The yield of natural gas from Norway's Troll gas field is expected to increase annually until the year 2005 and then to stabilize at six billion cubic feet a day, which will allow such an extraction rate at least for 50 years' production

a) 2005 and then to stabilize at six billion cubic feet a day, which will allow such an extraction rate at least for

b) 2005 and then to stabilize at six billion cubic feet a day, an extraction rate that will allow at least

C) 2005 and then stabilizing at six billion cubic feet a day, with such an extraction rate at the least allowing

d) 2005, then stabilizing at six billion cubic feet a day, allowing such an extraction rate for at least

e) 2005, then stabilizing at six billion cubic feet a day, which will allow such an extraction rate for at least

OA is B.....i'm guessing it is B over A because it is less wordy? Also the parallelism here didn't stick out to me at first, but now i see the "and then" signal connecting the "to increase" and the "to stabilize"



Thanks

Yes u are correct I also fell in the same trap . It is parallelism between increase and stabilize

There is one more reason why B is correct. "an extraction rate" correctly modifies six billion cubic feet a day. The rest of the answer choices are wrong because relative clause like "which" and "allowing" do not correctly modify six billion cubic feet.

correct.

the easiest way to eliminate (a), by far, is to capitalize on the fact that (a) uses "which" incorrectly.

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Being well-dressed gives a feeling of inward tranquillity [that] religion is powerless to bestow.
C.F. Forbes

Hi Ron,

I have just started on this forum, and have read some of your helpful comments. Pardon my ignorance, but I am kind of confused on the role being played by -ING form of the verb in choice d:

d) 2005, then stabilizing at six billion cubic feet a day, allowing such an extraction rate for at least

Isn't the word "allowing" modifying the result of the main clause "The yield of natural gas from Norway's Troll gas field is expected to increase annually until the year 2005 and then to stabilize at six billion cubic feet a day"

I also read somewhere that the ING form can only modify the main clause and not the sub-ordinate clause. Even with that rule, it's kind of confusing on why the word "allowing" is a wrong choice here.

Will appreciate if you can help out.

Thanks.

B:and[b] then to stabilize at six billion cubic feet a day[/b]
i have learned that an adv can not modify "do" after "to"--as in "to do"--and if we want to modify do, we need move the adv after "do".
But in the correct answer B, we see that "then" seems to modify stabilize, since it can not modify anything else.
why? could anyone explain?
is the reason that some adv can modify the entire "to do" structure?

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stephen

Can someone answer the above post ?...I have the same doubt.
Thanks in advance

I'm not sure that I quite understand your question. If I seem too precise below, that's just because I'm having trouble following you.

Let's consider the sentence D would yield,

The yield of natural gas from Norway's Troll gas field is expected to increase annually until the year 2005, then stabilizing at six billion cubic feet a day, allowing such an extraction rate for at least 50 years' production.

I take it that you already understand that D is wrong in part because "increase" and "stabilize" ought to be parallel.

Do you mean to argue that (or wonder whether) D is otherwise defensible?

Isn't the word "allowing" modifying the result of the main clause "The yield of natural gas from Norway's Troll gas field is expected to increase annually until the year 2005 and then to stabilize at six billion cubic feet a day"

Well, that's hard to say because the status of the immediately prior clause, "then stabilizing at six billion cubic feet a day," isn't clear. It doesn't succeed as a modifier or as any other sort of clause.

Also, I don't mean to logic chop, but the subordinate clause introduced by "allowing" might modify the main clause by specifying some consequences of the state of affairs described in that main clause, but the subordinate clause doesn't modify the consequences.

Hi Ron,

Could you please throw more light on the usage of "which".I am actually confused in the usage of "which". In some sentences, which usually refer to the preceding noun, but I have seen that, usually when there is a modifying clause between the main noun ( the noun being modified) and which, which refers to that main noun even if the modifying clause has a noun to which "which" can refer to. For Example:-

1) Scientists have recently received permission to research embryonic stem cells, derived from blastocysts or early stage embryos, which they believe.....

What does which refer to, cells( main noun) or embryos ( the previous noun which is a valid candidate for which.


Also, in the sentence below:-

2) Out of the public's interest in the details of and conflict in othe people's lives have grown a market for "reality" television shows, which are bringing.....

"which refers to the market or the shows?? Do we have to go by the meaning of the sentence and see what should be the antecedent of "which" or do we have to go by the logic of "which" that it refers to the previous eligible candidate??

Could you please elaborate?

Thanks and Regards
Shipra

shipra, welcome to the forum, but please follow the forum rules -- you also posted the same question in another thread in this folder, even though (a) this is the wrong folder and (b) you haven't cited sources for these sentences.

please follow the directions that i listed here:
post58369.html#p58369

thanks.

_________________
Being well-dressed gives a feeling of inward tranquillity [that] religion is powerless to bestow.
C.F. Forbes

Hi all -

I am struggling with modifiers and trying to figure out words that I can start to use as trigger points.

For this question, I used "which" as a trigger point and eliminated the answer choice A. Similar to other users, I also didn't notice the parallelism between initialize and stabilize.

However, I still arrived at the OA B, because I eliminated answer choices that had "such an extraction rate", because "such" was being used incorrectly here and it wasn't necessary. Thus, I eliminated answer choices C, D, E.

I am really trying to validate my reasoning when I eliminate choices to get better at Sentence Correction. My question is, was I valid to assume that "such an extraction rate" was an improper use?

struggling with modifiers
not noticing parallelism

in about 99% of cases of these complaints, further investigation reveals that the student making the complaints is not thinking about what the words actually mean.

are you discerning the meaning of the sentence when you first read it?
if not, then of course you're going to have a hard time finding these things -- they're actually impossible to find, if you don't understand what the sentence is supposed to mean.

_________________
Being well-dressed gives a feeling of inward tranquillity [that] religion is powerless to bestow.
C.F. Forbes

ron, is there anything wrong with the use of "such an extraction rate" in choices ACDE?

i saw your reply to another question, you said that: "such an X" only makes sense when the concept of "X" could theoretically encompass many possibilities, of which "such an X" is only one.
i.e., if you have already given the exact, unique definition of X, then "such an X" makes no sense. (sorry,i don't know how to quote it from another web page)

i think in this question,"six billion cubic feet a day" is a specif and unqiue" extraction rate", so we can't use "such an extraction rate". is my reasoning right? thks~

This also being an old OG problem, the OG's explanation (surprisingly) does not mention the issue of "such an". But this is definitely a case of an idiom unlikely to be used in a correct answer.

You're definitely correct about proper usage though. Think of "such an" as giving one example of many, similar to the usage of "such as":

Correct: He is one such person (among many).
Incorrect: He is the one such person (only one possible).

Correct: I play many sports, such as basketball and track.
Incorrect: I play one sport, such as basketball.

_________________
Joe Lucero
Manhattan GMAT Instructor