In the past several years, astronomers have detected more than 80 mass

Hello kunalarya,

We hope this finds you well.

Having gone through the question and your query, we believe that we can help resolve your doubt.

The use of the modifier "mostly" is incorrect in this question, as "mostly" is an adverb and the modifying phrase must modify the noun "planets". Options C, D, and E are incorrect, in part, because they modify "planets" with "mostly"; please remember, adverbs can only modify verbs and adjectives; adjectives modify nouns.

Further, Option D would not be correct, even if "most of them" was used because in it "which circle" incorrectly refers to "Jupiter" rather than "planets".

We hope this helps.
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Experts' Global Team
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thank you for your reply !
However, the last line/ scenario is still not clear to me. if you look at the verb it's plural 'circle' not 'circles', should not it jump over Jupiter and go to planets? Also, we always focus/ give priority to meaning in GMAT, so by meaning Jupiter is not the one circling other stars?
Could I put forward my point ?

Hello kunalarya,

We hope this finds you well.

The issue here is that the "comma + which" construction always refers to the noun just before the comma. All reasons why this reference is unsuitable, such as the subject-verb agreement you mentioned, only compound the error.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
Experts' Global Team
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now -ing here again an exception.huff!totally intimidated.what is the problrm with sc.everytime one learns a new thing,then comes a question that says oh no,there is an exception.

Hi AjiteshArun IanStewart and other experts,

First, thanks for your previous posts! I know that it might not be a good idea to try to "fix" the incorrect options in GMAT SC section, but as I really hope to solidify my knowledge about the so-called "subgroup modifier," could I ask you the following questions?

1. If the option (B) were revised into "most of them at least as large as Jupiter and circling," would it be acceptable?

I know in the correct answer (C), the word "circling" modifies all the 80 massive planets. But it seems also logical to me if the word "circling" is used to modify "most of the 80 planets". (It is difficult for me to decide which noun, all the 80 planets or most of the 80 planets, "circling" is meant to modify, since both seem logical.) However, for this revision, I am not sure whether the present participle "circling" can work with the adjective phrase "as large as Jupiter" in terms of parallelism. They both function as noun modifier, but one is a pure adjective and another is a present participle. A similar sentence would be "The cat, sleepy and purring, is enjoying the company of its owner"--is this sentence correct?

2. What do you think about the use of "mostly" in the option (D) and (E)?

Some people and experts have said that they think the word "mostly," an adverb, cannot modify the preceding noun "planets". Though this idea is understandable, I am not sure why "mostly" cannot be used to modify the following adjectives "at least as large as Jupiter." Options (D) and (E) have their own issues--(D) wrongly uses the singular form of "circle" and (E) wrongly uses "as large or larger than"--but is the word "mostly" an issue here?

The Cambridge Dictionary has an example for the word "mostly": "The band are mostly teenagers," in which "mostly" describes "are." If this sentence is revised into "The band, mostly teenage, can only perform at the weekend," will this sentence be considered wrong?


Thank you so much in advance!

The first half of your post all seems correct to me -- your modified answer choice does change the meaning, as you point out (it's then only the large planets that are circling stars) but it's otherwise fine. Though it occurs to me that a planet is, by the definition of 'planet', something that orbits a star, so it's not clear to me (even in the OA) what purpose the last part of the sentence serves. I also agree that the parallelism seems off in your rewrite, but parallelism isn't always a strict requirement. If we need to violate parallelism to express an idea, then we can violate parallelism, and I don't immediately see a way to rewrite your rewritten sentence to make it more parallel. And your sentence about the cat is probably more poetic than anything you'd see on the test, but it's a perfectly good sentence.

As for the word "mostly", I've never given it too much thought, so perhaps someone else will be able to say something more clarifying than I can. It seems we do use "mostly" and "most of" interchangeably in many situations. But if you think of this sentence:

Mei's application forms were mostly filled in.

this could mean one of two things. It could mean that Mei has a lot of forms, and has filled in most of them, and hasn't even started on a few of them. But it could also mean that Mei has a lot of forms, and has mostly filled in each of them. I'd tend to read the sentence to have this second meaning, because we can express the first meaning in a different way: "Most of Mei's application forms were filled in." But (as your dictionary example of the teenage band illustrates) we use "mostly" to have that first meaning, i.e. to mean "most of", sometimes too. So for me the issue isn't one of strict correctness, but rather of ambiguity -- if the word "mostly" could be read to mean two different things, I'd want to replace it with words that express the intended meaning more precisely. A sentence like the vases are mostly red could mean most of the vases are red and the rest are orange, or that each vase is mostly red and partly orange (or some other colour). That's a sentence I'd want to rephrase, at least if the meaning was "most of the vases are red". But in the teenage band sentence from the dictionary, there's really only one sensible way to interpret the word 'mostly', so there is no ambiguity, and I don't see an issue with using "mostly" in that way. In the planet sentence in this thread, I don't like the word "mostly", but I don't think that's decisive here -- it really can't mean "most of each planet is as large as Jupiter", because that makes no sense, but I don't like that I even have to think about what the word means, so I prefer to replace it with something more immediately comprehensible. But there I'm just applying a principle of good writing, and not a rule of usage or grammar.
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Hi IanStewart

I really appreciate your clear and detailed response, and all the wonderful examples you give! Now I can see the word "mostly" better-- it could have two meanings as indicated in your red vase and application form instances, so that is definitely something I will watch out in my writing or in my GMAT practice to prevent ambiguity, thank you!

Glad to know that the use of "mostly" in option (D) might not be decisive. As you point out, the interpretation that "most of the 80 planets are as large as Jupiter" is logical, while another interpretation "each planet is mainly/mostly as large as Jupiter" does not really make sense. But the use of the word "mostly" might still be a bit troublesome here--I can see why the correct option (C) uses the structure "most of them" to prevent any ambiguity.

(By the way, few hours after writing down the revised band sentence, I feel a bit bad about the sentence now--it might be okay to say "the band are mostly teenagers," but isn't it a bit weird to say "the band is (mostly) teenage"? We say young band, or teenage band members, but a mix of the two version might be a bit strange. Thank you for tolerating the example...)



I actually did not know that a planet is, by definition, something that orbits a star until reading your post. I guess that the author of this sentence implies that although the astronomers have found 80 massive planets, as they circle stars other than Sun, there are still eight planets in the solar system. It's purely my guess--but I did wonder, when reading the sentence for the first time, why we only have eight planets in the solar system if the scientists have found so many planets.

Thank you once again!

I dont think so. verb "see" is different, you can not use "see" to explain this point.
the difference is in tense and, so, in the time of action circling.

Doesn't Circling modify Jupiter in option C, and shouldn't it have been

"most of them at least as large as Jupiter and circling"

planets, Modifier 1 and modifier 2


?

Not really. Had there been no comma after Jupiter, then a case could perhaps have been made about circling modifying Jupiter.

", most of them as large or larger than Jupiter," is a non-essential modifier. So, the core of the sentence is:

astronomers have detected more than 80 massive planets circling other stars.


Yeah, but it would have changed the meaning a bit, since this structure could suggest that most of those 80 planets (and not "all") are circling the stars.
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