Africa’s population of elephants declined by nearly a third from 2007 to 2014, much of them because of poaching . A. Africa’s population of elephants declined by nearly a third from 2007 to 2014, much of them because of poaching. B. From 2007 to 2014, Africa’s elephant population has declined by nearly a third, mostly due to poaching. C. Africa’s elephant population declined by nearly a third from 2007 to 2014, much of that decline a result of poaching. D. The population of elephants in Africa declined by 30 percent from 2007 to 2014, many of them because of poaching. E. From 2007 to 2014, the African elephant population had declined by nearly a third, many of them being poached.

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Africa’s population of elephants declined by nearly a third from 2007

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ExpertsGlobal5

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20 Oct 2022, 04:50

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kittle

Hey GMATNinja, is "declined" in option C not a verb-ed modifier? Population cannot do the action of "declined" right?

GMATNinja

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B. From 2007 to 2014, Africa’s elephant population has declined by nearly a third, mostly due to poaching.

Nightmare007, the issue with "due to" is that it can only modify a noun, not a verb. In (B), the phrase "mostly due to poaching" is trying to modify "has declined" -- and that's a verb. So "due to" is wrong in this case. A full thread on "due to" can be found here: https://gmatclub.com/forum/due-to-vs-be ... 40393.html

This isn't really a meaning issue, though: it arguably makes logical sense to say "caused by" or "due to" here, but "due to" is grammatically incorrect. You'll often hear that you can just replace "due to" with "caused by", but that's a little shortcut that doesn't always work for everybody. If you're OK with the grammatical explanation, that's much more reliable. (The shortcut tends to work for native speakers who don't really know anything about English grammar. Since we stopped teaching grammar in the U.S. a couple of generations ago, that shortcut can be great for Americans -- but most people are probably better off without it.)

Hello kittle,

We hope this finds you well.

To clarify, the noun "population" can absolutely take the action of "declining": to say that a population has declined means that the population has become smaller, in other words, "population of X declined" means that X has declined in number.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
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kittle

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20 Oct 2022, 23:38

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The way I have been reading it is:
Africa’s elephant population declined by nearly a third from 2007 to 2014, much of that decline a result of poaching.
^ "Africa's elephant population" has no "verb" if declined is a verb-ed modifier. ExpertsGlobal5

ExpertsGlobal5

kittle

Hey GMATNinja, is "declined" in option C not a verb-ed modifier? Population cannot do the action of "declined" right?

This isn't really a meaning issue, though: it arguably makes logical sense to say "caused by" or "due to" here, but "due to" is grammatically incorrect. You'll often hear that you can just replace "due to" with "caused by", but that's a little shortcut that doesn't always work for everybody. If you're OK with the grammatical explanation, that's much more reliable. (The shortcut tends to work for native speakers who don't really know anything about English grammar. Since we stopped teaching grammar in the U.S. a couple of generations ago, that shortcut can be great for Americans -- but most people are probably better off without it.)

ExpertsGlobal5

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21 Oct 2022, 04:11

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kittle

ExpertsGlobal5

kittle

[/quote]

Hello kittle,

We hope this finds you well.

To clarify, here "declined" is very much an active verb rather than a past participle acting as a modifier: here, "declined" is the simple past tense form of "decline".

We hope this helps.
All the best!
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Thanhnguyenvanz

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14 Jul 2023, 16:33

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Hi ! Good morning all
Hope you clarify my question regarding Gmat'post ,here in ""'
To clarify, the noun "population" can absolutely take the action of "declining": to say that a population has declined means that the population has become smaller, in other words, "population of X declined" means that X has declined in number'
Are there any differences between two sentences:

1 : elephant has declined in number ( as Posted by GMAT expert
2 : the population has declined

Posted from my mobile device