Birds known as honeyguides exhibit a unique pattern of behavior: the b

"the bird" requires a singular pronoun => A ("when they fly") and E ("as they are flying") are out.

B, D: "the bird leads... to a bees´nest with chattering and its flying ahead" and "the bird leads... to a bees´nest by chattering and its flying ahead" sound awkward.

C: "the bird leads... to a bees´nest by chattering as it flies ahead" is grammatical and the most concise, and keeps the meaning.

C.

Birds known as honeyguides exhibit a unique pattern of behavior: the bird leads another animal, such as a honey-badger or human, to a bees’ nest with their chattering when they fly ahead; after the larger animal takes honey, the bird eats the was and bee larvae.
A. with their chattering when they fly
'With' modifies nest
B. with chattering and its flying
Same as (A)
C. by chattering as it flies
During its flight, the bird does lead another animal. So, proper use of as
D. by chattering and its flying
Its flying remains incomplete
E. by chattering as they are flying
They is not proper referent for singular bird.

"the bird" - singular should agree with "it flies" - singular. C is the best option.

A. with their chattering when they fly ---- they is wrong. "it" is required.

B. with chattering and its flying - parallelism issue

C. by chattering as it flies

D. by chattering and its flying - - parallelism issue

E. by chattering as they are flying ---- they is wrong. "it" is required.

‘the bird’ leads another animal – the bird is singular. So, the only appropriate pronoun is ‘it’, not ‘they’. You can use this to eliminate options A and E.
B has a slight meaning ambiguity – can mere flying distract the human or the badger? The intended meaning is that chattering during flight is the distraction. In any case, ‘with chattering’ is unidiomatic – ‘by chattering’ is correct.
In D, the pronoun ‘its’ is redundant. So, for concision, we can choose C over D.
Hope that helps.
My POE,

(A)… their.. – SVA error
(B)…and its flying…- wrong meaning(trying to trap by using chattering and flying as parallel components)
(C) seems to have SVA corrected with correct meaning – hold it
(D)…and its flying… – wrong meaning(trying to trap by using chattering and flying as parallel components)
(E)…they.. – SVA error.

So option(C) is the correct answer.

Birds known as honeyguides exhibit a unique pattern of behavior: the bird leads another animal, such as a honey-badger or human, to a bees’ nest with their chattering when they fly ahead; after the larger animal takes honey, the bird eats the wasp and bee larvae.

A. with their chattering when they fly - Subject-verb agreement issue plural they as the bird is singular
B. with chattering and its flying - parallelism issue
C. by chattering as it flies - Correct
D. by chattering and its flying - parallelism issue
E. by chattering as they are flying - Subject-verb agreement issue

Answer C

The answer has to be C due to parallelism and subject verb agreement! A, B, D, and E all have one or both of these errors- C is the only one that fixes both issues!

Hi GMATGuruNY ,

Could you please help with this S.C question?

Although this question at hand is tagged as "gmatprep", it seems to be incorrect:

...another animal, such as a honey-badger or human,...:

There seem to be two problems:

1) Since "such as a honey-badger or human" is between two commas, "human" seems to be included in the category of animal.

2) if "such as" is used to mean "for example", there should be "a plural noun" before it: John have achived prefect scores on standardized tests, such as Gmat. Yet, "another animal" is singular.

Could you please check reasoning above?

Thank you very much beforehand!

Humans belong to the kingdom Animalia and thus are considered a type of animal.



such as may be preceded by a singular noun.
The OA to SC34 in the Verbal Review, 2nd edition:
People tend to overestimate the amount of energy used by visible equipment, such as lights.
Here, such as is preceded by equipment (singular).

'with+noun' can be used to modify an independent preceding clause, working as an adverb but it shows an instrument

I write with a pen.

if you want to show that an action is done by another action, we use "by+doing".

A. The bird is singular therefore cannot be referred to as 'their chattering'.
B. meaning clarity - with chattering and flying implies two methods (chattering and flying) that it
uses to lead other animals. This is incorrect.
C. Correct
D. Same as B
E. The bird is singular therefore cannot be referred to by 'they'.

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