Dengue fever, a viral disease, is common in humid, tropical climates

I went for B as i thought that their represents virus's lifecycle but OA displays otherwise.

What is the source of the question?

Shouldn't 'its' actually refer to the mosquitoes instead of virus since virus's have no definite lifecycle?

It's logical to say that mosquitoes carry the virus for most of the time before dying. Option B seems a little better in that respect.

When nothing goes right, remember that a²+b²=c²

This reasoning is not correct. "Mosquitoes" is plural and hence "Its" can not refer to mosquitoes.

If you check the options, they either say "Mosquitoes are the virus's carriers" or "become the virus's carriers"

Mosquitos and carriers are plural so its is wrong. What is the source of this question?

I got the question from Ready4GMAT app.

It reasoned that “its” could actually refer to possessive “virus’s”. Wait for expert explanation.



Sent from my iPhone using GMAT Club Forum

Makes sense. Thanks for explaining!

A possessive pronoun, such as its, can refer to a possessive. This question is quite confusing. Experts, please help!

I cannot understand the usage of 'its' in this question. Please explain.

vWhy is it " for much of its cycle" but not "in"?

DmitryFarber Thanks a lot! It is clear now that a possessive pronoun can correctly refer back to a possessive noun.

By the way, here's a good current example of an official question that uses a possessive antecedent for a regular pronoun: https://gmatclub.com/forum/sc-og-208881.html

minhnhat3009, it's kind of a subtle difference, so I could dodge the issue by saying "it's just an idiom to learn." But let's look at some examples (all correct):

Funk music was popular in the 1970's.
Funk music was popular for many years.

Securing new patents was the company's highest priority in its early years.
For a 10-year period, securing patents was the company's highest priority.

What's the difference? "In" situates the action in time. When did it happen? Often, the action happened only at that time, but that doesn't have to be true. For instance, I could say "Funk music was popular in the 1970's, and it is popular again today."

"For" explains how long something lasts. So if I were to say "In a 10-year period," that would mean that X happened at some point in there. By contrast, "For a 10-year period" means that X happened for the entire 10 years.

Getting back to our original, we want to say that mosquitoes carry for the virus throughout much of its life cycle. "For" is appropriate, because we are talking about how long this lasts (for much of the virus's life cycle).

Dengue fever, a viral disease, is common in humid, tropical climates, and it has become more prevalent as flooding has expanded the habitat of the mosquitoes that are the virus's carriers for much of its life cycle.

A. the mosquitoes that are the virus's carriers for much of its life cycle..Correct

B. the mosquitoes that are the virus's carriers in much of their life cycle

C. mosquitoes which become the virus's carriers for much of its life cycles

D. mosquitoes which become the carriers of the virus during the virus's life cycles

E. virus's carriers, mosquitoes which become their carriers during their life cycles

3 second approach: since we are taking about a single virus, it should be life cycle. So CDE are out.
In B, "their" is a plural pronoun referring to single noun, virus. So out.
Correct answer is A

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