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

Question

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
B. with chattering and its flying
C. by chattering as it flies
D. by chattering and its flying
E. by chattering as they are flying

empanado · Accepted Answer

C.

Parallel construction. leads, flies,takes, and eats.

baski6 · Answer

- no they should be  it  -  refers to bird

Andr359 · Answer

"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 beesÂ´nest with chattering and its flying ahead" and "the bird leads... to a beesÂ´nest by chattering and its flying ahead" sound awkward.

C: "the bird leads... to a beesÂ´nest by chattering as it flies ahead" is grammatical and the most concise, and keeps the meaning.

C.

TGC · 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 beesâ€™ 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.

srgunti · Answer

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

HKD1710 · Answer

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.

anairamitch1804 · Answer

‘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.

Skywalker18 · 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

strepanier · Answer

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!

Ilhomjon98 · Answer

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!

GMATGuruNY · Answer

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).

thangvietnam · Answer

'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".

sanjeevsinha082 · Answer

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'.

VerbalBot · Answer

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

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

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