GMAT Prep Questions

Question

Please give reasons to discard the 4 choices.

petercat2009 · Answer

1) iquestion tests either..or construction with parallelism. so E is correct .

mailnavin1 · Answer

nope its D, Cells either secreted harmones, in which case or conducted e i, in which case

maddy2u · Answer

IMO, Answer is D .

The reason for selecting D is because it is parallel as well as idiomatic. The idiom here is "Either.... Or".

The reason I omitted A,B and C is that all three options use either before Cells. This usage tends for us to think we are comparing two different entities, eg: cells and proteins. Either cells secrete hormones or proteins secrete hormones" .

Between D and E , D has follows parallelism correctly with the reminder of the sentence.

Hope you understood :gl

parker · Answer

Tough question.

The first split I'd go with is the first word of each choice--" either " versus " cells ." If you look at the non-underlined portion of the sentence, you find the other half of the "either/or" construction -- "or conducted electrical impulses." Ignore the stuff in the middle for the moment to see what the underlying structure is. Which one of the following is parallel?

(A/B/C)
 either  CELLS SECRETED hormones  or  CONDUCTED electrical impulses 
( either  SUBJECT-VERB  or  VERB)

(D/E)
CELLS  either  SECRETED hormones  or  CONDUCTED electrical impulses. 
(SUBJECT  either  VERB  or  VERB)

We need the subject (cells) to precede "either" so that we can preserve parallelism.  A, B, and C are out.

Both D and E have plural pronouns-- "they" in D and "them" in E. There are several possible plural antecedents for both these words, but don't panic. Pronoun ambiguity is sometimes tolerated on the GMAT, especially when parallelism helps us determine what the writer of the sentence actually means (rendering the pronoun less ambiguous!).

In choice D, the pronoun " they " is in the SUBJECT case and position--this makes it clear that " they " is supposed to stand in for " cells ." The meaning of this choice is therefore "CELLS either secreted hormones, in which case CELLS were endocrine cells." This meaning is clear and makes sense.

In choice E, the pronoun " them " is in the OBJECT case and position. " Them " should therefore stand in for " hormones ," making the meaning of this choice "cells either secreted  hormones , which made  hormones  endocrine cells." (This meaning is reinforced by the use of ", which"--this construction signals a modifier of the noun immediately preceding the comma--here, "hormones"). Choice E doesn't make sense, so it's out.

Remember:If you ever find yourself in a pool of choices that all seem to have ambiguous pronouns, don't panic. A situation that seems like pronoun ambiguity can sometimes be tolerated if  the position and case of the pronoun let you figure out the intended antecedent.   Parallelism is a huge structural clue here. (And often, the tolerated almost-ambiguous pronouns tend to be in the subject position).

Hope this helps.

maddy2u · Answer

If answer is E, we will be incorrectly referring the hormones to be Endocrine cells. From the second part of the sentence, we are classifying the same cells as Nerve cells if found to conduct electrical impulses. Shouldn't the first part "cells SECRETED hormones" also refer to Cells in order to fortify the parallelism and meaning of the sentence ?

parker · Answer

oops sorry, typo! i meant to type "choice E doesn't make sense" (that's why the sentence is at the end of that paragraph)-- just edited. thanks for catching!

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