Question: Standing as monuments in the desert, Native Americans used the saguaro cactus as a provider of food, water, and spiritual inspiration.

(A) Native Americans used the saguaro cactus as a provider of food, water, and spiritual inspiration.
(B) Native Americans used the saguaro cactus to provide them with food, water, and spiritual inspiration.
(C) the saguaro cactus provided Native Americans with food, water, and spiritual inspiration.
(D) the saguaro cactus provided food, water, and spiritual inspiration needed by the Native Americans.
(E) food, water and spiritual inspiration were provided to the Native Americans by the saguaro cactus.

Correct Answer: C
Explanation: “...the saguaro cactus provided Native Americans with food, water, and spiritual inspiration.”- Correct. There is no decisive grammatical error in the sentence. It depicts the meaning of the sentence in a correct way. It is very apparent about the point that the three things: food, water, and spiritual inspiration are provided to Native Americans. Therefore, in terms of meaning, the answer choice is very clear. There is no modifier error in the sentence. Moreover, the answer choice maintains a proper construction of the sentence. Hence, option C is the correct answer since it satisfies the rules of grammar. Let’s take a look at the other answer choices.

Option A

“Standing as monuments in the desert, Native Americans used the saguaro cactus as a provider of food, water, and spiritual inspiration”- Incorrect. The expression “Standing as monuments in the desert” is mainly concerned with the “saguaro cactus” providing them with food, water, and spiritual inspiration. Therefore, the “saguaro cactus” needs to be placed next to Modifier “Standing as monuments in the desert”. This is because the saguaro cactus is standing as a monument, not the Native Americans. Hence, there is a modifier error in the sentence. Moreover, the answer choice distorts the actual meaning of the sentence. Therefore, option A is incorrect and hence gets eliminated.

Option B

“Standing as monuments in the desert, Native Americans used the saguaro cactus to provide them with food, water, and spiritual inspiration”- Incorrect. The modifier “Standing as monuments in the desert” mainly deals with the “saguaro cactus” providing them with food, water, and spiritual inspiration. Therefore, the “saguaro cactus” needs to be positioned next to Modifier “Standing as monuments in the desert”. This is because the saguaro cactus is standing as a monument, not the Native Americans. Hence, there is a modifier error in the sentence. Moreover, the answer choice misinterprets the actual meaning of the sentence. Therefore, option B is incorrect and hence gets eliminated.

Option D

“Standing as monuments in the desert, the saguaro cactus provided food, water, and spiritual inspiration needed by the Native Americans” - Incorrect. The “saguaro cactus” is positioned next to Modifier “Standing as monuments in the desert”. Therefore, there is no modifier issue in the answer choice. The statement clearly says that the saguaro cactus is standing as a monument, not the Native Americans. However, the answer choice is unnecessarily wordy. Moreover, the answer choice illustrates an improper construction of the sentence. Hence, the answer choice is completely illogical and irrelevant. Therefore, option D is incorrect as it does not satisfy the rules of grammar. Hence, the answer choice gets eliminated.

Option E

“Standing as monuments in the desert, food, water and spiritual inspiration were provided to the Native Americans by the saguaro cactus” - Incorrect. The modifier “Standing as monuments in the desert” is mainly concerned with the “saguaro cactus” providing them with food, water, and spiritual inspiration. Therefore, the “saguaro cactus” needs to be positioned next to Modifier “Standing as monuments in the desert”. This is because the saguaro cactus is standing as a monument, not food, water and spiritual inspiration. Moreover, it distorts the meaning of the sentence. Hence, option E is incorrect since it does not satisfy the rules of grammar. Therefore, the answer choice gets eliminated.

“Standing as monuments in the desert, Native Americans used the saguaro”- is a GMAT sentence correction question of the GMAT exam. These sorts of questions consist of grammatical errors in the underlined part of the sentence. The candidates must demonstrate the modifier errors in the sentence. The candidates need to examine whether the answer choices satisfy the meaning of the sentence. The candidates must verify the proper construction of the sentence to determine the correct answer by reasoning logically and accurately. The candidates need to choose the correct statement given in the options. The GMAT sentence correction section requires satisfactory grammar skills since the candidate has to identify common grammatical errors. GMAT sentence correction is a part of GMAT verbal.

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