{"id":14006,"date":"2017-06-22T15:42:41","date_gmt":"2017-06-22T15:42:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/?p=14006"},"modified":"2019-09-05T15:53:47","modified_gmt":"2019-09-05T15:53:47","slug":"past-participles-on-gmat-sentence-correction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/blog\/past-participles-on-gmat-sentence-correction\/","title":{"rendered":"Past Participles on GMAT Sentence Correction"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Manhattan<\/p>\n

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<\/i><\/b>Check out these two sentences:<\/span><\/p>\n

The horse raced past the barn.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

The horse raced past the barn fell.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Believe it or not, both sentences have good grammar. But one of them makes a lot more sense than the other one! Let\u2019s break them down and understand why.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the first sentence, the subject is \u201cthe horse.\u201d Then, there\u2019s a verb in the past tense: \u201craced.\u201d The core of this sentence\u2014the part of the sentence that tells you <\/span>who did what<\/span><\/i>\u2014is \u201cthe horse raced.\u201d There\u2019s also a modifier, which tells you <\/span>where<\/span><\/i> the horse raced.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the second sentence, it <\/span>looks<\/span><\/i> like you\u2019ve got the same subject and the same verb. However, once you get to the end of the sentence, there\u2019s <\/span>another<\/span><\/i> verb, \u201cfell.\u201d A sentence can\u2019t have two main verbs, not without a connector, such as \u201cand,\u201d in between them. There must be something strange going on. And in fact, there is.<\/span><\/p>\n

In this sentence, the phrase \u201craced past the barn\u201d isn\u2019t part of the core. Instead, it\u2019s a modifier\u2014a very tricky modifier. To see how that works, let\u2019s rewrite the sentence slightly:<\/span><\/p>\n

The horse, which was raced past the barn, fell. <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Now, it should be clearer that the \u201craced past the barn\u201d part of the sentence is a modifier, and the core is actually \u201cthe horse fell.\u201d In other words, the sentence says that a horse fell\u2014why? Because a jockey (or someone) <\/span>raced it past the barn<\/span><\/i>. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In the tricky sentence, the word \u201craced\u201d is a <\/span>past participle<\/b>. Past participles are tough for your brain. That\u2019s because in English, they usually look just like normal past tense verbs. Since normal verbs are much more common than participles, your brain isn\u2019t expecting to see a participle when you start reading. When you see the first three words of the sentence\u2014\u201cthe horse raced\u201d\u2014you naturally assume that you\u2019ve just read the main subject and verb of the sentence. Then, when you find a second verb, you get confused. You have to go back and \u201cre-understand\u201d the first part of the sentence. This effect is called \u201c<\/span>garden pathing<\/span><\/a>.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a summary so far:<\/span><\/p>\n