HOT Competition 3 Sep/8AM: There is no established conservation policy

There is no established conservation policy for leopards , as there is for tigers and lions , a circumstance that contributed to 460 leopards dying in 2018 and not surprisingly, most of the deaths were attributed to poaching.


A. There is no established conservation policy for leopards, as there is for tigers and lions, a circumstance that contributed to 460 leopards dying in 2018 and not surprisingly, most of the deaths were attributed to poaching.

B. There is no established conservation policy for leopards, unlike tigers and lions, a circumstance that contributed to the dying of 460 leopards in 2018 and not surprisingly, because they are being poached.

C. There is a conservation policy for tigers and lions but not for leopards, which contributes to its dying through poaching and 460 leopards were killed in 2018.

D. Unlike tigers and lions, there is no conservation policy for leopards, which contributes to 460 leopard deaths in 2018 through poaching

E. Unlike tigers and lions, there is no conservation policy for leopards, contributing to 460 leopard deaths in 2018 because they were poached.

This question was provided by GMATWhiz for the Heroes of Timers Competition

 

GMATWhiz Explanation

• There is no proper conservation policy for leopards

• the way there is a conservation policy for tigers and lions

o Note: As is correctly followed by a clause

• We have a flexible modifier modifying the verb “is no policy” for leopards

o A circumstance refers to the absence of the policy
o The absence of the policy led to 460 leopards dying in 2018

• “and” is a connector here

o Most of the deaths were because of poaching

• There is no proper conservation policy for leopards

o the way there is a conservation policy for tigers and lions
• The absence of the policy led to 460 leopards dying in 2018

o Not surprising (given the absence of a proper policy for leopards) most of the deaths were because of poaching.

1. Golden rules

a. No error
2. Meaning
3. Lists

a. No error
4. Tenses

a. No error
5. Idioms

a. No error

• The comparison is between the presence of policy and the absence of it and not between the nouns – leopards and tigers and lions. Hence, “as” followed by the verb makes sense.
• The clause “because they are being poached” is incorrect in terms of meaning and tense.

o The use of the simple past is required since the past event marker 2018 is given.
o The clause itself is a distortion of the intended meaning.

• There are multiple errors in the sentence.
• “which” incorrectly refers to the verb in the preceding portion since it cannot refer logically to leopards.
• “its” is a singular pronoun referring to the plural noun “leopards”
• “and” makes the part after it seem unrelated to the rest of the sentence.

o There seems to be no connection between leopards dying and poaching being the cause.

• The construction implies a comparison between tigers and lions and the conservation policy.
• AS explained in choice C, “which” is incorrectly referring to the preceding verb
• The use of simple present is incorrect given the past event marker 2018.

• Distortion in intended meaning: the above construction implies that the lack of conservation policy contributed to leopard deaths because the leopards were poached.

o The intended meaning is because there is a lack of policy, the leopard deaths were mostly because of poaching.