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Minnesota is the only one of the contiguous forty-eight states that st 25 May 2022, 00:09
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AjiteshArun i've only found "the more so" in the most recent question pool as the only question somehow relying on idioms only. Was a pity since it was the only thing that could help you in getting the right choice (the is the corresponding discussion here on the forum). Anyway, i hope that not many of these situations may occur again.
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Minnesota is the only one of the contiguous forty-eight states that st 25 May 2022, 20:28
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Rail
AjiteshArun i've only found "the more so" in the most recent question pool as the only question somehow relying on idioms only. Was a pity since it was the only thing that could help you in getting the right choice (the is the corresponding discussion here on the forum). Anyway, i hope that not many of these situations may occur again.
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Ah, no. By question pools, I meant the actual GMAT question pools, not the small sets of questions taken out of the pools and released publicly. I know that it's a popular view here on GMAT club, but think about it the next time you come across something like "old questions are bad and therefore they were retired and they're totally unlike what's on the current GMAT". GMAC releases very few (and sometimes no) new questions every year, so old also means "a relatively large set of questions" and new means "a relatively small set of questions".

To be clear, I'm not saying that the other point of view is wrong, but I do think that we should not assume that the current pools don't include questions that come down to idiom.
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Minnesota is the only one of the contiguous forty-eight states that st 29 May 2022, 10:46
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Hi expert,
I know this is an old official question and might NOT be that perfect. I just wonder is there any difference between (comma+and) and (and)? Since I come cross the similar issue in other questions, but I found different experts have different opinions over this issue and made me more confused. Thanks.
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Minnesota is the only one of the contiguous forty-eight states that st 29 May 2022, 15:23
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Mavisdu1017
Hi expert,
I know this is an old official question and might NOT be that perfect. I just wonder is there any difference between (comma+and) and (and)? Since I come cross the similar issue in other questions, but I found different experts have different opinions over this issue and made me more confused. Thanks.
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When "and" connects two relative clauses, as it does in this question, or two verb phrases, there is no major difference between "and" alone and comma + "and."
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Minnesota is the only one of the contiguous forty-eight states that st 30 May 2022, 02:54
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Mavisdu1017
Hi expert,
I know this is an old official question and might NOT be that perfect. I just wonder is there any difference between (comma+and) and (and)? Since I come cross the similar issue in other questions, but I found different experts have different opinions over this issue and made me more confused. Thanks.
When "and" connects two relative clauses, as it does in this question, or two verb phrases, there is no major difference between "and" alone and comma + "and."
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MartyTargetTestPrep thanks for your response. Furthermore, if AND connects two clauses, is there any difference between AND alone and COMMA+AND?
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Minnesota is the only one of the contiguous forty-eight states that st 30 May 2022, 04:32
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Mavisdu1017
Hi expert,
I know this is an old official question and might NOT be that perfect. I just wonder is there any difference between (comma+and) and (and)? Since I come cross the similar issue in other questions, but I found different experts have different opinions over this issue and made me more confused. Thanks.
When "and" connects two relative clauses, as it does in this question, or two verb phrases, there is no major difference between "and" alone and comma + "and."
MartyTargetTestPrep thanks for your response. Furthermore, if AND connects two clauses, is there any difference between AND alone and COMMA+AND?
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If "and" connects two independent clauses, "and" is always incorrect, and comma + "and" is always correct.
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Minnesota is the only one of the contiguous forty-eight states that st 16 Jul 2022, 22:00
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Hi, daagh ExpertsGlobal5 souvik101990

before the conjunction and there is a comma.
my understanding is that comma before and indicates a list of containing more than 3 elements.
therefore any option with , and is wrong
am I right?

Please suggest
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Minnesota is the only one of the contiguous forty-eight states that st 16 Jul 2022, 22:12
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stoned
Hi, daagh ExpertsGlobal5 souvik101990

before the conjunction and there is a comma.
my understanding is that comma before and indicates a list of containing more than 3 elements.
therefore any option with , and is wrong
am I right?

Please suggest
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You are partially correct. comma + and can be used to indicate a list of more than 2 elements.
But, at the same time, "comma + and" can be used as a conjunction to separate two independent clauses as well.
Eg: I like to read, and I like to watch movies.
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Minnesota is the only one of the contiguous forty-eight states that st 17 Jul 2022, 04:58
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stoned
Hi, daagh ExpertsGlobal5 souvik101990

before the conjunction and there is a comma.
my understanding is that comma before and indicates a list of containing more than 3 elements.
therefore any option with , and is wrong
am I right?

Please suggest
Show more

Hello stoned,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, your reasoning is largely correct here.

Kudos.

This error can also be interpreted as the "comma + conjunction" construction being incorrectly used to join an independent clause to a dependent clause.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
Experts' Global Team
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Minnesota is the only one of the contiguous forty-eight states that st 10 Aug 2022, 10:17
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Quote:
Hi Experts, i have a query can we not eliminate abc on the basis of that as we always use where when addressing location?

Good question, shalabhg27. I don't think that the GMAT is particularly rigid on this. Sure, if you use the word "where", it would have to modify a place or location -- but you could use "that" to modify a location, too.

  • The restaurant that serves a Polish buffet is one of Chicago's most legendary eateries.
  • Someday, I want to live in a country that has a reasonable health care system.

Both of these seem completely acceptable to me, even though "that" modifies a location in each case ("restaurant" and "country", respectively). So I wouldn't say that "where" is necessary when you're modifying a place or location.

Quote:
1 more thing what is the anticident of this predator?
Quote:
In the correct answer option E, the mention is of wolves whereas in the non-underlined portion the reference to "this predator" seems confusing to me.
This predator is singular and wolves is plural.
Can anybody clarify please?

Ugh -- this part is trickier, and I don't really like what the GMAT has done here. First, you don't technically need an antecedent for "this predator", since "this predator" isn't a pronoun. But the singular/plural thing is a little bit funky: the sentence would probably be a little bit better if (E) said "these predators" (to match the word "wolves") instead of "this predator."

But to be fair, I don't think that the singular/plural issue is all that much of a crime in this case. Again, "this predator" isn't a pronoun; if "this predator" were changed to "it" in (E), then the answer choice would be inarguably wrong, since "it" can't refer to "wolves." But since "this predator" isn't a pronoun, I think the GMAT would argue that there's no ambiguity here: we still easily understand what, exactly, "this predator" is. Again, I don't love it, but I see their point.

More importantly: remember that the GMAT never asks you to identify a perfect answer choice. They're asking you to identify the best of the five options. Or the least crappy of the five options. As plenty of others have suggested, there are more severe problems with the other four answer choices -- and the little singular/plural issue in (E) is pretty minor by comparison.
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Hello,

The statement says 'Minnesota is the ONLY one of the contiguous forty-eight states...'

In this case if 'that' refers to 'states', then the statement does not make sense, since their is no use of 'only'.
Since 'only' has been used, a unique feature of Minnesota has to be pointed out. So 'that has...' should be correct.

And 'that' and 'where' can be parallel. Both are pronouns and can be used to refer to a state.

By the above reasoning I do not find a good enough reason to reject A.

Can Experts please explain where I am going wrong?

Regards,
Ankit
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Minnesota is the only one of the contiguous forty-eight states that st 10 Aug 2022, 10:55
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Anandanwar
Hello,

The statement says 'Minnesota is the ONLY one of the contiguous forty-eight states...'

In this case if 'that' refers to 'states', then the statement does not make sense, since their is no use of 'only'.
Since 'only' has been used, a unique feature of Minnesota has to be pointed out. So 'that has...' should be correct.

And 'that' and 'where' can be parallel. Both are pronouns and can be used to refer to a state.

By the above reasoning I do not find a good enough reason to reject A.

Can Experts please explain where I am going wrong?

Regards,
Ankit
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Hi Anandanwar,

That's a good point, but keep in mind that the questions in the verbal section ask us to choose the best option. We may absolutely find ourselves in situations where we're not rejecting an option so much as selecting another.

In this case, we find a few issues in option A:
1. It moves from a relative pronoun (that) to a relative adverb (where). This isn't a major problem, but why should we change the word we're using here? Surely the sentence would be easier to read with a little repetition?

2. The structure after that (only a verb) is different from the structure after where (subject + verb). Again, this isn't a major problem, but it does make it harder to read option A.

3. It's harder for the reader to understand what the noun phrase this predator points to when wolf is used as an adjective ("sizable wolf population"). It's easier when we have a noun, wolves. Of course, we must keep in mind that we're looking at nouns here. There's no pronoun, so we don't need to look for a singular-singular or plural-plural match.

None of these three issues is an absolute, but each of them is another reason to pick option E over option A.
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Minnesota is the only one of the contiguous forty-eight states that st 13 Aug 2022, 07:25
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Anandanwar
Hello,

The statement says 'Minnesota is the ONLY one of the contiguous forty-eight states...'

In this case if 'that' refers to 'states', then the statement does not make sense, since their is no use of 'only'.
Since 'only' has been used, a unique feature of Minnesota has to be pointed out. So 'that has...' should be correct.

And 'that' and 'where' can be parallel. Both are pronouns and can be used to refer to a state.

By the above reasoning I do not find a good enough reason to reject A.

Can Experts please explain where I am going wrong?

Regards,
Ankit
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Great points by AjiteshArun!

For what it's worth, there's no easy reason to eliminate (A), so you just have to compare it to (E) and decide which is best. For more on that, check out this post, if you haven't already.
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Minnesota is the only one of the contiguous forty-eight states that st 01 Sep 2023, 02:23
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Mavisdu1017
Hi expert,
I know this is an old official question and might NOT be that perfect. I just wonder is there any difference between (comma+and) and (and)? Since I come cross the similar issue in other questions, but I found different experts have different opinions over this issue and made me more confused. Thanks.
When "and" connects two relative clauses, as it does in this question, or two verb phrases, there is no major difference between "and" alone and comma + "and."
Show more

MartyMurray

Since you say "and" is not an issue in option C(I also agree), then on what grounds would you eliminate C?
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Minnesota is the only one of the contiguous forty-eight states that st 02 Sep 2023, 16:29
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Mavisdu1017
Hi expert,
I know this is an old official question and might NOT be that perfect. I just wonder is there any difference between (comma+and) and (and)? Since I come cross the similar issue in other questions, but I found different experts have different opinions over this issue and made me more confused. Thanks.
When "and" connects two relative clauses, as it does in this question, or two verb phrases, there is no major difference between "and" alone and comma + "and."

MartyMurray

Since you say "and" is not an issue in option C(I also agree), then on what grounds would you eliminate C?
Show more
The (C) version is just not quite as parallel as the (E) version.

I personally don't really like this question. The (C) version is not clearly wrong, and the (E) version is not great with the plural "wolves" followed by the singular "this predator."

Terrible question really ...
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