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Elk now live almost solely in the Rocky Mountains, which would make it seem that elk are mountain dwellers, while they once ranged over virtually all of the continental United States except for a small strip in the extreme Southwest.


A. Elk now live almost solely in the Rocky Mountains, which would make it seem that elk are mountain dwellers, while

B. The fact that elk now live almost solely in the Rocky Mountains would make it seem that they are mountain dwellers, but

C. It would seem that elk would be mountain dwellers because of their living now solely almost in the Rocky Mountains, but still

D. Now living almost solely in the Rocky Mountains, it would seem that elk were mountain dwellers, although

E. It seems that elk would be mountain dwellers from the fact that they now live solely almost in the Rocky Mountains, since

GMATNinja Hi Charles. Can you please help me understand what does "it" refer to in (B)?
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I have a simple question here, how's the usage of "would" here correct?

As per my understanding, there are four conditions when the usage of "would" is apt.
1. To present a habit/action of past. Eg. She would cry when she remembered her dog. In this case, "would" is "replaceable" by "used to". She used to cry when she remembered her dog.
2. If and then conditionals. Eg. If she knew that he was a liar, she would have never dated him.
3. To state future in past. Eg. He thought that the car would not be damaged.
4. To express a desire/preference. Eg. I would like you to come to my party.

So, as per this understanding, where does my current "usage of would" in the question sit?

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singh_amit19
Elk now live almost solely in the Rocky Mountains, which would make it seem that elk are mountain dwellers, while they once ranged over virtually all of the continental United States except for a small strip in the extreme Southwest.


A. Elk now live almost solely in the Rocky Mountains, which would make it seem that elk are mountain dwellers, while

B. The fact that elk now live almost solely in the Rocky Mountains would make it seem that they are mountain dwellers, but

C. It would seem that elk would be mountain dwellers because of their living now solely almost in the Rocky Mountains, but still

D. Now living almost solely in the Rocky Mountains, it would seem that elk were mountain dwellers, although

E. It seems that elk would be mountain dwellers from the fact that they now live solely almost in the Rocky Mountains, since

GMATNinja Hi Charles. Can you please help me understand what does "it" refer to in (B)?
In this case, "it" is one of those wacky "dummy pronouns" that don't really refer to anything, but serve as a placeholder instead. For example:

    It seems that Tim is unusually cranky today.

    It is true that if you stay up all night playing Fortnite, your test performance may suffer as a result.

Notice that "it" can't really refer to anything in the above sentences. Instead, it seems to represent a general state of affairs. Just know that: 1) this usage is relatively rare; and 2) it's acceptable.

And there's no reason to freak out and wonder whether ever "it" you see is one of those rare dummy pronouns. Notice that in this question, every answer choice contains a goofy "it" so you don't have to think about the issue. 99% of the time, if there's no referent for "it" the usage turns out to be incorrect. Worst case scenario: you see a wacky "it" and you're not sure if it's wrong, so you move on and try to find an error you feel more confident about.

I hope that helps!
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Dear Experts,

Please help. I can understand that why Option-A & Option-D are incorrect, but please share the definitive split for options: C & E.

In addition, please also elaborate on the verb 'seem' in option-B. Shouldn't it be 'seems' as per dummy 'It' ?
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In D, is the use "although" incorrect?
I always thought of although as "Although X, Y happened".
That is not the way it is being used in this sentence.
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Hmm. Not so sure I'd go so far to say although is from a grammatical standpoint incorrect after a comma, but it does sound better to have it come first.
There's other stuff wonky with (D) to also look at!

hassan233
In D, is the use "although" incorrect?
I always thought of although as "Although X, Y happened".
That is not the way it is being used in this sentence.
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In D, is the use "although" incorrect?
I always thought of although as "Although X, Y happened".
That is not the way it is being used in this sentence.
Cardinal rule #1 for SC: do not invent rules!

Does "although" show up at the start of a sentence more often than it shows up between two clauses? Sure. Does that mean that it's wrong when it follows a clause? Nope. For instance:

    Tim considers himself an excellent artist, although his primary medium involves finger-paint.

Here, "although" is functioning as a conjunction that connects two contrasting clauses. Nothing wrong with that.

Fortunately, (D) has some nice juicy errors. It begins with the modifying phrase, "Now living almost solely in the Rocky Mountains." Whatever is living in the Rockies has to come right after that phrase. Instead we get "it would seem that elk were mountain dwellers."

There's no logical way to interpret this. "It" is singular, and there's no singular noun that the pronoun could possibly refer to. (We know "elk" is plural because of the phrase "elk were.") But if we interpret "it" as a dummy pronoun that doesn't have a referent, then we don't have anything living in the Rockies!

Moreover, "elk were mountain dwellers," illogically uses a past tense verb. If the elk are living in the Rockies now, why would we say that they were mountain dwellers? The whole point of the sentence is that they are mountain dwellers!

So there's no need to burn any brain cells agonizing over the usage of "although." (D) has multiple concrete errors we can use to eliminate it.

I hope that helps!
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" They " unambiguously refers to Elk and not Rocky Mountains because the pronoun always refers to the subject of the clause and not the object.
Is my reasoning correct ?
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Namangupta1997
" They " unambiguously refers to Elk and not Rocky Mountains because the pronoun always refers to the subject of the clause and not the object.
Is my reasoning correct ?
Good job Naman!

More specifically, a pronoun-subject ("they") in a clause grammatically can be presumed to refer to noun-subject ("Elk") of another clause.

In any case, pronoun ambiguity should generally not be a reason to eliminate an answer choice.
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PyjamaScientist
I have a simple question here, how's the usage of "would" here correct?

As per my understanding, there are four conditions when the usage of "would" is apt.
1. To present a habit/action of past. Eg. She would cry when she remembered her dog. In this case, "would" is "replaceable" by "used to". She used to cry when she remembered her dog.
2. If and then conditionals. Eg. If she knew that he was a liar, she would have never dated him.
3. To state future in past. Eg. He thought that the car would not be damaged.
4. To express a desire/preference. Eg. I would like you to come to my party.

So, as per this understanding, where does my current "usage of would" in the question sit?

AndrewN EducationAisle KarishmaB

I am not sure from where you got this list of 4 but it is not possible to create an exhaustive list of every situation in which any word can be used.
Check this list here and there may be some instances even this one has missed.
https://www.englishclub.com/grammar/ver ... -would.htm

Note that "would" is used for presumption/expectation. That is how it is used here.

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Namangupta1997
" They " unambiguously refers to Elk and not Rocky Mountains because the pronoun always refers to the subject of the clause and not the object.
Is my reasoning correct ?

Hello Namangupta1997,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, your reasoning is essentially correct.

More importantly, "they" unambiguously refers to "elk" because "elk" is the only noun it can logically refer to in this sentence; remember, pronoun ambiguity does not apply when there is only one possible logical interpretation.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
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adityaganjoo
singh_amit19
Elk now live almost solely in the Rocky Mountains, which would make it seem that elk are mountain dwellers, while they once ranged over virtually all of the continental United States except for a small strip in the extreme Southwest.


A. Elk now live almost solely in the Rocky Mountains, which would make it seem that elk are mountain dwellers, while

B. The fact that elk now live almost solely in the Rocky Mountains would make it seem that they are mountain dwellers, but

C. It would seem that elk would be mountain dwellers because of their living now solely almost in the Rocky Mountains, but still

D. Now living almost solely in the Rocky Mountains, it would seem that elk were mountain dwellers, although

E. It seems that elk would be mountain dwellers from the fact that they now live solely almost in the Rocky Mountains, since

GMATNinja Hi Charles. Can you please help me understand what does "it" refer to in (B)?
In this case, "it" is one of those wacky "dummy pronouns" that don't really refer to anything, but serve as a placeholder instead. For example:

    It seems that Tim is unusually cranky today.

    It is true that if you stay up all night playing Fortnite, your test performance may suffer as a result.

Notice that "it" can't really refer to anything in the above sentences. Instead, it seems to represent a general state of affairs. Just know that: 1) this usage is relatively rare; and 2) it's acceptable.

And there's no reason to freak out and wonder whether ever "it" you see is one of those rare dummy pronouns. Notice that in this question, every answer choice contains a goofy "it" so you don't have to think about the issue. 99% of the time, if there's no referent for "it" the usage turns out to be incorrect. Worst case scenario: you see a wacky "it" and you're not sure if it's wrong, so you move on and try to find an error you feel more confident about.

I hope that helps!


GMATNinja

I understand that "it" can be a dummy or placeholder. But I'm not sure the usage of "it" here.

It seems that... (ok : it = a placeholder)
It is possible that... (ok : it = a placeholder)

but in this case, ...........make "it".. "it" here is supposed to be an object, right? Can a placeholder use in this way?
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Hi

Got very confused with B

B)The fact that elk now live almost solely in the Rocky Mountains would make it[u] seem that they are mountain dwellers, but[/u]

Can someone help ,what it is referring to here.
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GMATNinja

I understand that "it" can be a dummy or placeholder. But I'm not sure the usage of "it" here.

It seems that... (ok : it = a placeholder)
It is possible that... (ok : it = a placeholder)

but in this case, ...........make "it".. "it" here is supposed to be an object, right? Can a placeholder use in this way?
Well, (B) is the right answer, so... yes, apparently! :)

And that's not a huge stretch. After all, the pronoun "it" can certainly be used as an object ("Give it to the dog").

The "would make" construction does muddy the waters a bit, so lets look at a simpler pair of examples first:

  • "She believes that Tim is a millionaire." - Here, "she" is a subject pronoun.
  • "The fact that he drives a Maserati would make her believe that Tim is a millionaire." - In order to make this work with the "would make," we have to use an object pronoun instead ("her").

What we have in (B) isn't much different than the second example above:

  • "It seems that elk are mountain dwellers" - Here, "it" is a subject pronoun again.
  • "[The evidence] would make it seem that elk are mountain dwellers." - Just like "her" in the Maserati example, "it" functions as an object pronoun here. If you're okay with the "her" in the Maserati example, then you should be okay with the "it" here.

EtaCarnia
Hi

Got very confused with B

B)The fact that elk now live almost solely in the Rocky Mountains would make it[u] seem that they are mountain dwellers, but[/u]

Can someone help ,what it is referring to here.
The "it" doesn't really refer to any concrete thing. These "non-referential" pronouns are rare on the GMAT and not worth worrying too much about, but we have seen them in OAs (here, for example).

For more on non-referential pronouns, check out this thread: https://gmatclub.com/forum/for-those-wh ... l#p1829681.

I hope that helps!
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in B] how do I identify that 'it' is a placeholder and not a pronoun error
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in B] how do I identify that 'it' is a placeholder and not a pronoun error


Hello himanshu0123,

We hope this finds you well.

"it" can be identified as a placeholder pronoun, and thus not subject to the pronoun error of lacking a referent, if there is a suitable "that"/"who"/"whether" clause that "it" can refer to.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
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I chose B because it was the best choice among all, although use of "they" seems ambiguous as "they" can refer to "Elk" or mountains.
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