First discovered more than 30 years ago, Lina's sunbird

[GMAT 5/18]

First discovered more than 30 years ago, Lina's sunbird, a four-and-a-half-inch animal found in the Phillipines and that resembles a hummingbird, has shimmering metallic colors on its head; a brilliant orange patch, bordered with red tufts, in the center of its breast; and a red eye.

a. Same as above
b. found in the Phillipines and that, resembling
c. found in the Phillipines and resembling
d. that is found in the Phillipines and it resembles
e. that is found in the Phillipines, resembling

Would someone please explain the steps they would go through in deriving the answer? The eliminations I came up with were b., d. and e. In the end I correctly chose c, but it was an educated guess. If someone could please explain why c is better than a, I would appreciate it. Thanks!

[dbernst]

This question primarily concerns parallel construction: the two comparable elements of the original sentence are "found" and "that resembles". As originally expressed, these elements are not structured similarly - for "that resembles" to be correct, the earlier parallel element of the sentence would have to state "that is found." Since the original sentence contains a provable error, eliminate answer choice A and ANY OTHERS ANSWER CHOICES THAT REPEAT THE ORIGINAL ERROR.

b. Parallel elements: "found" and "that, resembling" - Not parallel = Eliminate
c. Parallel elements: "found" and "resembling" - Parallel = Keep
d. Parallel elements: "that is found" and "it resembles" - Not parallel = Eliminate
e. Parallel elements: "that is found" and "resembling" - Not parallel = Eliminate

As choices b, d, and e contain similar errors in parallel constuction, the correct answer is C.

Hope that helps!
-dan

First discovered more than 30 years ago, Lina's sunbird, a four-and-a-half-inch animal found in the Phillipines and that resembles a hummingbird, has shimmering metallic colors on its head; a brilliant orange patch, bordered with red tufts, in the center of its breast; and a red eye.

a. Same as above
b. found in the Phillipines and that, resembling
c. found in the Phillipines and resembling
d. that is found in the Phillipines and it resembles
e. that is found in the Phillipines, resembling

Would someone please explain the steps they would go through in deriving the answer? The eliminations I came up with were b., d. and e. In the end I correctly chose c, but it was an educated guess. If someone could please explain why c is better than a, I would appreciate it. Thanks!

[closeup]

Thanks DAN for the crisp reply. I read in many places about this kind of parallism called participle parallism.

found in the Phillipines and resembling

I don't understand how found and resembling are parallel.

Could you please explain ?

Thanks

[StaceyKoprince]

I'd need more of a sentence there - that may or may not work depending upon the rest of the construction. Can you post the full sentence?

For instance, I might say:
The Wowie bird, found in the Phillipines and resembling a small housecat, is the only bird that blah blah blah.

Try each of those little modifiers by itself: "The Wowie bird, found in the Phillipines, is the only bird..." and "The Wowie bird, resembling a small housecat, is the only bird..." They're both fine.

But I wouldn't say:
The Wowie bird is found in the Phillipines and resembling a small housecat.

"The Wowie bird is found in the Phillipines" is fine, but "The Wowie bird is resembling a small housecat" is not.

[sheetal]

I'd need more of a sentence there - that may or may not work depending upon the rest of the construction. Can you post the full sentence?

For instance, I might say:
The Wowie bird, found in the Phillipines and resembling a small housecat, is the only bird that blah blah blah.

Try each of those little modifiers by itself: "The Wowie bird, found in the Phillipines, is the only bird..." and "The Wowie bird, resembling a small housecat, is the only bird..." They're both fine.

But I wouldn't say:
The Wowie bird is found in the Phillipines and resembling a small housecat.

"The Wowie bird is found in the Phillipines" is fine, but "The Wowie bird is resembling a small housecat" is not.

I have a follow up question.

I think the core of the sentence is
A bird found and resembling a humming bird has colours.

I understand that for a "Verb + ING" word to act as a verb, it needs to precede with a verb. In (C), we are saying that found and resempling are parallel.
If I am not wrong, "found" is a verb, so we need a verb on the other side of "and" to parallel "found".

In (C), "resemebling" does not have a verb preceeding it, so does it act as a verb here ? All I see is a noun (bird) before resembling.

Are my thoughts in the right direction?

[RonPurewal]

I'd need more of a sentence there - that may or may not work depending upon the rest of the construction. Can you post the full sentence?

For instance, I might say:
The Wowie bird, found in the Phillipines and resembling a small housecat, is the only bird that blah blah blah.

Try each of those little modifiers by itself: "The Wowie bird, found in the Phillipines, is the only bird..." and "The Wowie bird, resembling a small housecat, is the only bird..." They're both fine.

But I wouldn't say:
The Wowie bird is found in the Phillipines and resembling a small housecat.

"The Wowie bird is found in the Phillipines" is fine, but "The Wowie bird is resembling a small housecat" is not.

I have a follow up question.

I think the core of the sentence is
A bird found and resembling a humming bird has colours.

I understand that for a "Verb + ING" word to act as a verb, it needs to precede with a verb. In (C), we are saying that found and resempling are parallel.
If I am not wrong, "found" is a verb, so we need a verb on the other side of "and" to parallel "found".

In (C), "resemebling" does not have a verb preceeding it, so does it act as a verb here ? All I see is a noun (bird) before resembling.

Are my thoughts in the right direction?

the core of the sentence is
a bird has colors.

both 'found in the philippines'** and 'resembling a hummingbird' are modifiers. they use somewhat different specific verb forms—but they both modify the same thing, and so they're parallel.

--

**digression: note the spelling of 'philippines': one L, two P's.
mnemonic device: 'stuck in new england, philip pines for the weather of the philippines'

[iwillmakeit]

Awesome explanation!!!!

Could not have been better....these concepts are so subtle yet so important....

[RonPurewal]

Awesome explanation!!!!

Could not have been better....these concepts are so subtle yet so important....

thanks.

subtle is definitely the word. keep hammering away at it, though, and you'll get more of a feel for the way they write the problems.

[Gaurav]

Ron ...

Just to be doubly sure ... Isn't this question on the same lines as another OG 11 question ... a fungus spawned by X and extending to ....

I think that the fungus question was the only other question i've seen resembling this one ...

[RonPurewal]

Ron ...

Just to be doubly sure ... Isn't this question on the same lines as another OG 11 question ... a fungus spawned by X and extending to ....

I think that the fungus question was the only other question i've seen resembling this one ...

yes, i believe that question has the same type of structure. good identification!
thank you for not posting any additional details.

[cutlass]

Just an additional note..

Inspecting verbs/verbals in isolation may lead to wrong conclusions about their function. Instead, check the sentence as a whole. In this sentence,

The bird has X

'has' is the predicate and the phrases 'found..' and 'resembling..' just tell us something extra about the bird, thereby functioning as modifiers.

[rfernandez]

Cutlass makes a good argument for drawing out the "core" of the sentence (as was shown above by Ron) to understand the essential moving parts. It's a great technique for "separating the wheat from the chaff" so to speak.

[Guest]

Very nice job.

E) is actually .... that is found in the Philippines and that, resembling

Is this correct? If so, I suppose C is more concise anyway. But I was just wondering.

[pash19]

My trouble with this was that I read the sentence as saying....the bird resembles a hummingbird because of its colors. So, I chose B: found in the Phillipines and that, resembling a hummingbird...

Did anyone else have this issue? I read it as an error in meaning. Any suggestions on how I can avoid this trap in the future? Thanks.

[hmgmat]

I thought that after a semicolon, a complete sentence/independent clause is required instead of a noun phrase.

Could anyone explain what the usage of semicolons here?

Thanks in advance.