Plants are More Efficient at Acquiring Carbon than are Fungi, in the Form of Carbon Dioxide, and Converting it to Energy-Rich Sugars.

Question: Plants are more efficient at acquiring carbon than are fungi, in the form of carbon dioxide, and converting it to energy-rich sugars.

(A) Plants are more efficient at acquiring carbon than are fungi
(B) Plants are more efficient at acquiring carbon than fungi
(C) Plants are more efficient than fungi at acquiring carbon
(D) Plants, more efficient than fungi at acquiring carbon
(E) Plants acquire carbon more efficiently than fungi

Plants are more efficient at acquiring carbon than are fungi, in the form of carbon dioxide, and converting it to energy-rich sugars - is a GMAT sentence correction question. This particular GMAT sentence correction topic has been taken from the book ‘Advanced Sentence Correction- Manya Princeton Review’. This question checks modifier, comparison, and Parallelism rules. GMAT Sentence Correction questions comprise 11-16 questions to be completed within 65 minutes. Each Sentence Correction question contains a sentence with an underlined portion that contains 0-2 errors.

Answer: C
Explanation: The given sentence correction question can be tested by the given-below rules:

1. Parallelism
2. Comparison of two elements
3. Modifiers

Now, checking the given question, we can see that there is a modifier after the underlined part. The part of the sentence, where it states ‘...in the form of carbon dioxide…’ does not refer to the form of carbon dioxide. The fungi or the carbon is not clearly mentioned in the question. Hence it can be concluded that ‘carbon’ must come before the modifier so that the sentence can make sense.
Let us closely check the option:

(A) Plants are more efficient at acquiring carbon than are fungi
(B) Plants are more efficient at acquiring carbon than fungi
(C) Plants are more efficient than fungi at acquiring carbon
(D) Plants, more efficient than fungi at acquiring carbon
(E) Plants acquire carbon more efficiently than fungi

Since, we cannot place antecedents before or after any modifier, options A, B, and E can be eliminated.

Let us check options C and D:

(C) Option C states that plants seemed to be more efficient in comparison to fungi in acquiring carbon. So, to acquire carbon, they absorb carbon dioxide and convert it to energy-rich sugars.
Hence option C is correct, as it follows the grammar rule.

(D) In option D we see that plants are more efficient than fungi at acquiring carbon. They acquire carbon in the form of carbon dioxide and later convert it to energy-rich sugars.
Option D is incorrect because carbon cannot be used before a modifier.

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