A female meadow vole can produce a fresh litter of about five pups eve

A female meadow vole can produce a fresh litter of about five pups every three weeks if she chooses to breed at maximum speed, but they begin suppressing pup production from the moment they become concious of nearby voles in excess.

A/ they begin suppressing pup production from the moment they become conscious of nearby voles in excess
They - no clear antecedent... INCORRECT

B/ voles begin suppressing pup production from the moment they become conscious of an excess of nearby voles
Correct - They now has a clear & a valid antecedent

C/ the suppression of pup production begins by them from the moment they become conscious of nearby voles in excess
them - again lost in wonderland.... No antecedent.

D/ the moment they become conscious of an excess of nearby voles is when suppression of pup production begins
They - no clear antecedent... INCORRECT

E/ the moment voles become conscious of nearby voles in excess is when they begin suppressing pup production
they has a valid antecedent here but moment and when is redundant... INCORRECT

IMO - B

Why B ?
1. The prnoun has antecedent
2. I belive the sentence has a structure of X but Y

A/ they begin suppressing pup production from the moment they become conscious of nearby voles in excess
No antecedent for "they". Singular subject "female meadow"
B/ voles begin suppressing pup production from the moment they become conscious of an excess of nearby voles
CORRECT
C/ the suppression of pup production begins by them from the moment they become conscious of nearby voles in excess
No antecedent for "them".
D/ the moment they become conscious of an excess of nearby voles is when suppression of pup production begins
No antecedent for "they".
E/ the moment voles become conscious of nearby voles in excess is when they begin suppressing pup production
No antecedent for "they". The subject of second part of statement is The moment voles. Hence "they" does not have clear antecedent.

A female meadow vole can produce a fresh litter of about five pups every three weeks if she chooses to breed at maximum speed, but they begin puppressing pup production from the moment they become concious of nearby voles in excess.

A/ they begin suppressing pup production from the moment they become conscious of nearby voles in excess
B/ voles begin suppressing pup production from the moment they become conscious of an excess of nearby voles....CORRECT
C/ the suppression of pup productionbegins by themfrom the moment they become conscious of nearby voles in excess
D/ the moment theybecome conscious of an excess of nearby voles is when suppression of pup production begins
E/ the moment voles become conscious of nearby voles in excessis when they begin suppressing pup production

The first thing to look for is the subject verb agreement.
"A female vole" is singular, hence we cannot use "they"
Eliminate Options A, C and D

Out of B and E, Option E is unnecessarily wordy and awkward.
We do not need both "the moment" and "when"


Correct Option: B

A) they begin suppressing pup production from the moment they become conscious of nearby voles in excess
CORRECT CHOICE. Its not necessary that the antecedent should come before the noun(Read about that in this awesome article here). Here "they" refers to "voles". and "voles become conscious of nearby voles in excess". Sounds good.

B) voles begin suppressing pup production from the moment they become conscious of an excess of nearby voles
"they" refers to "voles". Sentence looks ok but the last part is incorrect. "they become conscious of an excess". This is a bit awkward. The last in A is much clearer. INCORRECT

C) the suppression of pup production begins by them from the moment they become conscious of nearby voles in excess
The sentence is in passive voice. But we have a better option in A which is ACTIVE. Hence ELIMINATE

D) the moment they become conscious of an excess of nearby voles is when suppression of pup production begins
Same as B -"they become conscious of an excess". INCORRECT

E) the moment voles become conscious of nearby voles in excess is when they begin suppressing pup production
Changes the entire meaning of the sentence with the subject "the moment". The moment is when they start suppressing pup production. INCORRECT

Hello Experts GMATNinja, Vyshak

Can you confirm whats the OA here? I have shared my reasoning in this thread and I believe A should be the answer and not B

A female meadow vole can produce a fresh litter of about five pups every three weeks if she chooses to breed at maximum speed, but they begin suppressing pup production from the moment they become concious of nearby voles in excess.

A/ they begin suppressing pup production from the moment they become conscious of nearby voles in excess - Incorrect. Here 'they' does not have a proper antecedent. 'Female meadow vole' is singular.

B/ voles begin suppressing pup production from the moment they become conscious of an excess of nearby voles - Correct.

C/ the suppression of pup production begins by them from the moment they become conscious of nearby voles in excess - Same as A. Pronoun error is repeated.

D/ the moment they become conscious of an excess of nearby voles is when suppression of pup production begins - Same as A

E/ the moment voles become conscious of nearby voles in excess is when they begin suppressing pup production - Passive construction. A appears to be better.

Answer: B

hi guys

why is a passive contruction wrong? and how do i identify it? as if dont seem to understand why E is passive construction?

Hi OA is B

It is the correct answer as pointed in many threads .
The basic difference between A and B is the use of pronoun "They".As it refers to pubs. It can not refer to meadow vole as it is singular .
So it has to refer to pups .
Now pups are not suppressing production and it is not the intended meaning of the sentence .
B is more direct and removes pronoun ambiguity also the phrase "nearby voles in excess" is not proper it is used correctly in B "excess of nearby voles"
Think about what A is saying .It says that the voles become conscious of nearby voles in excess , meaning excess conscious .Now this is absurd.

Hope it helps

Hi
Here is choice E

the moment voles become conscious of nearby voles in excess is when they begin suppressing pup production

E is wrong for meaning error.
the moment voles become conscious of nearby voles in excess this part of sentence is not correct because of the meaning error it is saying that voles become conscious of nearby voles in excess. Ideally they would become conscious of the excess in the nearby voles population.

This is not passive construction .
Passive construction would be The suppression of the production is done by Voles when they become conscious of excess in nearby voles .

Classic Subject-verb agreement error.
In the original sentence, the subject vole is singular, however, the underlined part uses plural verb with it. This is the big error.

A female meadow vole can produce a fresh litter of about five pups every three weeks if she chooses to breed at maximum speed, but they begin suppressing pup production from the moment they become conscious of nearby voles in excess.
Option B corrects this error by introducing plural subject and using a plural verb to create subject-verb agreement.

Hi mikemcgarry, can you please explain why E is incorrect? From all the posts, I read above, I could not see a clear convincing explanation that its incorrect besides that its awkward and that the meaning sounds off.

In option E - the moment voles become conscious of nearby voles in excess is when they begin suppressing pup production

"they can refer to any of the two "voles" that is present earlier in the sentence. Hence it leads to confusion as to which voles begin suppressing the pup production - whether it is the voles that become conscious or the voles that are present nearby.

So, we can rule out this option because of this pronoun-antecedent ambiguity.

A female meadow vole can produce a fresh litter of about five pups every three weeks if she chooses to breed at maximum speed, but they begin suppressing pup production from the moment they become conscious of nearby voles in excess.


A. they begin suppressing pup production from the moment they become conscious of nearby voles in excess

B. voles begin suppressing pup production from the moment they become conscious of an excess of nearby voles

C. the suppression of pup production begins by them from the moment they become conscious of nearby voles in excess

D. the moment they become conscious of an excess of nearby voles is when suppression of pup production begins

E. the moment voles become conscious of nearby voles in excess is when they begin suppressing pup production

The correct phrase is excess of nearby voles, that eliminates ACE. D is passive. Hence, B is the correct answer.

Bunuel, GMAT Prep question. Please tag it.

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Done. Thank you.