Like the grassy fields and old pastures that the upland sandpiper needs for feeding and nesting when it returns in May after wintering in the Argentine Pampas, the sandpipers vanishing in the northeastern United States is a result of residential and industrial development and of changes in farming practices.

A. the sandpipers vanishing in the northeastern United States is a result of residential and industrial development and of changes in
B. the bird itself is vanishing in the northeastern United States as a result of residential and industrial development and of changes in
C. that the birds themselves are vanishing in the northeastern United States is due to residential and industrial development and changes to
D. in the northeastern United States, sandpipers’ vanishing is due to residential and industrial development and to changes in
E. in the northeastern United States, the sandpipers’ vanishing, a result of residential and industrial development and changing

The correct answer is B.
I crossed out E since it is not a complete sentence, but I do not know the rest.
Can somebody tell me why A, C, D are wrong?

Thank you!!!

what is wrong with A and D?

(a)
if you write "the sandpipers vanishing", then "sandpipers" is the subject ("vanishing" is a modifier describing that subject). the subject "sandpipers" doesn't agree with the singular verb "is".

GENERAL NOTE:
this sentence starts out with "like the grassy fields and old pastures...". the COMPARISON here is between those fields and pastures (which are disappearing) and the bird (which is also disappearing); therefore, to make this comparison valid, the next sentence MUST start with "the bird" or "the sandpiper". it can't start with anything else.

(c)
invalid comparison; this clause starts with "that the birds are vanishing...", rather than with the bird itself.
this choice is also hopelessly awkward, although it may take a native speaker's eye to see that.

(d)
invalid comparison; the subject of this clause is the sandpipers' vanishing, rather than the sandpiper itself.
the prepositional phrase "in the NE united states" is also inserted in a bad place; you generally don't want to create such occlusions in a comparison.

BUt I Was making the comparsion with PARTS...to PARTs..


Like the grassy fields and old pastures that the upland sandpiper needs for feeding and nesting when it returns in May after wintering in the Argentine Pampas, the sandpipers vanishing in the northeastern United States is a result of residential and industrial development and of changes in farming practices.

D. in the northeastern United States, sandpipers’ vanishing is due to residential and industrial development and to changes in
E. in the northeastern United States, the sandpipers’ vanishing, a result of residential and industrial development and changing



are not we comparing the Parts to parts ?? as highlighted above....

after reading that bothare disappearing ...it makes sense...

but... earlier we have done so many queries..in which....comparision is done for similar things... ..could you please help to explain more :(

i'm sorry, i don't understand your question. could you please rephrase it?

thanks.

Ron,

I can rephrase Anoo's question, I made the same mistake.

I assumed that the author of this sentence is comparing environments or provinces where the sandpiper exists.

Perhaps you can see my flaw if you had read it like I did:

Similar to the grassy fields and old pastures (province) that the upland sandpiper needs for feeding and nesting when it returns in May after wintering in the Argentine Pampas (province), the sandpipers vanishing in the northeastern United States (province) is a result of residential and industrial development and of changes in farming practices.

Any thoughts on how we can be sure to compare apples to apples? I steered clear of "B" because I wasn't sure of the use of the reflexive nor was I certain of the object of the verb. I am guessing "vanishing?"

ok, i see what you mean, especially regarding pampas vs. northeastern united states.

however, "grassy fields and old pastures" is NOT a province/region, and is thus not categorically parallel to anything else in the sentence. (to prove that these aren't parallel, try creating a sentence in which they are in parallel - such as "species X is found in the northeastern U.S. and in grassy fields" - and note that any such sentence will be nonsense.)
therefore, you should realize that you're going to have to look for a little broader analogy.

by the way, this is the purpose of "itself" after "bird".
if you say "the NOUN itself" or "the NOUNS themselves", the point is usually to make some sort of comparison with something that is NOT in the same category as the NOUN/NOUNS.

for instance:
Smith's books were not as infamous as Smith himself.
the "himself" here is used to solidify this comparison between two things that would normally not be comparable, i.e., smith and his books.

(a)
if you write "the sandpipers vanishing", then "sandpipers" is the subject ("vanishing" is a modifier describing that subject). the subject "sandpipers" doesn't agree with the singular verb "is".


Hi Ron,

I could not understand your (above-mentioned) explanation to option A of this question.

For example, if i say - "those boys' unruly behavior is a result of unorthodox parenting", is it grammatically incorrect?

Thanks,

no, your version is perfectly correct.
the difference is that you wrote your version with a possessive --> you wrote the boys' unruly behavior. since you used an apostrophe on boys', that's not a noun -- possessives are adjectives -- and so the subject becomes unruly behavior.
by the same token, if you had the sandpipers' vanishing is..., that would be correct.
but if you just write "sandpipers vanishing", then that's a totally different construction; the subject is now "sandpipers", and vanishing is now a modifier modifying the noun sandpipers. in that case, since sandpipers is plural, you can't use "is" as the verb.

Hi, instructors

I have a question about choice D.

If we change D to the following:

Like the grassy fields and old pastures that the upland sandpiper needs for feeding and nesting when it returns in May after wintering in the Argentine Pampas, in the northeastern United States, the bird itself is vanishing as a result of residential and industrial development and of changes in farming practices

Is it correct? I am not sure whether "the bird.." still immediately follows the "like..." in this situation when there is a modifier(in the United States) between "like..." and "the bird...". Could u clarify that?

No, this wouldn't work. "Like the grassy fields, etc. . . . ," creates a modifier. This modifier must be followed by the thing that is like the grassy fields.

So I could say this:

Like the grassy fields of the United States, the swamps of Florida are slowly disappearing.

If I wanted to squeeze the bit about the US into the opening modifier, it would get pretty long, but it would look like this:

Like the grassy fields and old pastures of the northeastern United States that the upland sandpiper needs for feeding and nesting when it returns in May after wintering in the Argentine Pampas, the bird itself is vanishing . . .

I think that's a bit much to pack in there, but at least the modifier beginning with "like" attaches itself to the appropriate noun.

So, quick recognition tip:

*If you have a noun modifier ("Like the grassy fields,"), it must immediately be followed by a noun.

If you see "Like X, in Y," it's wrong. Even the word "in" creates a mismatch. We need "Like X, Y . . ."

_________________
Dmitry Farber
Manhattan GMAT Instructor

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elevinty, do you have a question?

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Jamie Nelson
ManhattanGMAT Instructor

Thank you for explaining this.

:)

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Tim Sanders
Manhattan GMAT Instructor