imaru wrote:
The army cutworm moth is a critical source of fat for many of Yellowstone National Park's grizzly bears; they overturn rocks to find them and consuming as many as 40,000 apiece in a single day.
A. bears; they overturn rocks to find them and consuming as many as
B. bears [;] overturning rocks to find the insects, consuming up to
C. bears, overturning rocks to find them and they consume as many as
D. bears, and they overturn rocks to find them and consume up to
E. bears, which overturn rocks to find the insects, consuming as many as
Although the discussion of participial modifiers [comma + verbING] is fruitful,
it is probably quicker to use these concept areas to eliminate four incorrect answers
• pronoun disagreement (NOT ambiguity), and
• a semicolon used incorrectly
The sentence means that a certain kind of worm is a critical source of fat for grizzly bears—so critical
that grizzly bears overturn rocks to find and consume thousands of these insects each day.
Split #1: The army cutworm, singular, vs. pronoun THEM, pluralIgnore pronoun ambiguity.
We know what "them" is supposed to mean: the bugs that the bears eat.
Because two options use "the insects," check the pronoun THEM for antecedent disagreement or non-existence.
Options A, C, and D contain pronoun disagreement.
GMAC often tolerates pronoun ambiguity.
Occasionally GMAC tolerates ambiguity even if two forms of a similar pronoun are used.
GMAC never tolerates disagreement between pronoun and antecedent.
In the underlined portion, as usual, GMAC gives a clue about whether
"the critical source of fat" for grizzly bears is singular or plural.
The moth is singular. (The verb that follows the moth is singular:
IS.)
Options A, C, and D incorrectly use the plural pronoun
them to refer to the bugs that the bears eat.
Eliminate A, C, and D
Split #2: Semicolons must separate two full independent clausesThe RHS of B is not a complete sentence—the RHS is not an independent clause,
because that RHS has neither subject nor verb,
and an independent clause requires both.
RHS of semicolon in B:
overturning rocks to find the insects, consuming up to 40,000 apiece in a single day.-- No subject.
-- No verb. Participial verbals (verbINGs and verbEDs) are not working verbs.
Wrong, no working verb: The leader spreading discontent and hatred.
Correct, contains a working verb: The leader spread discontent and hatred.
Do not worry about whether the verbING can "hop over" the semicolon (it cannot).
The right hand side of the semicolon is not a full sentence. End of story.
The semicolon in B incorrectly contains one clause that is not a full independent clause.
Eliminate B.
By POE, the answer is E
• Check. Does E have errors?PRONOUN ISSUE?
No. In E, the sentence sensibly uses "the insects" to refer to what the bears eat.
COMMA + WHICH?
Correct. That structure modifies the immediately preceding noun,
bears.
Which can always refer to
non-human nouns.
--
Which can
never refer to people. We use
who for people.
COMMA + WHICH = a non-essential modifier set off by a comma
If we remove the non-essential modifier (comma + which), the sentence still makes sense.
We could end the sentence this way and retain the core meaning of the sentence:
The army cutworm moth is a critical source of fat for many of Yellowstone National Park's grizzly bears.
The answer is E
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