The food of Brazil, like its people, is heterogeneous; it is a cross

A.The food of Brazil, like its people, is heterogeneous; it is a cross mostly between Portuguese and Italian, with some indigenous influences.---- Incorrect, I feel the use of As would be better.
B.The food of Brazil is as heterogeneous as its people; it is a cross mostly between Portuguese and Italian, and contains some indigenous influences.--- The first its is confusing, We do not know if it refers to food or Brazil. The second it could again refer to food or people
C.The food of Brazil is as heterogeneous as the country’s people: a cross mostly between Portuguese and Italian, with some indigenous influences.--- CORRECT
D.The food of Brazil is as heterogeneous as its people: a cross mostly between Portuguese and Italian and contains some indigenous influences.--- Its again could refer to food or Brazil. Also people cannot contain indigenous influences. This sentence is illogical.
E.The food of Brazil is as heterogeneous as the country’s people with a cross mostly between Portuguese and Italian, and some indigenous influences.--- I think this sentence changes meaning. It is trying to say that the food of brazil is as heterogeneous as the country's people with a cross mostly between ....

can someone help me explain the use of "with"

a cross mostly between Portuguese and Italian, with some indigenous influences.

Here the statement after comma followed by word "with" is correct.

However, I saw GMAT sentences that marked such statements as incorrect.

Any experts can help me explain why some statements with " "comma" followed by the word "with" is correct and why some are not.

I am bit confused here, who is cross between Portuguese and Italian? is it food or people.
Original sentence says food is a cross between Portuguese and Italian.

In option C. country's people are placed right before explanation after colon and here it changing the meaning, is it right ?
the country’s people: a cross mostly between Portuguese and Italian, with some indigenous influences.

I see only one logical referent for Its...can you elaborate on how is it ambiguous?

"Its" is probably more "dead wrong" than ambiguous, actually. Because the subject of the sentence is "the food", with "of Brazil" as a prepositional phrase telling us more about "which food", then "its" refers to "the food". But food doesn't have people that a country does! My point with even mentioning the "unclear" reference there is that your mind almost naturally processes it as "Brazil's people" because "the food's people" is so illogical. But when you look at what the sentence really says, "its" means "the food's".

Ohh..this was a tough one..I doubt If I will be able to spot such errors on the GMAT even after practicing this or more similar ones...it is just too small for the naked eye I can say..

The food of Brazil is as heterogeneous as the country’s people: a cross mostly between Portuguese and Italian, with some indigenous influences.


MY reasoning to omit the OA was , I couldn't
find the acting verb after the colon , in order to make the whole part after colon IC2

The food of Brazil, like its people, is heterogeneous; it is a cross mostly between Portuguese and Italian, with some indigenous influences.

A.The food of Brazil, like its people, is heterogeneous; it is a cross mostly between Portuguese and Italian, with some indigenous influences.
B.The food of Brazil is as heterogeneous as its people; it is a cross mostly between Portuguese and Italian, and contains some indigenous influences.
C.The food of Brazil is as heterogeneous as the country’s people: a cross mostly between Portuguese and Italian, with some indigenous influences.
D.The food of Brazil is as heterogeneous as its people: a cross mostly between Portuguese and Italian and contains some indigenous influences.
E.The food of Brazil is as heterogeneous as the country’s people with a cross mostly between Portuguese and Italian, and some indigenous influences.

for C - in case of colon watever you need to modify it should be placed closest to it ; IN C it seems the people is a cross ;
Well in this case both B and C is wrong then .

Let us deal with a few important aspects of the use of a colon.
1.
vipulgoel wrote:

A. It is imperative that what is said before the colon is a complete sentence. B. What comes after that colon need not be a clause; only thing is that the second part should be related to the first and should define or complement the first part. However, it is not necessary that the second part should be an independent clause with a verb of its own.

For a clear perception of this tenet of grammar please vast this link.

https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/educat ... mar/colons


2.
Rohitkumar wrote



In C, the phrase that follows the colon is an absolute modifier like an adverbial modifier, modifying the subject of the previous clause and its verb. Therefore, the 'cross' does refer to the food and it being a hybrid of Portuguese and Italian cuisines. More importantly, proximity is an eligible contender only after logic. You do not expect all the people of Brazil today to be a cross between Portuguese and Italians; at least, Brazil was a colony of Portugal, but Italy never laid its hand on Brazil; the worst connotations is the phrase, ‘with some local influence’. It is too much to infer that the contemporary people of Brazil are a three way cross between Portugal, Italy, and the locals. So have no doubts, the reference of a cross is indeed pointing to the food. We may see that it is befitting to take a regional cuisine as a multiple amalgam. So, what follows after a colon need not necessarily refer to the factor just before.

The use of like actually seems to be fine here.

GMATNinja , MartyMurray , VeritasKarishma

I still have a confusion despite the above explanations.

Why is "its" in A and B unclear. its may have 2 referants: Food and Brazil. We can't say "food's people" so by default the "its" must refer to "brazil". Why can't a pronoun refer to a noun inside a prepositional phrase. Please help!!!!

In general, the best way to handle pronouns on the GMAT is to start by being strict and literal. In theory, "its" could refer to either "Brazil" or "food", so this is arguably a case of pronoun ambiguity. And given the choice, I suppose it's clearer to say "the country's people" than "its people."

In practice, though, I don't think it's a big deal in this case. The potential ambiguity in (A) and (B) doesn't really cause much confusion, since "Brazil" is the closest singular noun to "its." More importantly, pronoun ambiguity isn't an absolute rule on the GMAT. More on that issue in this video.

And please also keep in mind that the GMAT spends thousands of dollars developing each individual GMAT question, and even the very best test-prep companies can't possibly compete with that. So don't overthink this particular issue in this particular question, since there's a lot of nuance to the way that the GMAT actually handles pronoun ambiguity.

I hope this helps!

Difficult one :

The food of Brazil, like its people, is heterogeneous; it is a cross mostly between Portuguese and Italian, with some indigenous influences.

A.The food of Brazil, like its people, is heterogeneous; it is a cross mostly between Portuguese and Italian, with some indigenous influences. - Pronoun ambiguity (food's people...really?)

B.The food of Brazil is as heterogeneous as its people; it is a cross mostly between Portuguese and Italian, and contains some indigenous influences.-Pronoun ambiguity

C.The food of Brazil is as heterogeneous as the country’s people: a cross mostly between Portuguese and Italian, with some indigenous influences. - Correct

D.The food of Brazil is as heterogeneous as its people: a cross mostly between Portuguese and Italian and contains some indigenous influences.-Pronoun ambiguity

E.The food of Brazil is as heterogeneous as the country’s people with a cross mostly between Portuguese and Italian, and some indigenous influences.-Nonsensical

As Brian mentioned in his comment above, it is not really a case of ambiguous antecedent but rather incorrect antecedent.

The food of Brazil, like its people ...

"of Brazil" is a modifier for "food". We don't "carry it" along, so to say, to the other side of like. So when we say "like its people", we are talking about food here. This is problematic.

'
Are ":" allowed to refer independent sentences. Shouldn't option "C" have ";" instead of ":"

"WOW" - This is what I uttered went I realised it. This was something amazing. It's deadly subtle. I got into the trap. I thought the repetition of "country" is redundant when A has a pronoun. Good question.

I really liked your explanation..very well explained.

Thank you.

Posted from my mobile device

Amazing catch. I think all miss that.