Question
Because 70 percent of the people of India use wood as their sole fuel, ten million acres of forest have been lost there since 1960, resulting in wood now costing eight times as much to collect and distribute than in 1960.
Option A
Option B
Option C
Option D
Option E
(This question is from Official Guide. Therefore, because of copyrights, the complete question cannot be copied here. The question can be accessed at GMAT Club)
Solution
- Because 70 percent (Subject of the dependent clause – “70% of the people”; The dependent clause modifies the main verb “have been lost” )
- of the people (Prepositional Phrase – modifies “percent”)
- of India (Prepositional Phrase – modifies “people”)
- of the people (Prepositional Phrase – modifies “percent”)
- use wood (Verb “use” for the dependent clause)
- as their sole fuel, (Prepositional Phrase – modifies “use”)
- ten million acres (Main Subject)
- of forest (Prepositional Phrase – modifies “acres”)
- have been lost there (Main Verb “have been lost”)
- since 1960, (Prepositional Phrase – modifies “have been lost”)
- resulting in wood (Comma+Verb-ing modifier – modifies the preceding clause)
- now costing eight times as much to collect and distribute than in 1960 (Verb-ing modifier – modifies “wood”)
Since 70% of the people of India use wood as their only fuel, a lot of forest land has been lost. As a result of this loss, wood costs 8 times as much now as it cost in 1960.
There are two problems in the given sentence:
- “As much…than” is idiomatically incorrect.
- “Resulting in wood” gives a non-sense meaning that the result of the loss of forest land is wood!!
Option Analysis
(A) Incorrect. For the reasons mentioned above.
(B) Incorrect. Has the second error of the original sentence.
(C) Incorrect. For the following reasons:
- The first error of the original sentence
- The second error of the original sentence
- The than-part “it did” is not parallel to anything
(D) Correct. “Wood costs” is a clause here and thus communicates a logical meaning that as a result of the preceding info, wood is much more expensive now than it was in 1960.
(E) Incorrect. For the following reasons:
- The placement of “as a result” is not preferred. For example:
- As a result, wood costs much more to collect than it did in 1960.
- Wood costs much more as a result to collect than it did in 1960.
The first sentence is a better construction than the second one.
- The second ‘as’ of “as much as” is missing. The other “as” in the option belongs to “as a result”.
- The first error of the original sentence
If you have any doubts regarding any part of this solution, please feel free to ask in the comments section.
This solution was created by Chiranjeev Singh and Anish Passi.
Sir,
Can you please elaborate how comma + verb-ing(,resulting) does not make sense?
Doesn’t this present a consequence of the previous clause?
Ten million acres have been lost, hence there is rise in cost of wood.
Thanks
The structure of the original sentence is “resulting in wood” followed by a verb-ing modifier of ‘wood’. Thus, the main sentence says ‘resulting in wood’ – doesn’t make sense.
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