HOT Competition 28 Aug/8AM: In the mid-1980’s, since bats were overwhe

In the mid-1980’s, since bats were overwhelmed by noxious gases, and routinely falling from the sky above Vegas freeways, this prompted police officials to devise a plan that reduced emissions.


A. since bats were overwhelmed by noxious gases, and routinely falling from the sky above Vegas freeways, this prompted police officials to devise a plan that reduced
- The use of "since" after comma requires "police officials" to come after freeways,

B. since bats that had been overwhelmed by noxious gases were routinely falling from the sky above Vegas freeways, it prompted police officials to devise a plan that would reduce
- pronoun "it" doesn't have any antecedent IMO.

C. bats had been overwhelmed by noxious gases and routinely fell from the sky above Vegas freeways, prompting police officials to devise a plan that reduced
- Parallelism issue.

D. bats overwhelmed by noxious gases and routinely falling from the sky above Vegas freeways were prompting police officials to devise a plan to reduce
- Bats were not prompting anyone.

E. bats overwhelmed by pollution routinely fell from the sky above Vegas freeways, prompting officials to devise a plan to reduce
- Correct

Answer E

KOMP:
Identifying the sensible intended meaning is a faster way of dealing with this problem. We know that something bad happened to bats and this incident prompted officials to take certain steps. Note that bats themselves didn’t prompted officials, an illogical meaning, but the fact that bats fell from the sky did. With this in mind, let’s analyze the answer choices:

A. since bats were overwhelmed by noxious gases, and routinely falling from the sky above Vegas freeways, this prompted police officials to devise a plan that reduced emissions.

1. “since bats were overwhelmed… and since bats were routinely falling” – this part seems fairly parallel, nothing wrong.
2. such constructions as “since blah blah, this blah blah” and “because blah blah, this blah blah” are stylistically not quite good. No correct answer to an official problem uses such a structure.
We could get away simply with “since something happened, police were prompted to do something (“this” omitted)” or “something happened, and this event prompted police to do something (“since” omitted)”. Simply said, “since” and “this” are semantically redundant.
3. if there is a better choice, we’d better avoid using “this” as a standalone pronoun.
4. the sentence gives an overall information about bats that existed in the mid 1980s. This period isn’t a point moment. So, the Past continuous tense "bats were... routinely falling" makes no sense.

B. since bats that had been overwhelmed by noxious gases were routinely falling from the sky above Vegas freeways, it prompted police officials to devise a plan that would reduce

1. “that had been overwhelmed” makes no sense because as written, this choice illogically implies that bats were impaired by gasses sometime before they fell. A reader may conclude that these two are two different incidents, and the first is not the cause of the first. It’s sound to say that bats fell at the moment they are overwhelmed by gasses.
Moreover, “in the mid 1982s, bats had been overwhelmed” illogically suggests that the bats were adversely affected by gasses before the mid 1980s, but started to fell in the mid 1980’”. That’s an absurd meaning.
2. “it prompted” – here “it” tries to refer to the entire preceding clause, but “it” cannot do so.
3. the usage of “event and event” suggests that two actions are unrelated. In other words, “bats had been overwhelmed by noxious gases and routinely fell” suggests that bats fell not because they were overwhelmed. These two actions are unrelated. The correct choice E rectifies this issue.


C. bats had been overwhelmed by noxious gases and routinely fell from the sky above Vegas freeways, prompting police officials to devise a plan that reduced

1. “that had been overwhelmed” makes no sense because as written, this choice illogically implies that bats were impaired by gasses sometime before they fell. A reader may conclude that these two are two different incidents, and the first is not the cause of the first. It’s sound to say that bats fell at the moment they are overwhelmed by gasses.
2. the usage of “event and event” suggests that two actions are unrelated. In other words, “bats had been overwhelmed by noxious gases and routinely fell” suggests that bats fell not because they were overwhelmed. These two actions are unrelated. The correct choice E rectifies this issue.


D. bats overwhelmed by noxious gases and routinely falling from the sky above Vegas freeways were prompting police officials to devise a plan to reduce

1. the entire phrase “overwhelmed by noxious gases and routinely falling from the sky above Vegas freeways” is simply a noun modifier describing “bats”. Without this modifier, the sentence reads as “bats were prompting officials”. This meaning is illogical because how the hack bats can prompt the officials?
2. the sentence gives an overall information about bats that existed in the mid 1980s. This period isn’t a point moment. So, the Past continuous tense makes no sense.


E. bats overwhelmed by pollution routinely fell from the sky above Vegas freeways, prompting officials to devise a plan to reduce

Bingo, the correct choice. E amends all goofs of the previous answers. “comma + prompting” correctly shows that not bats, but the entire action transpiring in the preceding clause prompted officials to take steps.


Hence E

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and routinely falling from the sky : is not a clause. it's not parallel to "since bats were overwhelmed by noxious gases". Also, it leaves the meaning incomplete.


What is "it" ? No logical noun antecedent.


I find the use of "had been" questionable. It implies that the action over overwhelming was done to the bats (by another agent, probably intentionally) prior to something else that happened in the past. While, that something else can be "fell", the other aspect of the meaning (the agent carrying out the action of overwhelming the bats) is not clear. We can hold on to it for now, but we will see in a minute why E is better.


Here, overwhelmed by and routinely falling are used as modifiers, and grammatically correct. But "were prompting" suggests that the bats themselves were prompting, where the intended meaning is the prompt was actually the result of the bats falling. In other words, bats did not intentionally prompt the officers, but the wording of this option suggests they did. So, D is out


This is the correct answer. "overwhelmed by pollution" is used as modifier, without requiring an agent to intentionally carry out the action. This corrects the issue in C. Moreover, prompting officials is used as a , ing modifier to show the result of the bats falling (thereby correcting the issue with D).

IMO E

In the mid-1980’s, since bats were overwhelmed by noxious gases, and routinely falling from the sky above Vegas freeways, this prompted police officials to devise a plan that reduced emissions.

A. since bats were overwhelmed by noxious gases, and routinely falling from the sky above Vegas freeways, this prompted police officials to devise a plan that reduced - Incorrect
# Pronoun this must be followed by a noun
# Since X, Y - Since and prompted are redundant together
# Purpose/Intention - Use of "to" required i.e devise a plan to

B. since bats that had been overwhelmed by noxious gases were routinely falling from the sky above Vegas freeways, it prompted police officials to devise a plan that would reduce - Incorrect
# There is no noun antecedent for pronoun it.
# Use of past perfect "that had been ..." is incorrect. There is no need for any sequencing in the sentence as both action were occurring simultaneously.
# "Reduced" doesn't make sense (completed action in past), because the plan was yet to be implemented.
# Since X, Y - Since and prompted are redundant together

C. bats had been overwhelmed by noxious gases and routinely fell from the sky above Vegas freeways, prompting police officials to devise a plan that reduced - Incorrect
# Use of past perfect "that had been ..." is incorrect. There is no need for any sequencing in the sentence as both action were occurring simultaneously.
# "Reduced" doesn't make sense (completed action in past), because the plan was yet to be implemented.

D. bats overwhelmed by noxious gases and routinely falling from the sky above Vegas freeways were prompting police officials to devise a plan to reduce - Incorrect
# Meaning distort: Birds were not prompting the officials to devise a plan.

E. bats overwhelmed by pollution routinely fell from the sky above Vegas freeways, prompting officials to devise a plan to reduce - Correct
#"-ing" modifier describes a consequence of action performed in previous clause. Here it totally make sense to say that the action performed by the birds prompted officials to devise a plan

Posted from my mobile device

IMO E

Lets analyse Options

Option A :- Incorrect

since bats were overwhelmed by noxious gases, and routinely falling from the sky above Vegas freeways,

[color=#ed1c24]thisprompted police officials to devise a plan that reduced.

Errors :-

1) Tense error :-reduced is in simple past tense, this is incorrect usage , because Plan by themself can not reduce anything, while implementation of plan can reduce.

2)" this" must be followed by a noun, however there is no noun following "this".

Option B : Incorrect-

since bats that had been overwhelmed by noxious gases were routinely falling from the sky above Vegas freeways, it prompted police officials to devise a plan that would reduce

Errors:-

1) Tense Error:- Wrong usage of Past perfect tense "had been overcome", as there is no need of sequencing the situation.

2) "It" is referring to "were routinely falling" which is wrong.

Option C:- Incorrect

bats had been overwhelmed by noxious gases and routinely fell from the sky above Vegas freeways, prompting police officials to devise a plan that reduced

Errors:-

1)Tense error :-reduced is in simple past tense, this is incorrect usage .

2) Tense Error:- Wrong usage of Past perfect tense "had been overcome", as there is no need of sequencing the situation

Option D:- Incorrect

bats overwhelmed by noxious gases and routinely falling from the sky above Vegas freeways were prompting police officials to devise a plan to reduce

Errors

1) Meaning Error:- were prompting - is wrong since birds dint prompt the officials

We are left with Option E which is Correct

Posted from my mobile device

CrackVerbal GMATNinja

In option E "bats overwhelmed by noxious gases" is changed to "bats overwhelmed by pollution": Is this change not altering the intended meaning of the sentence ( Since all the other options had "bats overwhelmed by noxious gases",I thought option E was changing the meaning. Can you please clarify whether my reasoning was wrong?

In option "E", although sentence is grammatically and structurally correct, there is no mention of "noxious gases". This word has been replaced by "pollution". There is a loss/change of information. How can this option be correct?

Police officials dont devise plans to reduce emissions. A, B, C, D gone.

Posted from my mobile device

Still have a doubt, since the sentence start with mid 1980---- why "E" is correct. as in "E" present "fell" verb is used instead of past.

Please explain

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