Unlike most volcanoes, found mostly along the boundaries of

My answer, if you may all it the official answer, is E as many have rightly spotted. The clue here is to remove the parenthesis, which interferes with the main course of the sentence, ad make clear the intended meaning that volcanoes are in the boundaries while hot spots are in the interiors.

(D) Hot spots, harboured on the Earth’s surface and lying deeply in the interior of the plates, unlike most volcanoes, are found along the boundaries of the continental and oceanic plates that comprise the Earth’s crust

Distorts the meaning , according to this version hot spots lie deeply in the interior of the plates and are found along the boundaries of the plates.

Both the statements cant be simultaneously true until the boundary also lies deep in the interior of plates.
But boundary cannot be in the interior of plate, hence D is wrong....

Removing the parenthesis makes it "Unlike most volcanoes, the hot spots are harboured" and comparing most volcanoes to the hot spots doesn't seem correct to me. I am still sticking with D, but I'm not sure. This is a tough one and I would like to know the OA.

Dear Lethal

I composed this passage as part of my tutorials for my online GMAT students. You will not find a source for these in any other place. Hence, you may take my answer and explanation as the official ones.


Now, you say:

Removing the parenthesis makes it "Unlike most volcanoes, the hot spots are harbored" and comparing most volcanoes to the hot spots doesn't seem correct to me

If you can not compare volcanoes with hot spots, what else is the comparison between? Volcanoes and earth’s crust? The intention is to compare volcanoes found along the boundaries with the hot spots found in the interiors.

(D) Hot spots, harbored on the Earth’s surface and lying deeply in the interior of the plates, unlike most volcanoes, are found along the boundaries of the continental and oceanic plates that comprise the Earth’s crust

In the case of Choice D, the parenthesis content is “harbored on the Earth’s surface and lying deeply in the interior of the plates, unlike most volcanoes” You must remove both the features i.e., “harbored on the earth’s surface” as well as “unlike most volcanoes” The you are left with –“Hot spots …… are found along the boundaries of the continental and oceanic plates that comprise the Earth’s crust”. Isn’t this an anti- thesis?

Therefore D is wrong

In most of the 700 plus questions, you find more of the altered intent, improper word usage examples with plenty of grey areas, making them quite time – consuming to solve in the pressure – cooker atmosphere of the real GMAT and leading to the downfall of many an aspirant, And that is the crux of GMAT

Hope this helps .

It cannot be D as the meaning absolutely changed...E seems the correct one but ya this one was quite confusing.

IMO E it is the only option in which the modifiers are linked to the correct object i.e. Volcanoes found along boundaries and hotspots lying deep in the surface

OA is certainly Choice E

This is a good question, though I was stuck b/w D and E but thanks to the explanation of daagh!

E makes sense.

Nice Question, Time consuming but good practice!