United States finishing high school or having earned equivalency diplomas increased in the last three years of the decade, up to 86.5 percent in 2000 from 85.9 percent in 1999 and 84.8 percent in 1998.

(A) finishing high school or having earned equivalency diplomas increased in the last three years of the decade, up to 86.5 percent in 2000 from 85.9 percent in 1999 and
(B) finishing high school or earning equivalency diplomas, increasing in the last three years of the decade, rising to 86.5 percent in 2000 from 85.9 percent in 1999 and from
(C) having finished high school or earning an equivalency diploma increased in the last three years of the decade, and rose to 86.5 percent in 2000 from 85.9 percent in 1999 and from
(D) who either finished high school or they earned an equivalency diploma, increasing in the last three years of the decade, rose to 86.5 percent in 2000 from 85.9 percent in 1999 and
(E) who finished high school or earned equivalency diplomas increased in the last three years of the decade, to 86.5 percent in 2000 from 85.9 percent in 1999 and

OA is E (highlight to reveal)

Ron, i can pick up the right choice, but i was confused by the who finished high school or earned and who finishing and earning.... As you said, when we use the latter phrase, the tense of the phrase accords to the tense of verb in main clause--increased. since increased is in past tense, it seems that in this context we can make a conclution that who finished high school or earned equals to whofinishing and earning....
But i know it does not, Ron, what is wrong?

it's not a literal substitution. i.e., you can't just take out the -ing form and insert the tensed form. (that will NEVER work, since -ing forms are not verbs; you can't just take out a non-verb and replace it with a verb!)

other than that, your observation about tenses is correct. it is most useful in two ways:
* as an antidote to the commonly held misconception that "-ing forms have to be in the present tense" (note that the NAME "present participle" has absolutely nothing to do with the present tense, ironically)
* as a "context helper", to help you understand the verb tenses in context (and thus to evaluate whether those tenses make any sense).

[purduesr]

Can someone please explain to me whether "who" modifies the United States or not? Shouldn't who modify the students??? Who is a relative pronoun which modifies preceding noun.. This was the reason why I axed D and E

[jerly_vivek]

Ron,
I have a question on E.

Why the comma in E after decade introduces no RUN-ON?
I mean, we can simply say:
After decreasing steadily in mid-1990's, the percentage of students....increased in the last three years of the decade.

I think, a comma replacing fullstop in above sentence will introduce RUN-ON.

If you think otherwise, please explain why a comma is necessary.

[RonPurewal]

Can someone please explain to me whether "who" modifies the United States or not? Shouldn't who modify the students??? Who is a relative pronoun which modifies preceding noun.. This was the reason why I axed D and E

nope, you can't do that with essential modifiers (i.e., modifiers that aren't set off by commas).

you CAN do that if you're looking at nonessential modifiers, such as
COMMA + "which"
COMMA + "who"

...but that doesn't work for essential modifiers, such as NO COMMA + "who" and NO COMMA + "that".

if you want an official example, see #50 in the OG DIAGNOSTIC section (NOT the normal sentence correction section - the diagnostic, which is in the very front of the book - either 11th or 12th edition, they're actually the same diagnostic).
i can't quote the whole problem here, but the relevant excerpt of the correct answer is something like
a way of doing xxxxxxxxxxxxx on the internet that...
in which "that..." modifies "way".

--

since this is an essential modifier, there is no problem with "who..." modifying "the percentage of students in the United States".

[RonPurewal]

Ron,
I have a question on E.

Why the comma in E after decade introduces no RUN-ON?
I mean, we can simply say:
After decreasing steadily in mid-1990's, the percentage of students....increased in the last three years of the decade.

I think, a comma replacing fullstop in above sentence will introduce RUN-ON.

If you think otherwise, please explain why a comma is necessary.

nope.

it's only a run-on if you have a comma and then another complete sentence.

if the comma is followed by a MODIFIER - as it is here - then the sentence is fine. (remember that modifiers are removable, without affecting the grammar of the remaining structure.)

the words following the comma are just a really, really long descriptive modifier.

here's a shorter example:
i doubled my previous high score. --> ok
i doubled my previous high score, from 152 points to 304 points. --> also ok (note that the boldface words are a modifier)
i doubled my previous high score, i went from 152 points to 304 points. --> NOT OK (run-on -- note that the words following the comma are another complete sentence)

[gmatrant]

Ron,

Sorry to be digging into this post after a while.

I wanted to get some more insight into usage of 'essential' modifiers and what it can refer to within the sentence.

As you have highlighted, 'that' can refer to the nearest noun, or the complete noun phrase depending on the sentence. So contextually 'that' has a more wider scope of usage than 'which' within a sentence, moreover which is a non-essential phrase.

In April 1997, Hillary Rodham Clinton hosted three all-day White House scientific conference on new findings [b]that[/b] indicate/indicates a child’s acquiring language, thinking, and emotional skills as an active process that may be largely completed before age three.

that should refer to "conference on new findings" or "new findings"? based on what 'that' refers to the verb indicate/indicates changes.

Please explain.

[gmatrant]

Hello Experts,

Can you please help us here.

Thanks
gmatrant

[RonPurewal]

Hello Experts,

Can you please help us here.

Thanks
gmatrant

don't do this -- i.e., don't post a message that says "please answer my question".
this is called "bumping" the thread; it brings the thread up to the most recent position in the folder.

the problem, of course, is that we answer the posts strictly in order from oldest to newest. therefore, if you post a message, with no content, that says "please answer this post", then you are moving the thread to the LAST place in the queue.

please be patient -- we will get to all of the threads. if you make posts like this one, you're just making it take longer.
thanks.

[RonPurewal]

Ron,

Sorry to be digging into this post after a while.

I wanted to get some more insight into usage of 'essential' modifiers and what it can refer to within the sentence.

As you have highlighted, 'that' can refer to the nearest noun, or the complete noun phrase depending on the sentence. So contextually 'that' has a more wider scope of usage than 'which' within a sentence, moreover which is a non-essential phrase.

In April 1997, Hillary Rodham Clinton hosted three all-day White House scientific conference on new findings that[ indicate/indicates a child’s acquiring language, thinking, and emotional skills as an active process that may be largely completed before age three.

that should refer to "conference on new findings" or "new findings"? based on what 'that' refers to the verb indicate/indicates changes.

Please explain.

"that"-modifiers modify nouns, not actions.
however, these modifiers have much more latitude regarding where they can be placed. not only are they routinely allowed to modify either nouns or noun phrases, but they can even modify nouns from which they are separated by a verb+object or by a prepositional phrase.
for one official problem on which this happens in the correct answer, see DIAGNOSTIC problem #50 (not problem #50 in the regular sentence correction section) in OG12.

so, in the above sentence, you have to use your understanding of the meaning of the sentence (together with your own common sense) to figure out exactly which noun is being modified by the "that"-modifier.
in that example, "findings" is the most logical referent for the modifier, since it's the scientific findings (and not the conference) that indicate these things.

--

note that the above discussion applies only to MODIFIERS starting with "that".
the word "that" can appear in a whole host of other situations that are nothing like those modifiers.

[mr.pats]

Hi Ron

I have a question regarding whether to prefer ING form of a verb or to prefer "who + VERBed" in the situation as in this question.

Just for my clarification, suppose I make a couple of modifications to answer choice A here so that the sentence becomes:

After decreasing steadily in the mid-1990's, the percentage of students in the United States finishing high school or earning equivalency diplomas increased in the last three years of the decade, to 86.5 percent in 2000 from 85.9 percent in 1999 and 84.8 percent in 1998.

Is the above sentence correct? Secondly should answer choice E be preferred to the above mentioned sentence?

Thanks in advance!

[RonPurewal]

Is the above sentence correct?

it seems legit to me.

Secondly should answer choice E be preferred to the above mentioned sentence?

on this test, you will never be presented with a choice between two options that are both correct.

[zhongshanlh]

Ron , experts,please help.

1. i have a question about the"having earned" in option A and option C.

is "having earned" correctly used here?if it is wrong, please elaborate the question.

2.and allow me to dig further into this kind of construction:HAVING DONE
actually, i am always confused about the use of the construction "having done",i find that if this kind of construction is used as an essential modifier following a noun,then it is always wrong.
however, if this kind of construction is used as nonessential modifiers and is separated by commas, then it could be right.
am i thinking right, please clarify me and thank you in advance.

[RonPurewal]

Ron , experts,please help.

1. i have a question about the"having earned" in option A and option C.

is "having earned" correctly used here?if it is wrong, please elaborate the question.

it's ok grammatically, but (a) it just doesn't make sense, and (b) it's uglier than "who have earned", to which it's essentially equivalent.

because of (b), you basically aren't going to see this construction modifying a noun.

what i mean by (a) is that the modifier "having finished high school" implies that the people have already finished high school by the timeframe of the sentence. in that case you wind up with something that's illogical, because they wouldn't be "students" anymore in that case.

2.and allow me to dig further into this kind of construction:HAVING DONE
actually, i am always confused about the use of the construction "having done",i find that if this kind of construction is used as an essential modifier following a noun,then it is always wrong.

well, it's inferior to "who had/has/have" / "that had/has/have". so i suppose yes.
for instance, you aren't going to see students having finished school, because that would be much better written as "students who had finished school" (if the surrounding sentence is in the past tense) or "students who have finished school" (if the surrounding sentence is in the present tense).

however, if this kind of construction is used as nonessential modifiers and is separated by commas, then it could be right.
am i thinking right, please clarify me and thank you in advance.

your thinking is pretty much on point.