While airline travel can be detrimental to your health, many exercise

Straight D - As the underline portion of the sentence contain "is a surprising number of airports" whereas we need "ARE" with "a number of airports" - So A and B are out.

Out of C D & E we need "like" New york and Chicago rather than "Such as" so C and E are out.....hence OA is D.

I don't think this is 700 level question....

Lets split the clauses:
C1: While airline travel can be detrimental to your health, many exercise experts point out that
C2: there is a surprising number of airports in the United States
C3: –even those in the major cities such as New York and Chicago
C4: – that are adjacent to public parks and pedestrian paths and that are easily reachable during long layovers.

Now, the subject in C2 is "a surprising number of airports".
The subject and verb are written in reverse form.
"there is a surprising number of airports"

Since , a number is always plural. A and B are out.

D uses like.. As per GMAT, Like is used as a verb and as a noun when comparing entities. To state examples we use "such as".
So D is also out.

B/w C & E,

E is better. C is not wrong, but makes sentence a bit wordier, as it separates the two entities with that clause..

Thanks,
Jai

KUDOS if it helped..!!!

Clear D. Explanation from Transcendentalist says it all..I got carried away with 'Such As', good learning such as is not always right. Thanks!

The rule of thumb is:
Like can be converted to similar to X, whereas such as brings up a list of examples (which don't necessary have to be similar to X)

I would say, it's not the best example of usage in this sentence because we can't infer what the author means. It can be two things:
a) the major cities we refer to have to be similar to New York or Chicago (in terms of size, population, who knows? but they have to)
b) the major cities we refer to might have some things in common with... (a few examples here: New York, Chicago ... x, y, z) => less stronger than (a)

In (a) we infer that New York and Chicago have similarities between them and share special things which can only be found in these two cities, which the "major cities" have to be similar to.
In (b) the meaning is more generic, we want to bring up a list a of examples without necessary implying anything.

So, bottom line is, if the author meant (a) was correct, (b) he wasn't. Though I don't personally like this question, it doesn't mean it's necessarily wrong.
Also, straight from the horse's mouth: https://www.manhattangmat.com/strategy-s ... rammar.cfm
Hope this helps

Hello,
how can one arrive at the intended meaning of sentence on higher difficulty questions? When a statement which reflects the meaning of the original sentence (A) and a sentence which conveys another meaning different from the original meaning , we usually tend to choose the sentence which reflects statement A isn't it?

doesn't D convey a different meaning which A doesn't state or is this a scenario specific to this question where we choose a sentence with a different meaning?

This seems to be like a wrong question. I always thought like means the items do not include the like terms. Such as means the terms include the such as terms. I wonder why the correct answer has 'like' in it rather than 'such as'? Please help

Yes GMAT generally prefers use of "such as" for quoting examples.

Hence don't worry about too much in this question.

The takeaway from this question was that we overlooked meaning issue in C,D and E.

Hope it helps

Hi Neha, there have been instances in official questions, where GMAT has used like to give examples (as is the case in the current question under consideration), especially in the non-underlined portion.

Hence, it might not be prudent to immediately discard an option, using this criterion.

Can you share some official questions where like is used to give examples ?

Sure Harsh..here is one that comes to my mind:

Especially in the early years, new entrepreneurs may need to find resourceful ways, like renting temporary office space or using answering services, to make their companies seem large and more firmly established that they may actually be.

While airline travel can be detrimental to your health, many exercise experts point out that there is a surprising number of airports in the United States –even those in the major cities such as New York and Chicago – that are adjacent to public parks and pedestrian paths and that are easily reachable during long layovers.

(A) is a surprising number of airports in the United States – even those in the major cities such as New York and Chicago – that are adjacent to public parks and pedestrian paths and that are easily reachable during long layovers. -> a number of hints for plural verb, but we have singular verb "is". Incorrect.

(B) is a surprising number of airports in the United States – even those in the major cities like New York and Chicago – that are adjacent to public parks, pedestrian paths, and easily reachable during long layovers. -> same as A. another issue is "like" for examples.

(C) are a surprising number of airports in the United States – even those in the major cities such as New York and Chicago – that are adjacent to public parks and pedestrian paths and that are easily reachable during long layovers. -> Does airports are easily easily reachable during long layovers or public parks and pedestrian paths. Meaning issue. Incorrect.

(D) are a surprising number of airports in the United States – even those in the major cities like New York and Chicago – that are adjacent to public parks and pedestrian paths, easily reachable during long layovers. -> This makes sense.

(E) are a surprising number of airports in the United States – even those in the major cities such as New York and Chicago – that are adjacent to public parks and pedestrian paths, and easily reachable during long layovers. -> Same as C. Meaning issue. Incorrect.

So, I think D.

"Like" and "Unlike" are strictly meant for comparisons, and there are specific idioms which are used with "Like" and "Unlike".
" Like X, Y" or "X, like Y" are correct idioms,
Similarly, "Unlike X, Y" and "X, unlike Y" are correct idioms, where X and Y must be parallel to each other.
Any other usage is wrong in GMAT World.
To introduce examples, "such as" is used.
Therefore, the above question is not of GMAT Standards and should be ignored, otherwise such questions ruin the concept learned.

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I dnt understand why "there is a number of...." is incorrect. number being a collective noun should be used with singular tense?

Also, "– even those in the major cities like New York and Chicago –"; shouldnt it be "such as" instead of "like"?

GMATNinja VeritasKarishma egmat

"a number of" = many
So it is essentially "there are many airports ..."

"the number of airports" will be singular.
e.g. The number of airports with wifi is increasing...

Major publications routinely use 'like' to give examples. So we might prefer 'such as' but we should not treat it as a decision point. Look for other errors.

I think this question has no clear answer.
A and B are incorrect for using "is" instead of "are".
C and E have shifted the meaning of the sentence.
D is debatable. For giving examples, some say GMAT does not prefer "like" while some others say GMAT forbids "like".
I eliminated D on the basis of this reason.

Intiallt that we have to keep in mind is that airports are plural hence A and B are out
and cities has to be like no the other way around as such moreover and that are easily reachable distorts the meaning because it brings in the meaniing that along with far distanced parks there are those which are quite near no, the argument intends to say that parks are easily reachable
Hence in the light of all the consideration IMO D

Although it sounded off in my head, I went by this logic :

"number.." is singular right?

we would say "The number of men required to do the job IS ten" rather than say "The number of men required to do the job ARE ten".
If the above usage is correct, wouldn't the right way be " IS a number of airports " rather than "ARE a number of airports"?