native to south america

[swapna.rajanish7]

Native to south america,when peanuts were introduced to Africa by portugese explorers early in the sixteenth century they were quickly adopted into Africa's agriculture, probably because of being so similar to the Bambarra groundnut, a popular indigenous plant.

a.when peanuts were introduced to Africa by Portugese explorers early in sixteenth century they were quickly adopted into Africa's agriculture, probably because of being

b.peanuts having been introduced to Africa by Portugese explorers early in the sixteenth century and quickly adopted into Africa's agriculture,probably because of being

c.peanuts were introduced to Africa by Portugese explorers early in the sixteenth century and were quickly adopted into Africa's agriculture,probably because they were

d.peanuts,introduced to Africa by Portugese explorers early in the sixteenth century and quickly adopted into Africa's agriculture,probably because they were

e.peanuts,introduced to Africa by Portugese explorers early in the sixteenth century and having been quickly adopted into Africa's agriculture,probably because they were

Answer choice is C.I felt option D was right. The book says ...this version of the sentence has no main verb because introduced and adopted both function as adjectives.Dint really understand the explanation. And not sure wats the function of were before quickly in sentence C

[tim]

In d, "introduced" and "adopted" are there to describe the peanuts and are therefore adjectives. Remember, -ed words can be used as either verbs or adjectives depending on the circumstances, and in this case the circumstances (particularly the commas) require the -ed words to be interpreted as adjectives. The "were" before "quickly" serves to emphasize the parallelism between "introduced" and "adopted", the two things that happened to the peanuts.

[sachin.w]

Could you please throw us some light on the right usage of
'having been'?

Regards,
Sach

[tim]

the only time i've seen it used appropriately is to say something like this:

"having been/done X, [independent clause here]"

this indicates that after completing the first part, the subject does whatever it is doing in the independent clause..

[sachin.w]

thanks tim

[tim]

glad to help!

[HanzZ]

Hi Tim,

I am just wondering in choice C, why there is no ambiguity as to what "they" refers to (peanuts but not explorers)?

Thanks!

Henry

[tim]

First, if you ACTUALLY think "they" refers to "explorers", you really need to take a closer look at the meaning of the sentence! :) If it is clear to you which noun the pronoun is actually referring to, then by definition there is no ambiguity. As a result, you'll find that pronoun ambiguity is an incredibly rare phenomenon on the GMAT.

The technical answer to why "they" refers to "peanuts" rather than "explorers" is because "they" is a subject of its clause just as "peanuts" is, whereas "explorers" is inside a prepositional phrase. You will almost never reach inside a prepositional phrase to find an antecedent on the GMAT.

[HanzZ]

First, if you ACTUALLY think "they" refers to "explorers", you really need to take a closer look at the meaning of the sentence! :) If it is clear to you which noun the pronoun is actually referring to, then by definition there is no ambiguity. As a result, you'll find that pronoun ambiguity is an incredibly rare phenomenon on the GMAT.

The technical answer to why "they" refers to "peanuts" rather than "explorers" is because "they" is a subject of its clause just as "peanuts" is, whereas "explorers" is inside a prepositional phrase. You will almost never reach inside a prepositional phrase to find an antecedent on the GMAT.

Hello Tim,

Thank you very much for your kind response!

I understand that by meaning, 'they' certainly refers to 'peanuts'; however, I found myself trapped by the technicality of the issue. I just want to ask, what do you think is more important in determining the antecedent for a pronoun, meaning or grammar?

In this question, 'they' is a subject as you mentioned. As a result, it naturally refers to 'peanuts' both by meaning and by grammar (sorry I wasn't looking more closely on the grammar part). However, let's say there were another antecedent in the sentence that is also in the subject position as 'peanuts' is. In that case, does meaning play a more important role?

For example, "Peanuts were introduced to Africa at the same time potatoes were introduced to America, and they were quickly adopted into Africa's culture..."(excuse me if this is a bad example). Grammatically ,'they' can refer to either 'peanuts' or 'potatoes', am I correct? But by meaning, we know what 'they' refers to. This is the type of situation in which I feel uneasy.

In addition, I was looking at another example discussed on this forum: "....fees of investment officers be based on how the funds they manage perform..."

since-1986-when-the-department-of-labor-began-to-allow-inves-t2460.html

Ron pointed out that by meaning there is no ambiguity as to what 'they' refers to. However, isn't 'investment officers' in a prepositional phrase where supposedly 'they' cannot reach into? I am a little confused here.

I appreciate your help!

Thanks again!

Henry

[jlucero]

I suppose that's why Tim qualified his statement with "almost never" rather than never- the those in your last example clearly must refer to investment officers. Ultimately, all these "rules" that we come up with are more "things that seem to match up with the correct answer choices in OG problems". Sometimes the GMAT uses ambiguous pronouns and so we choose to ignore this. If no split occurs and all 5 answer choices seem to have an ambiguous pronoun, then it's a waste of time to think about whether the pronoun is ambiguous.

So to answer your first and most important question- there's no distinction between grammar and meaning... the correct answer choice will be both correct grammatically and clear in meaning. And if you feel that a correct answer choice doesn't do one of these two things- adjust the way YOU think about the sentence, because you won't be able to debate the validity of the answers come test day.