Because the collagen fibers in skin line up in the direction of

The main clause is actually not a compound sentence but an IC with two properly conjugated predicates.


Because the collagen fibers in the skin line up in the direction of tension,--- The DC part

a surgical cut made along these so-called Langer’s lines severs fewer fibers -- The IC with the first predicate - severs is the verb.

and -- the conjunction between two predicates

is less likely to leave an unsightly scar. --- The second predicate of the IC.

Actually, the whole sentence is a complex sentence

C is the correct answer

The first split is between "less" and "fewer"

"Few(er)" is used for countable nouns - i.e., nouns which can be counted on fingertips (e.g., apples, oranges, books, etc.). "Less" is used for uncountable nouns - money, time, distance, water, etc. We can clearly count the number of fibers [we can go 1 fiber, 2 fibers, 3 fibers, etc.]. , so "fewer" is correct. This eliminates B and D.

Between "line up" - the verb form, and "lining up" - the "ing" form, the GMAT always prefers the verb form [PROVIDED there is no error logically/grammatically]. Additionally, here we want to give a reason as to why these surgical cuts made along these Langer's lines cause less damage. "With" does not indicate a reason as precisely as "Because". Eliminate D and E

Between A and C - the main distinction is between whether the subject should be singular or plural. "A surgical cut" in C is singular, whereas "surgical cuts" in A is plural. If we look at the non-underlined portion of the sentence, we see a singular verb - "and IS LESS LIKELY..." associated with the subject. Therefore, A is out.

Hence, C is the best answer.

The non-underlined portion has a clue “is less likely” that Subject is singular “a surgical cut”, and the corresponding parallel verb “severs” --> eliminating A, D & E.

The phrase “having been made” is wrong diction, or C is just CONCISE.

is less likely - singular , needs a singular verb
hence surgical cuts - plural (incorrect) . so, A,D are wrong.

langer's lines - countable . Uses fewer instead of less

hence B,D are out.

a surgical cut - singular - needs singular verb - severs. Hence, E is wrong


Correct ans - c

Could you explain me why "having been made" is incorrect ? Many thanks!!

A surgical cut is a countable noun. So, we need fewer rather less. The non-underlined portion is showing the verb "is" thus a surgical cut correct rather surgical cuts. A, B, and D are eliminated. E is eliminated for started with "with". The answer is C.

Because the construction is awkward. I meant not a good diction.

Hi VeritasKarishma AndrewN Hope you are doing well!

I have a question here related to option B and C. Fortunately we have 'having been made' in option B that helped me eliminate it and the decision point for me was not less/fewer, but if that would have been the only case how would we know that fibers are something that can be countable? Given the context of the sentence, it seems like it is talking about some fiber in skins now if you ask me whether the number of veins in my body are countable or not I wouldn't be sure . So can you please provide some guidance? Appreciate your time and response.

Hello RohitSaluja,

We hope this finds you well.

Having gone through the question and your query, we believe that we can help resolve your doubt.

Differentiating between countable and uncountable nouns requires understanding the meaning conveyed by the nouns in the given context. One good way to differentiate between them is to understand that a noun is countable if it refers to something that exists as a discreet entity, an individual thing. In the examples you gave, we can tell that there are multiple, individual collagen fibers and blood vessels; these elements may be linked together, but they still exist as separate things, meaning they can be quantified. This principle applies to abstract nouns as well; for example, "ambitions" - an ambition, or a "goal", is not a physical thing, but multiple ambitions can exist separate from one another. Consider this sentence - "John had two ambitions: securing an MBA and buying a home." Here, "John" is said to have two separate, individual ambitions or goals, so "ambitions" is countable.

Conversely, a noun is uncountable if it does not refer to something that can be said to exist as an individual thing, since this means that the thing, by its nature, cannot exist in multiple, cannot be subdivided, and thus cannot be quantified. Abstract concepts are typically uncountable; for example, "happiness" - there is no such thing as "a happiness" or "two happiness", as the word refers to a conceptual idea. Another common type of uncountable noun, probably the most common on GMAT, is material nouns. Material nouns are those that refer to substances, such as "water", "iron", "milk", "sugar", etc. These are uncountable, as they refer to the general concept of the material rather than to an individual piece or unit of it. In the sentence "The gate is made of iron.", "iron" refers to iron in general rather than to an individual piece of iron.

Please note that uncountable nouns can be broken into countable versions. "ambition" refers to a feeling of wanting to do something and, like "happiness", is an abstract, uncountable noun. However, as seen above, "ambitions" is a countable noun that refers to individual things that one wants to do. Similarly, material nouns can be made countable, if they are broken into quantifiable elements. Consider the sentences - "The gate is made of stone." and "The gate is made of stones."; the first refers to stone in general, and the second refers to individual pieces of stone. Another example is "water" and "buckets of water" or "liters of water"; the first refers to water as a general substance, and the latter two refer to discreet, countable units of water.

Put simply, whether a noun is countable or uncountable does not depend on whether it can physically be counted. Rather, this factor is determined by whether the noun exists in a form that can conceptually or theoretically be quantified.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
Experts' Global Team

Hello, RohitSaluja. I do not wish to recap what ExpertsGlobal5 has written above, so I will point out, first, that if you noticed the "fortunate" element having been made in answer choice (B), good for you: use easy points of consideration to doubt or even eliminate answer choices before you turn to more involved matters. Second, you could also seek to place a number ahead of the word in question to test countability. Some examples drawn from this sentence:

a) two collagen fibers
b) in one skin (humans are understood to have a single organ called skin)
c) four surgical cuts
d) one unsightly scar

If you are up for a read, you can take in a lot more information on the topic in this post from the Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL). I hope it helps.

Thank you for thinking to ask me about the question.

- Andrew

A rule of thumb is that you cannot make plural of an uncountable noun.
Since the sentence uses fibres (plural of fibre), it is countable. Whether it will take you 1 hour to count or 1 day or a lifetime, it doesn't matter.

There is no plural for rice (no rices for example) but a grain of rice has a plural - grains of rice. So grain is countable though counting them may still be a difficult task.

Hello experts,
got it right,
just want to make sure -

a surgical cut having been made along these so-called Langer???s lines severs
vs
surgical cuts made along these so-called Langer???s lines sever

having been made vs made-
I think both are right, but there no need to change into passive.
C is short and clear.

Am I right? If not,
Apart from that- whats wrong with having been made?

Thank you.

Easy elimination:
Severs(not sever)- A surgical cut
Fewer(not lesser) - Lines

Ans (C)

The problem with "having been" is that it puts the "made" action before the "severs" action. It would be as if you have a surgical cut that currently severs fewer fibers because that cut was made (sometime earlier) along Langer's lines.

That doesn't work. The cut severs fibers at the time the cut is made, not sometime after the cut is made.

For more on "having + verb" in general, check out this post: https://gmatclub.com/forum/literacy-ope ... l#p2967035.

I assume it's incorrect to use With in the sentence because it doesn't show a cause and effect relationship correctly. That's why D and E are immediately eliminated. Is this reasoning correct?

Hello spaghetttti,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, yes; your reasoning here is sound.

Kudos.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
Experts' Global Team

If something is happening in response to an ongoing/underlying situation that still holds at the time, then an initial "with" modifier (not a following one) can properly express that relationship.
Please check out this official problem as an illustration.

The most straightforward way to eliminate D and E is to notice that the non-underlined end of the sentence in each of those choices is "...and is less likely..."
This structure will only work if there's another singular verb to the left, to make the parallelism valid. But both D and E have the plural verb sever as the first parallel item. Singular and plural verbs can't be parallel, so, goodbye D and E.
(A further consequence of the same mismatch is that no subject could possibly agree with both verbs. In D, "surgical cuts" disagrees with the second verb; in E, "a surgical cut" disagrees with the first verb.)