Bunuel wrote:
One of the only known anglerfish without a luring appendage or pelvic fins, Histiophryne psychedelica, with large flexible frills on its cheeks, which possibly help them to detect the movement of predators.
A. psychedelica, with large flexible frills on its cheeks, which possibly help them to
B. psychedelica, with large flexible frills on their cheeks, which possibly help it to
C. psychedelica, with large flexible frills on its cheeks, which possibly help them
D. psychedelica has large flexible frills on its cheeks, possibly to help it
E. psychedelica has large flexible frills on their cheeks, possibly to help it
Veritas Prep Official Explanation:
As you survey your Decision Points on this problem, you should see three major places where answer choices diverge on common Sentence Correction issues. At the beginning of each choice you have a decision between ", with" and "has"; in the middle of each choice there is a pronoun difference between "its" and "their"; and at the end of each choice is a pronoun, either "it" or "them."
Note that the two pronouns in each sentence have to each refer to the same noun, Histiophryne psychedelica. Only choice D matches singular with singular - every other choice has one singular pronoun and one plural pronoun, and that cannot be the case when both pronouns refer to the same noun.
Furthermore, ask yourself where the verb is in choices A, B, and C. By using the modifier "with" instead of the verb "has" at the beginning of each choice, none of those choices pairs a verb with the subject, Histiophryne psychedelica - in each case you just have a list of nested modifiers. Since every sentence needs to have at least a subject and a verb, these are all incorrect.
Choice D is a complete sentence (the subject goes with the verb "has") and features pronoun agreement ("its" and "it" each refer to the singular subject), so choice D is correct.
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