NAIL THE SENTENCE CORRECTION SECTION The only motive behind

Hii Souvik.
Can you please elaborate on the other uses of "while"? I thought that they are used for simultaneous events only.

Now coming to your question.
I can't really understand how "lying" be destructive. "Social interactions" can be destructive and "can signal mental problem" but "lying"...
Yes A has amibiguity issues because of "they", so the answer has to be E.
I have posted the OE in page 2.

First of all Marcab, pronoun ambiguity is really an issue which SHOULD not be considered as an initial eliminator of answer choices in the GMAT
If you want I can give you proofs of official questions in which the correct answer choice has ambiguous pronouns and OG 13 has more that 6 of these questions.
Consider the following.
Jack and Bill have a joint account, yet he hardly uses it.
Here "he" is really ambiguous, because there is ABSOLUTELY no way to tell which one is "he" referring to.

However consider this one,
Jack is much fatter than Bill; he weighs more than 200 pounds.
Here, however "he", albeit ambiguous, logically refers to Jack.

Plenty of officially correct answer choices have ambiguous pronouns so this is NOT a rule any more. (might make a secondary elimination technique though).

Second,
While implies two things.

1. Simultaneity: example: I was working out while I was watching TV.
This implies two actions which occur at the same time.
2. Contrast: example: While my weight loss was temporary, it gave my a confidence-boost.

Hope its clear the way "while" works.
Now coming to this question, it is clear that while implies a contrast here.
Lets look:

While recognizing that lying often facilitates social interactions, psychiatrists are seeking to determine when they become destructive and which kinds of mental problems they can signal.

A. they become destructive and which kinds of mental problems they can signal
B. they become destructive and the mental problems that are signaled by them
C. it becomes destructive and what are the kinds of mental problems they signal
D. it becomes destructive and the mental problems that are signaled by it
E. it becomes destructive and which kinds of mental problems it can signal

Here is how I would approach the problem:

Meaning: This sentence means: although lying has some good effects, it also have something bad.
It means that lying does help in social interactions but it also becomes destructive and create mental problems. (for example one can become a pathological liar. )
So while is used a contrast word here.
Also another way to figure out that it is lying that is destructive and not the social interactions:
Psychiatrists are recognizing the fact that LYING is doing stuffs such as facilitating social interactions.
So it is probable that psychiatrists are talking about LYING again, when they are talking about mental problems and destruction.

Once that is figured out, the rest just becomes a pronoun antecedent agreement question.
D is HORRIBLE because it mixes active and passive (GMAT ear comes to use here)

Does this help?

@Souvik

In my experience a pronoun and their antecedents cuould seem incorrect, but seeing the whole picture IF the context is clear (and in this question if you use the meaning strategy literally you spot what is the pivot point of the entire question) there is not ambiguity.

here there is \(THE PERFECT\) video by ron about what we are saying about pronoun ambiguity.

let's see this video. is a must

Good job Souvik...hats off.
But just would like to point one thing.
Jack is much fatter than Bill; he weighs more than 200 pounds
Here "he" correctly refers to Jack because Jack is the subject of the previous clause.
Consider this:
Bill is much thinner than Jack; he weighs less than 90 pounds. What do you think "he" refers to?

I agree Marcab that the lines are not very clear and I would always try to find out other options to eliminate.
On the sentence I would slightly incline towards Bill as the subject!

Guys remember: The GMAT is an holistic approach

Probably one of the wisest thing ever said about the test.

Whenever you begin a SC drill or even for the most advanced test takers keep in mind this



Ron Purewal.

The official question 3.
As per the GMAT PREP, this question has the difficulty level of 3.0. However I don't think that this one should be labeled hard.
Anyways try it guys.

OA

here we can attack the question in two ways

1) using shifting from is unidiomatic so we have A B and C but in B and C at the end for holding in incorrect because the soil together wants logically to hold just before. Moreover, C tipical in weel vegetated has no sense;_ tipically FOUND in wee-vegetated ......so this leads us to B. But B just in the middle has THEY that is to distant from the subject and also can refer to streams or geologists.....to far from home. So A

or

2) using tipically found. then we have A B and D. But D has in the middle areas where it is without - no sense at all. B for the problem of THEY. S A in the end is the answer.

A

hii Carcass.
explanation sounds fine. But I would like to add one thing: in D and E "shifting from" is not unidiomatic but rather modifies Karoo basin because it is the subject of the previous clause, a subordinate clause. Isn't that so?

The issue, I feel, that is with E is that it uses "being" to begin a modifier, which modifies braided pattern.

No no I agree . What you said is perfectly correct.

geologists have found something changed ...........\(FROM\) a previous state\(TO\)another state.

This is the gist of the sentence. Unidiomatic in that sense, but you are right, it seems misleadind how I said

being is incorrect 99.8% of the time inside the underlined portion of the sentence.

Do you find any more issues with the answer choices, apart from "referent issue"?
I still feel that "shifting from" in D and E are creating a split. There has to be a issue with it.

@carcass.
There is still a logic in order to eliminate "being" otherwise when it will backstab us, we can never know.

Ok........

When I see a SC (this is the result of hours and hours spent on blogs such as mgmatblog veritas, books , here on forum and so on and so forth, there is a lot of dedication that you have to have in order to tackle this test and this is not an achiving that you can reach in days or month - personally speaking who says GMAT in one month two day I'm skeptical - my personal opinion, though the score and who achive it are real, of course) I always try to put the thing simple and from there I move on.........

read this about my thinking to achive a certain score and motivation

https://ivy-gmat.blogspot.it/2011/09/sho ... c-ivy.html

here is something about being

usage-of-being-on-gmat-111592.html#p901750

Of course I'm not perfect on SC but I always try to do better than before ;

Seems as if you are a brand ambassador of Ivy GMAT.
Anyways, the "being" rule that I mentioned was told in one of the Thursdays with Ron sessions. Also you are right in the fact that "being" choices are 99% incorrect.