More than 300 rivers drain into Siberia's Lake Baikal, which holds 20

Can any one please explain what is the problem with D?

More than 300 rivers drain into Siberia's Lake Baikal, which holds 20 percent of the world's fresh water, more than all the North American Great Lakes combined.

(A) More than 300 rivers drain into Siberia's Lake Baikal, which holds 20 percent of the world's fresh water, more than all the North American Great Lakes combined.

(B) With 20 percent of the world's fresh water, that is more than all the North American Great Lakes combined, Siberia's Lake Baikal has more than 300 rivers that drain into it.

(C) Siberia's Lake Baikal, with more than 300 rivers draining into it, it holds more of the world's fresh water than all that of the North American Great Lakes combined, 20 percent.

(D) While more than 300 rivers drain into it, Siberia's lake Baikal holds 20 percent of the world's fresh water, which is more than all the North American Great Lakes combined.

(E) More than all the North American Great Lakes combined, Siberia's Lake Baikal, with more than 300 rivers draining into it, holds 20 percent of the world's fresh water.

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I think it is hard to know why B is wrong. I will try. all of you, pls, join discussion

the girl with red hat is my friend
with red hat, the girl is my friend

the first is right, "with..." phrase works as adjective.
the second is wrong because "with..." phrase works as adverb and shows the method of main clause. it is not logic because the girl is my friend by means of a red hat.

our choice B is similar. so, B is wrong.

takeaway
in the pattern
with+noun+comma+main clause
with phrase works as an adverb and we need to check this adverbial modification is logic or not.

we alway have to know the grammatical role of entities in the sentence before we justify it is logic or not.

am i correct? pls, comment. I am not confident in this point

Hi,
I know this might sound stupid, but can you please explain how with... phrase preceding main clause acts as an adverb only, why it cannot modify subject or acts as an adjective.

More than 300 rivers drain into Siberia's Lake Baikal, which holds 20 percent of the world's fresh water, more than all the North American Great Lakes combined.

(A) More than 300 rivers drain into Siberia's Lake Baikal, which holds 20 percent of the world's fresh water, more than all the North American Great Lakes combined.

(B) With 20 percent of the world's fresh water, that is more than all the North American Great Lakes combined, Siberia's Lake Baikal has more than 300 rivers that drain into it.

(C) Siberia's Lake Baikal, with more than 300 rivers draining into it, it holds more of the world's fresh water than all that of the North American Great Lakes combined, 20 percent.

(D) While more than 300 rivers drain into it, Siberia's lake Baikal holds 20 percent of the world's fresh water, which is more than all the North American Great Lakes combined.

(E) More than all the North American Great Lakes combined, Siberia's Lake Baikal, with more than 300 rivers draining into it, holds 20 percent of the world's fresh water.

GMATNinja mikemcgarry

Please help me eliminate B as i am not able to do so and further please let me know if i am headed in the right direction,

A - Hold
B - Could not eliminate
C - Multiple usage of it which causes redundancy
D - It has no antecedent
E - Incorrectly modifies Siberia Lake

In A, is it correct for modifier "more than all the North American Great Lakes combined" to come in that construction? To my knowledge, if the noun-modifier is modifying a noun or a clause, in this case, 20% of world's fresh water lakes, the modifier must be of the form " ,a FIGURE more than all the NA great lakes combined". Please clarify me. I got a couple of answers wrong because of lack of understanding in this particular concept. Thank you in advance.

More than 300 rivers drain into Siberia's Lake Baikal, which holds 20 percent of the world's fresh water, more than all the North American Great Lakes combined.

For some reason, a large percentage of my students hate this question with the fury of a thousand suns. But you’ll love it… right?


I don’t really see any problems with (A). The “which” jumps out at me, but that seems fine, since “which holds 20% of the world’s fresh water” logically modifies “Siberia’s Lake Baikal.” That last modifier seems fine, too: “more than all the North American Great Lakes combined” describes “20% of the world’s fresh water.”

So I guess we’ll keep (A), and hope that the other four answer choices have problems.


I’m not sure that anything is WRONG with (B), but there are three or four things that are spectacularly crappy about (B). (Craptacular? That’s not a word, but it should be.)

For starters, “with 20% of the world’s fresh water” is a lousy way to modify “Siberia’s Lake Baikal.” The preposition “with” generally suggests accompaniment of some sort (“I eat burritos with green chile” or “I went to the movies with my daughter”), and I can’t understand why we would use “with” in this context. Plus, it’s a long way from the thing it modifies. Again, I can’t prove that it’s WRONG, but it’s not great.

I also can’t make sense of the middle modifier, “that is more than all the North American Great Lakes combined.” For starters, I can’t figure out why we’re using a modifier beginning with “that” immediately after a comma. More importantly, the comparison doesn’t work: it’s basically saying that 20% of the world’s fresh water is more than the Great Lakes. You could say that the amount of water in Lake Baikal is greater than the amount of water in the Great Lakes, but it isn’t awesome to say that the amount of water is greater than the lakes themselves.

Finally, there’s no reason to write “…Lake Baikal has more than 300 rivers that drain into it” when we could use a more active construction (“more than 300 rivers drain into Lake Baikal”). The version in (B) isn’t WRONG, exactly, but it’s pretty craptacular compared to (A).

So we can ditch (B).


The most straightforward problem with (B) is that the subject is basically repeated twice: “Siberia’s Lake Baikal, (blah blah modifier), it holds…” That’s definitely not cool.

For bonus points, the modifier beginning with “with” still doesn’t seem quite right (see the explanation to (B) for more on that issue), and the comparison isn’t quite right, either: “Lake Baikal… holds more of the world’s fresh water than all that of the… Great Lakes…” “That” presumably refers to water, so that gives us “Lake Baikal… holds more of the world’s fresh water than [all the water of] the… Great Lakes.” And that’s wildly unnecessary: it’s better just to say that Lake Baikal holds more water than the Great Lakes.

But even if you ignore that last paragraph, the “Lake Baikal… it holds…” thing is a huge problem. So (C) is out.


The “which” jumps out at me first. The phrase “which is more than… the Great Lakes…” seems to modify “20% of the world’s fresh water”, and that doesn’t quite work: it’s illogical to say that a quantity of water is “more than… the Great Lakes.” It might be more than the water in the Great Lakes, but not “more than” the Great Lakes themselves.

Plus, “while” is essentially a synonym for “although” in this case, and that doesn’t make sense: “[Although] more than 300 rivers drain into it, Siberia’s Lake Baikal…[is large].” “Although” suggests some sort of contrast, and there’s definitely no contrast between those two phrases.

So (D) is out.


That opening modifier, “more than all the… Great Lakes combined”, still isn’t great: it’s literally suggesting that Lake Baikal is “more than the Great Lakes”, and that doesn’t make sense. Maybe the amount of water in Lake Baikal is more than the amount in all of the Great Lakes, but Lake Baikal itself isn’t “more than” the Great Lakes.

I’m also not crazy about the use of “with” as a modifier in (E). For more on this issue, see the explanation for (B) above.

(E) isn’t a complete disaster, but (A) does a better job of conveying the meaning of the sentence, so (A) is our answer.

But I do have a doubt out here. In almost all of wrong answer you suggested that term " 20 percent of the world's fresh water" has been compared with "Lake Baikal". And true its illogical to compare amount of water with name of Lake.

But how does option A do it correct.

More than 300 rivers drain into Siberia's Lake Baikal, which holds 20 percent of the world's fresh water, more than all the North American Great Lakes combined.

I can understand A compares "20 percent of the world's fresh water" with "all the North American Great Lakes combined". But again its American lakes combined has been compared with 20% of water.
Pls suggest !

abhik1502

Here are my two cents for your below query.



I believe you got confused a bit between modifier and comparison.

Let me break the sentence in to its clauses for better understanding:

More than 300 rivers drain into Siberia's Lake Baikal,
which holds 20 percent of the world's fresh water,
more than all the North American Great Lakes combined.

As GMATNinja mentioned which is a noun modifier that refers back to Siberia's Lake Baikal,
and if you look closely in your query you attempted to compare 20 per cent of the world's fresh water with a noun
i.e. all the North American Great Lakes combined and this is incorrect.

The intended meaning of the sentence is that Siberia's Lake Baikal holds 20% of worlds' fresh water. More than 300
rivers drain water into this lake. The amount of water held in LB is greater than the amount of all North American Great Lakes combined hold together.

Does this help you ?

Thanks adkikani !

I understood the modifier part and that clarifies my earlier doubt. But there are new ones where I would like you to help me out.

1. As its non-essential modifier so we can write sentence also as


More than 300 rivers drain into Siberia's Lake Baikal, more than all the North American Great Lakes combined.

Now doesn't it conveys the meaning that more than 300 rivers draining into Lake Baikal and this number 300 is more than all the North American Great Lakes combined.
In case of non-essential modifier how does this connects with 20% water.
Still if it would have been essential modifier then also we are comparing "more than all the North American Great Lakes combined" with previous clause i.e. "More than 300 rivers drain into Siberia's Lake Baikal" . SO it compares the number 300.

Pls suggest where I am wrong in my above understanding.

For some reason, a large percentage of my students hate this question with the fury of a thousand suns. But you’ll love it… right?


I don’t really see any problems with (A). The “which” jumps out at me, but that seems fine, since “which holds 20% of the world’s fresh water” logically modifies “Siberia’s Lake Baikal.” That last modifier seems fine, too: “more than all the North American Great Lakes combined” describes “20% of the world’s fresh water.”

So I guess we’ll keep (A), and hope that the other four answer choices have problems.


I’m not sure that anything is WRONG with (B), but there are three or four things that are spectacularly crappy about (B). (Craptacular? That’s not a word, but it should be.)

For starters, “with 20% of the world’s fresh water” is a lousy way to modify “Siberia’s Lake Baikal.” The preposition “with” generally suggests accompaniment of some sort (“I eat burritos with green chile” or “I went to the movies with my daughter”), and I can’t understand why we would use “with” in this context. Plus, it’s a long way from the thing it modifies. Again, I can’t prove that it’s WRONG, but it’s not great.

I also can’t make sense of the middle modifier, “that is more than all the North American Great Lakes combined.” For starters, I can’t figure out why we’re using a modifier beginning with “that” immediately after a comma. More importantly, the comparison doesn’t work: it’s basically saying that 20% of the world’s fresh water is more than the Great Lakes. You could say that the amount of water in Lake Baikal is greater than the amount of water in the Great Lakes, but it isn’t awesome to say that the amount of water is greater than the lakes themselves.

Finally, there’s no reason to write “…Lake Baikal has more than 300 rivers that drain into it” when we could use a more active construction (“more than 300 rivers drain into Lake Baikal”). The version in (B) isn’t WRONG, exactly, but it’s pretty craptacular compared to (A).

So we can ditch (B).


The most straightforward problem with (B) is that the subject is basically repeated twice: “Siberia’s Lake Baikal, (blah blah modifier), it holds…” That’s definitely not cool.

For bonus points, the modifier beginning with “with” still doesn’t seem quite right (see the explanation to (B) for more on that issue), and the comparison isn’t quite right, either: “Lake Baikal… holds more of the world’s fresh water than all that of the… Great Lakes…” “That” presumably refers to water, so that gives us “Lake Baikal… holds more of the world’s fresh water than [all the water of] the… Great Lakes.” And that’s wildly unnecessary: it’s better just to say that Lake Baikal holds more water than the Great Lakes.

But even if you ignore that last paragraph, the “Lake Baikal… it holds…” thing is a huge problem. So (C) is out.


The “which” jumps out at me first. The phrase “which is more than… the Great Lakes…” seems to modify “20% of the world’s fresh water”, and that doesn’t quite work: it’s illogical to say that a quantity of water is “more than… the Great Lakes.” It might be more than the water in the Great Lakes, but not “more than” the Great Lakes themselves.

Plus, “while” is essentially a synonym for “although” in this case, and that doesn’t make sense: “[Although] more than 300 rivers drain into it, Siberia’s Lake Baikal…[is large].” “Although” suggests some sort of contrast, and there’s definitely no contrast between those two phrases.

So (D) is out.


That opening modifier, “more than all the… Great Lakes combined”, still isn’t great: it’s literally suggesting that Lake Baikal is “more than the Great Lakes”, and that doesn’t make sense. Maybe the amount of water in Lake Baikal is more than the amount in all of the Great Lakes, but Lake Baikal itself isn’t “more than” the Great Lakes.

I’m also not crazy about the use of “with” as a modifier in (E). For more on this issue, see the explanation for (B) above.

(E) isn’t a complete disaster, but (A) does a better job of conveying the meaning of the sentence, so (A) is our answer.