Hi all,

Schistosomiasis, a disease caused by a parasitic worm, is prevalent in hot, humid climates, and it has become more widespread as irrigation projects have enlarged the habitat of the freshwater snails that are the parasite's hosts for part of its life cycle.

Meaning:
• Schistosomiasis is a disease that is caused by a parasitic worm.
• It is prevalent in places with hot and humid climate.
• The disease has become more widespread with the increase in irrigation projects.
• These projects have enlarged the habitat of the freshwater snails that play the host of the parasite for a part of its life cycle.

Error Analysis:
• Subject “that” that stands for “the freshwater snails” agrees in number and makes sense with the verb “are”. No SV pair error.
• This sentence is providing general facts about the disease and its cause. Hence simple present tense “are“ is correct.
• “that” clause correctly modifies “the freshwater snails” giving information that these snails become host to the parasite for some part in its life.
• There are no pronoun, no parallelism, no idiom and no meaning error errors.

Answer Choice Analysis:
A. the freshwater snails that are the parasite's hosts for part of its life cycle: Correct as is.

B. the freshwater snails that are the parasite's hosts in part of their life cycle: Incorrect. Reference of pronoun “their” distorts the intended meaning of the sentence. Plural “their” now refers to “the freshwater snails” meaning that they are host to the parasite in part of snails’ life cycle and not in part of the parasite’s life cycle. This is not the intended meaning of the sentence.

C. freshwater snails which become the parasite's hosts for part of its life cycles: Incorrect. Plural “life cycles” is incorrect because a singular “parasite” can have only one life cycle and not multiple life cycles.

D. freshwater snails which become the hosts of the parasite during the parasite's life cycle: Incorrect. Repetition of “parasite’s” instead of a pronoun makes this choice wordier.

E. parasite's hosts, freshwater snails which become their hostsduring their life cycles: Incorrect. Same pronoun reference error as in B.

Take-Away
1. The pronoun must agree in number with its antecedent.
2. Be vary of the choices that distort he intended meaning of the sentence.

Hope this helps.
Thanks.
Shraddha
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Understand here are two splits-

Idioms-

S0 (adjective) that (clause) -Correct idiom

So (Adjective) as to (Verb) Wrong Idiom

C Goes X
B and D have such, it should be accompanies by that (Such...That....)

Split 2: Economic and Economical
Economical is certainly wrong, B D and E again goes...

A is the correct answer.
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Dear ygdrasil24,

Your understanding is correct.

However, note that "its" is the possessive form of the pronoun "it".

Usually for nouns, we add an apostrophe and an "s" to indicate possessive form. ("lion's", "builder's" etc.)

However, it's on the other hand is the short form for "it is". The possessive form of "it" is "its"

As you know, the possessive form of a pronoun can refer to the possessive form of a noun.

In the above mentioned sentence "its" (possessive pronoun) is referring to "parasite's" (possessive noun).

Hope this helps

Regards,
Krishna
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We want to comment on schistosomiasis, therefor we need to introduce our answer with "it is" because "it is" refers to that strange word. C/D/E, gone. B omits "that" and it uses "economical" incorrectly - By the way, so do D and E - so that leaves us with A, which correctly uses it, that and economic.

39. Although schistosomiasis is not often fatal, it is so debilitating that it has become an economic drain on many developing countries.
(A) it is so debilitating that it has become an economic
(B) it is of such debilitation, it has become an economical
(C) so debilitating is it as to become an economic
(D) such is its debilitation, it becomes an economical
(E) there is so much debilitation that it has become an economical
Although schistosomiasis is not often fatal, it is so debilitating that it has become an economic drain on many developing countries.

Analysis of the original sentence -

Meaning - S is not fat but S is so debilitating that it has hurt developing countries

• Although (DC marker) schistosomiasis (subject) is (verb) not often (adverb) fatal (adjective) ---- (DC)
• It (subject – pronoun refers back to subject of DC) is (verb) so debilitating (adjective??) ----IC
• that it (subject – pronoun) has become (verb) an economic drain on many developing countries.---- DC

POE -

A) No error
b) it is of such debilitation, it has become an economical
such x that y - that is missing
C> though it sound very awkward but cant pin point the exact error. Is SO X AS TO BECOME Y correct. If so what could be X and Y. If X has to be an adjective then there is no IC in option C.
D> such is its debilitation, it becomes an economical - Meaning issue...when one says its debilitation - does that mean S is in a debilitated state
E> there is so much debilitation that it has become an economical - Change in meaning. Option doesn't clearly states that S causes debilitation

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Although, shistosomiasis is not often fatal, it is so debilitating that it has become an economic drain on many devloping countries

(A) it is so debilitating that it has become an economic drain
(B) it is of such debilition, it has become an economical
(C) so debilitating is it as to become an economic
(D) such is its debilitation, it becomes an economical
(E) there is so much debilitaiton that it has become an economical.(A) it is so debilitating that it has become an economic drain

Check for the non underlined part of the sentence (Which is always correct!, Here it is Developing) , ing verb form - Developing, look for the options which have ing+verb (Here it is - debilitating /debilition) in underlined options (a, b, c, d, e) , It must match (ing+verb == ing+verb) , So clearly options (B, D and E) are OUT.
Out of options A and C, look at option C - Wordier sentence and not parallel.
So, Options A is the correct answer.

Hi x2suresh,

Thank you for your question. Here is how I tackled this question, starting with a quick glance over each answer to find obvious differences.

The first thing I noticed is a common vocabulary issue that shows up in GMAT questions: economic vs. economical. They mean two different things, so let's decide which one we should use:

Economic = dealing with the economy
Economical = being thrifty; spending less money

Based on their definitions and the original meaning, we should only keep answers that use "economic" because the sentence is talking about the economy, not thriftiness. Therefore, we can rule out answers B, D, & E.

Now we're left with answers A & C. Let's look at what's different about each:

(A) it is so debilitating that it has become an economic drain
This is the CORRECT answer because it uses the word "economic" correctly, and it uses parallel structure.

(C) so debilitating is it as to become an economic
This one is INCORRECT because this is not the proper idiomatic structure to show cause & effect, and it also sounds incredibly awkward.
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Hello,
If i am not wrong we do us the phrase "so X as to Y" in some cases. correct me if i am wrong

Example:
1)Often major economic shifts are so gradual as to be indistinguishable at first from ordinary fluctuations in the financial markets.

2)The category 1 to 5 rating known as the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale provides an estimate of a hurricane’s potential of destroying or damaging property, and is primarily determined from wind speed; a category 5 storm has wind speeds so high as to blow away small buildings, completely destroy mobile homes, and cause severe window and door damage.
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