A proposal has been made to trim the horns from rhinoceroses to discou

Hi Sid,

Yes, the usage of "one" would still make Options B and E both incorrect even if these choices were free of other errors.

Hope this helps.
Thanks.
SJ

On a separate note, it is interesting to note that there are at least a couple of examples in OG, where the pronoun in question does not have any direct referent, but still GMAT considers it acceptable. So, GMAT seems to be permissive in this regard.

#109, OG-13:

Among the objects found in the excavated temple were small terra-cotta effigies left by supplicants who were either asking the goddess Bona Dea's aid in healing physical and mental ills or thanking her for such help.

This is the correct answer, though there is no explicit referent of her. The silver lining is that all 5 answer choices use her, so you don't really have to choose an option based on this.

Hi there,

There is absolutely no problem and certainly no exception in this official question.

Please note that "her" is a Possessive Pronoun. Henec, it can very well refer to another Noun Entity in Poessessive form. This is the reason why all the answer choices use "her" because it clearly refers to the Noun Entity "Bona Dea's" that is in possessive case. In fact, Possessive Pronouns can also refer to non-possessive Noun entity in a sentence. For example:

Dia brought her dog to the exhibition. --> Here, "her" correctly refers to "Dia", a non-possessive Noun Entity.

OG13 Q#109 would have been incorrect if it had used the Pronoun "she" to refer to "Bona Dea's" because a non-possessive pronoun CANNOT refer to a Noun in Possessive Form.

Let's take a look at another official sentence where this usage is correct:

In her later poems, Phyllis Wheatley's blending of solar imagery, Judeo-Christian thought and figures, and images borrowed from ancient classicism suggests her range and depth of influences, not the least of which is her African heritage.

In this one, "her" refers to "Phyllis Whetley's", a Possesive Noun Entity. In fact, one of the answer choices uses the pronoun "she" and stands incorrect because "she", a non-possesive pronoun, CANNOT refer to possessive noun entity.

Hope this helps.
Thanks.
SJ

Can someone please explain, how come "their" is ambiguous in option B ?

The pronoun "their" is immediately preceded by two nouns tourists and rhinoceroses respectively. Hence "their" can refer to either of the two, creating ambiguity.

Hi experts,

in this case, I totally got that perfect past "have been trimmed" reveals the earlier action than visit.
out of curiosity, Is the present tense "are" , which is earlier than future tense " will visit" , valid in A if focus on only tense ?( please point out which one is better , only tense or tense only )

I have another correct present - future sentence from MANHATTAN SC guide P129.
The scientist BELIEVES that the machine WILL BE wonderful.
here, BELIEVES is present tense, and WILL BE is future tense.

genuinely want your confirmation.

have a nice day
>_~

Dear zoezhuyan,

How are you my friend? This is a perceptive question, and I am happy to answer!

Let's ignore (A), which is wrong, and just focus on changing (C), the OA.
original (C): whether tourists will continue to visit game parks to see rhinoceroses once the animals' horns have been trimmed.
modified (C): whether tourists will continue to visit game parks to see rhinoceroses once the animals' horns are trimmed.
Both of these are 100% correct. It might be argued that the first is a little more elegant, a little more nuanced, but that's a stylistic concern. In terms of what would be correct on the GMAT SC, both of these are absolutely flawless.

Either the simple present tense or the present perfect tense or the present progressive tense can be used to indicate an event before the time of any future tense event.

Does all this make sense?

Have a lovely weekend!

Mike

First Glance

The sentence contains a semicolon but the underline is limited only to the second half. DO read the first half, as it will provide context for the intended meaning.

Issues

(1) Meaning, and

You might spot this in the original sentence or via a direct comparison of answers (A) and (B):

(A) tourists will continue to visit parks and see rhinoceroses
(B) tourists will continue to visit parks to see rhinoceroses

The X and Y structure in answer (A) does not require the two parallel portions to have anything to do with one another. Consider this example: tourists will continue to visit the pyramids in Egypt and see the Taj Mahal in India. Tourists will continue to do these two things, but the X and Y portions don't have anything to do with each other.

Similarly, in the original sentence, if the actions visit game parks and see rhinoceroses are connected by the word and, then they are completely separate. This doesn't make logical sense. The tourists visit the parks in order to see the rhinoceroses. Eliminate answers (A) and (D).

(2) Pronoun: theirs; one

Some answers use the pronoun their while others use the animals' instead. Other answers change rhinoceroses to one.

The pronoun their is ambiguous; it could refer to rhinoceroses or tourists. Consider this example: these tourists will travel to foreign countries and meet new people after their visas are approved. Whose visas need to get approved? The tourists, not the new people ─ the tourists are the ones who are traveling.

Because their could refer to tourists (it should refer to rhinoceroses), answer (A) is ambiguous. Answer (B) repeats this error; eliminate both.

Answer (B) and (E) replace rhinoceroses with the pronoun one. First it's ok to use one to refer to a plural noun; this construction just means one of those. One of what, though? Logically, one rhinoceros makes sense, but maybe the question is whether tourists will continue to see poachers after the poachers have been discouraged from killing the rhinos ─ that's also a reasonable interpretation. The word one, then, is ambiguous. Eliminate answer (B) and (E).

(3) Verb: are

A vertical scan of the end of each answer choice reveals a split between present tense are and past perfect have been. Are both acceptable?

Verb tenses convey a time frame for an action and indicate when different actions happen relative to one another. In this sentence, the trimming of the horns must happen before a possible visit by tourists, so the simple present tense is inappropriate. The present perfect have been properly indicates that, at the time of a potential tourist visit, the horns must already have been trimmed. Eliminate answers (A), (B), and (D).

The Correct Answer

Correct answer (C) fixes the initial pronoun error by replacing their with the animals'. Furthermore, the sentence changes the X and Y construction to one with a more logical meaning: the tourists visit parks to see rhinoceroses.

Miscellaneous

Nowadays, whether and if are mostly used interchangeably. Formally, though, whether is used to indicate the meaning whether or not: Tell me whether you plan to go to the movies ─ I want to know whether you do or whether you don't. On the other hand, if is used for if-then (conditional) clauses: If you buy me an ice cream, I'll be happy.

To date, no published official questions have used if in a correct answer choice when the meaning technically matches the word whether. The official answer explanations, however, don't actually mention this issue. If you need to guess, don't pick an answer that uses if when the meaning is really whether or not.

The question in the sentence is whether tourists will continue come to the game parks with the intention of seeing rhinoceroses.

Would like to pitch in and throw some light on the possible confusion 'and see' and 'to see'.

Take two examples.
I went out of my house and saw the car.
I went out of my house to see the car.

In the first case it states that seeing the car is something that happened incidentally when I went out of my house, whereas the second sentence says that the entire intention of going out of the house was to see the car.

I'll eliminate (A) and (D) on the basis of just that.

(B) goes out for the ambiguous 'their'

(E) uses if, which is incorrect as the GMAT only wants you to use 'if' for conditional statement.

So (C) it is.

+1 for option C. This question tests you on the use of "if vs whether" and tenses. Choose whether and use present perfect form ! Option C is the winner

How do you know present perfect is needed here?

Hello bpdulog,

I will be glad to help you with this one.

The key to the correct usage of a verb tense in any sense is to understand the context and the intended meaning.

This official sentence intends to say probably the tourists come to see rhinoceroses because of their horns. So the question is whether the tourists will continue to come to see rhinoceroses after their horns have been trimmed.

The sentence does need the usage of present perfect tense because the action of trimming the horns will have been done already when the tourists visit the game park. But they still will be able to see the trimmed horns. So the effect of trimming will continue. Hence, the usage pf present perfect tense.


Hope this helps.
Thanks
Shraddha

Dear daagh sir,

please help me to understand the difference between animal's horns and animals' horns.

Regards

Dear Sonu. Hi!

Addition of apostrophe indicates possession.
Let's say there is a single subject such as a computer. When we want to refer to the cost of the single computer, we say the computer's - I repeat -the computer apostrophe and s. On the other hand, let us say there are two computers - a plural subject-. When we want to refer to the costs of both the computers, we say the computers' costs- I repeat - the computers apostrophe and costs -- There is no need to add another s after the apostrophe.

The situation is different, if you have an irregular form of a plural subject such as men, women, teeth, feet, mice etc etc. We need to add an 's' after the plurals, as in men's, women's, teeth's and so on.

A proposal has been made to trim the horns from rhinoceroses to discourage poachers; the question is whether tourists will continue to visit game parks and see rhinoceroses after their horns are trimmed.

(A) whether tourists will continue to visit game parks and see rhinoceroses after their horns are
"And see" loses the intention of why visitors come to visit. The contention is whether the act of trimming and de-horning rhinos will deter visitors from their intention to see rhinoceroses specifically, so "and see" simply loses this intention.

(B) whether tourists will continue to visit game parks to see one once their horns are
The use of "one" here is quite ambiguous as it could either refer to rhinoceroses or their horns in the same manner. When a more specific option is available, it doesn't make sense to opt for the sentence containing "one".

(C) whether tourists will continue to visit game parks to see rhinoceroses once the animals’ horns have been

Through the use of "if" loses the question and almost makes the question conditional without actually stating it. Perhaps it would be correct to say "the question, if the the tourists continue to visit, is" whether the de-horned rhinos will still appeal to the tourists.
(D) if tourists will continue to visit game parks and see rhinoceroses once the animals’ horns are
(E) if tourists will continue to visit game parks to see one after the animals’ horns have been

MartyTargetTestPrep

Makes complete sense.


I find eliminating a choice just because it includes "one" to be a bit too formulaic and, therefore, risky.

At the same time, what you said basically makes sense. Also, "one" could even mean "a park." Also, "their" almost seems to refer to "tourists."

Also, the truth is that it doesn't quite make sense to say that multiple tourists would visit multiple parks to see one rhinoceros. This issue may be the clearest reason for eliminating this choice.


Yes, exactly.

Dear RonPurewal DmitryFarber ccooley,

I just want to point out that OA to this question doesn't conform to what RonPurewal wrote here https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/foru ... tml#p36088

(C) whether tourists will continue to visit game parks to see rhinoceroses once the animals’ horns have been