"B. Due to poaching and increased cultivation in their native habitats, there are fewer than 100 Arabian leopards left in the wild, researchers have determined, making them many times more rare than -- looks as though the many times being more rare is caused by researchers and their determination. "
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If I have it correct, you mean these two clauses.

there are fewer than 100 Arabian leopards left in the wild, researchers have determined

When you have a clause such as "researchers have determined" or "politicians claim" right after an independent clause, or sometimes embedded within a clause, it simply mentions who has said, has determined, claims, found, etc. what the other clause states.

In this case, the structure of (B) is opening adverbial modifier, "due to poaching ...," clause "there are fewer ...," clause "researchers have determined," closing participial phrase, "making them many times more rare ...."

The closing participial phrase more logically modifies the main independent clause than the "researchers have determined" clause, which is parenthetical and, thus, not integral to the main idea of the sentence.

I hope I've answered your question.
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Due to poaching and increased cultivation in their native habitats, researchers have determined that there are fewer than 100 Arabian leopards left in the wild, and that these leopards are thus many times as rare as China's giant pandas.

(A) Due to poaching and increased cultivation in their native habitats, researchers have determined that there are fewer than 100 Arabian leopards left in the wild, and that these leopards are thus many times as rare as -> poaching and increased cultivation is modified by researchers. It is not the intended meaning. Another issue, we have Due to modifies Noun not the clause. Incorrect.

(B) Due to poaching and increased cultivation in their native habitats, there are fewer than 100 Arabian leopards left in the wild, researchers have determined, making them many times more rare than -> Again due to modifying clause, it is incorrect.

(C) There are fewer than 100 Arabian leopards left in the wild due to poaching and increased cultivation in their native habitats, researchers have determined, which makes the leopards many times more rare compared to -> which doesn't make sense. Incorrect.

(D) Researchers have determined that, because of being poached and increased cultivation in their native habitats, there are fewer than 100 Arabian leopards left in the wild, thus making them many more times as rare as -> many more ....than.. is a famous idiom in GMAT. Incorrect.

(E) Researchers have determined that, because of poaching and increased cultivation in their native habitats, there are fewer than 100 Arabian leopards left in the wild, and that these leopards are thus many times more rare than -> This is better than rest of options.

So, I think E.

I stand to be corrected, but I'm reasonably confident this advice is incorrect. You absolutely CAN say "three times as long as".

Edit: Here's an example from an OG: https://gmatclub.com/forum/dirt-roads-may-evoke-the-bucolic-simplicity-of-another-century-but-fi-252671.html#p480035

I think the confusion may have come from the fact that 'as many as' is used for equalities, and 'more/less than' for comparatives, BUT, "three times as long as", IS an equality. This is an easy mistake that I guess even experts can make!

A is as long as B: The responder says these things have to be equal, which is true. You could write this as "the length of A is equal to the length of B".
The responder missed, however, that either side can be modified so that both sides are equal. For example, the length of A is equal to three times the length of B. This sentence IS an equality. Likewise, A is three times as long as B, is totally fine.

"This road is three times as long as that road" is totally fine because you are comparing two equal things. The first equal thing is "this road", and the second equal thing is triple "that road".

Tracy95 - the difference between your two examples ("this road is three times as long as that road" vs "leopards are many times as rare as pandas") is that the road lengths are equal, as just discussed, BUT the rarity of the pandas are not equal. In this case you need to use a comparative, as the responder said, because you don't have a firm comparison of two equal things.

To clarify: Road A = 3 x Road B. Rarity of leopard > Rarity of panda. This is not equal, all we know is that the rarity of the leopard is MORE than the rarity of the panda.

If the sentence was: "leopards are five times as rare as pandas", this would also be completely fine. In that case, we are still talking about two equal things, not about a greater than or less than.

I hope that helps!
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Hi GMATNinja, sorry for digging up an old one, but can I just clarify the last part of your explanation: "It just needs to have something that could work logically."

What if there are multiple somethings that could work logically?

My inclination is that if I'm given two grammatically correct options and one makes it clearer what the correct antecedent is, then I will choose it; BUT, if not, ambiguity is not going to be an error to eliminate on. So I would eliminate things like verb agreement, parallelism, etc. first, and then only eliminate based on ambiguity before other style errors like wordiness.

Does that sound about right?
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Hello Vubar,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, the approach you have outlined here is quite appropriate; distortion of meaning and concrete grammar errors are the most serious errors on GMAT, the dealbreakers; ambiguity is a lower demerit, and stylistic issues should only be considered in order to differentiate between otherwise error-free answer choices.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
Experts' Global Team.
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Hi avigutman - many people have eliminated (A) because of the opening modifier error - do you agree ?

I dont see whats wrong with the opening modifier

Due to poaching and increase cultivation -- Researchers have determined that blah blah

Analogy -

Due to rain and hail, JD cancelled his trip = this to me makes complete sense

^^ avigutman -

I know many people have memorized
-- Due to has to be followed by a noun only
-- Due to can be replaced with caused by

But i generally just want to be using logic to think about opening modifiers

Let's use your example to see why the modifier in (A) doesn't work logically.

Your example:

Due to rain and hail, JD cancelled his trip.

Your example conveys that rain and hail caused JD to cancel his trip, a meaning that makes completes sense.

Now, let's consider choice (A):

(A) Due to poaching and increased cultivation in their native habitats, researchers have determined that there are fewer than 100 Arabian leopards left in the wild ....

Notice that (A) conveys that poaching and increased cultivation have caused the researchers to determine that there are fewer than 100 Arabian leopards left in the wild. This meaning is illogical. After all, poaching and increased cultivation would not cause researchers to determine that.

So, the meaning conveyed by (A) is illogical.
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Hi MartyTargetTestPrep - thank you so much for your response. I actually think the yellow highlight makes COMPLETE logical sense - It is absolutely the case that poaching and increased cultivation have caused researchers to determine something

Had there are been NO POACHING / NO increased cultivation -- researchers would not be able to make that determination

I agree, jabhatta2. Poaching can cause you to determine something. For example, poaching can cause you to determine that you should build a fence to prevent further poaching.
But, to MartyTargetTestPrep 's point, poaching can't cause researchers to determine the number of Arabian leopards left in the wild.
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Not sure avigutman - The act of poaching in my view CAN CAUSE researchers to determine that there are fewer than 100 leopards.

Justl like - The act of poaching can CAUSE researchers to estimate that there are fewer than 500 free rhinos

I think maybe the act of poaching does not work well with the 2nd clause

The act of poaching can NOT CAUSE researchers to determine that these leopards are thus many times as rare as pandas

Anything wrong with the logic of this sentence, jabhatta2?
The holocaust caused historians to estimate that fewer than 150,000 Jews survived in Europe.
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thaanks avigutman - i see why this is wrong -- The holocaust itself DID not cause historians to do anything (did not cause historians to estimate / did not cause historians to look into where the chambers were set up....)

poaching caused researchers to determine that there are fewer than 100 leopards left in the wild

Poaching itself did not cause researchers to start this excercise of counting ...

I notice though, you are replacing the word 'due to' with 'caused by' --- i always thought 'due to' vs 'caused by' were fundamentally different

Would you like to elaborate on this, jabhatta2? Why you thought this, what you thought the difference was, etc?
In general, please note that SC frequently tests cause->effect relationships, and wrong answers can be grammatically fine while messing up the cause->effect logic (which is what answer choice (A) did here). Poaching didn't lead researchers to make a determination about the number of remaining leopards; poaching caused the number itself to decrease.
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Exactly. If I have one answer choice where I have to do a little more work to figure out what "it" refers to, and the other four have concrete errors, clearly, the one with the "it" must be better, right?

So it's all about setting priorities. Concrete errors first, then the grayer issues that might be used as tie-breakers.

All to say: you've got it!
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Dear Experts,
What is the different between "due to" and "because of"?

Hello, Tanchat. I think this e-GMAT article does a fine job outlining the difference in usage. Happy reading.

- Andrew
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Generally speaking, if due to can be substituted with caused by, then the usage of due to is correct.

For example:

The delay in delivery of the merchandise was due to bad weather.

The usage of due to is correct in the above sentence, because the sentence is equivalent to:

The delay in delivery of the merchandise was caused by bad weather.

p.s. Our book EducationAisle Sentence Correction Nirvana discusses the differences between "due to" and "because of". Have attached the corresponding section of the book, for your reference.

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