Naked mole rats form colonies of approximately 20 animals, each of whi

Hi,
As per e-gmat, for pronoun ambiguity : we need to put back the valid nouns and see if more than one noun can fit in the sentence
Here 'which' can refer to 'animals' indeed but then the meaning is distorted, so we cant consider this this. Now which can only refer to colonies and then it is correct so I feel A is correct.

Pls guide.

Hello akhisysnl,


Thank you for your query.

You are correct in saying that we do suggest that replace the pronoun with all he nouns that you may deem a logical antecedent of that pronoun. Only the logical noun will be the antecedent of that pronoun.

In this official sentence, as you have correctly mentioned, which has only one logical antecedent - colonies.

However, we also say that GMAT seems to prefer the answer choice that mentions the noun entity exclusively rather than the pronoun used for that noun entity.

In Choice C, the noun entity colony is specifically mentioned and hence leave no doubt for any pronoun ambiguity whatsoever. Hence, this choice is definitely better than Choice A.

There are many official sentences in which we see that the correct answer choice carries the noun entity explicitly.


Hope this helps.
Thanks.
Shraddha
_________________

GMATNinja Can i call this a case of resumptive modifier?
_________________

Sure! You know that I'm not a big fan of the grammar terminology, but for whatever it's worth, I think it does qualifies as a resumptive modifier: we're restating a noun ("each colony") so that we can then describe the colony in more detail.

And if you have no idea what we're talking about and have no interest in the term "resumptive modifier", that's cool, too.
_________________

Hi,

I eliminated C because "each worker consisting" and "workers that defend her" dint appear parallel.

Can you help me on this please.

There's absolutely no reason why those two things need to be parallel. The parallelism trigger "and" is followed by a noun ("workers that defend her"). That noun just needs to be parallel to some other noun -- and "a single reproductive female" does the trick.

So we have: "Naked mole rats form colonies of approximately 20 animals, each colony consisting of a single reproductive female and workers that defend her." No problem there at all.

For more on parallelism, you might want to check out this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQgATaaw1ok
_________________

Why "which" in this sentence can refer to animals, the only logical antecedent is "Colonies" as each animal cannot have both female and male animals in it, Is my reasoning correct?

Well, yeah. But notice that it required an unpleasant amount of work to arrive at that conclusion. If the sentence had said, "naked mole rats form colonies of approximately 20 animals, each of which has sharp teeth and bad breath," you probably wouldn't have hesitated to link "each of which" to the nearest noun, "animals." That's a natural first instinct - at least it was for me.

So to make sense of the phrase "naked mole rats form colonies of approximately 20 animals, each of which consists of a single reproductive female and workers that defend her," you have to overrule your first instinct, conclude that "animals" don't each consist of a female and workers, and then go searching for something earlier in the sentence that works better. And that's pretty confusing. Compare that with the OA: "Naked mole rats form colonies of approximately 20 animals, each colony consisting of a single reproductive female and workers that defend her." No work required: it's 100% clear, because the sentence tells us EXACTLY what consists of a "female and workers...".

Put another way: (A) isn't necessarily WRONG, exactly, but (C) is undoubtedly better. On the GMAT, clear and logical will always trump murky and ambiguous.

I hope that helps!
_________________

Hi GMATNinja,

I rejected option A based on the fact that it is a run on sentence.
Clause 1 : Naked mole rats form colonies of approximately 20 animals --> Naked mole rats (subject) and form (Verb)
Clause 2 : each of which consists of a single reproductive female and workers that defend her --> each (is the subject) and consists (verb)

Option B and D has reference issues with "them" and in option E after and we expect a verb which is missing.
Hence, i selected option C.

is my understanding about option A is wrong?

Regards,
Kshitij

Hi Kshitij,

Actually "each of which" is a modifier like "which". So sentence after "each of which" is not a clause.
Eg: This model explains all known particles, each of which was discovered recently.

choice A can be eliminated for wrong reference of "each of which". (Already explained by GMATNinja )

Please help me understand how A is wrong .
I understand which follows touch rule and it modifies the closest noun (in our case animals).
But isnt the highlighted text( colonies of approximately 20 animals )a prepositional phrase and then can't the which jump on to modify colonies.
Can you please clarify where I am going wrong in my though process.

We attempted to address this concern in an earlier post. Check it out, and let us know if you still have questions!
_________________

Them is a plural pronoun. I think you taught us that if we have multiple antecedents and it makes sense with any one of them, then the pronoun is not ambiguous.

What am I missing here?
GMATNinja egmat ManhattanPrep

abhinavkant3

Although it's true that not every pronoun with multiple possible antecedents is ambiguous, we also can't say that it's okay to apply whichever antecedent makes the most sense. The intended meaning needs to be very clear, and we need to make sure there are no cues pushing the reader toward an absurd interpretation. This can be rather subjective, so it helps to rely on the cues the question gives us. Generally, if the GMAT gives us the opportunity to replace a pronoun with a clarifying noun ("colony"), and there's no major problem with the choice that does so, we should take it.

As for structure, proximity matters a bit. The role of the intended antecedent matters, too. If "colonies" were the subject, we wouldn't even need a pronoun or clarification: "Naked mole rat colonies consists of approximately 20 animals, a reproductive female and the males that defend her." If after "animals," we pivoted to "and they," the structure would suggest that "they" is still the colonies. "Naked mole rat colonies consists of approximately 20 animals, and they remain distinct from other colonies even when they occupy the same territory." However, here "colonies" is the object of the clause, so it's less clear when we get to "they" that it is our intended antecedent. Answer choice A may be the worst, since it directly applies a noun modifier to "animals," but once we notice that error, we should look for an answer that most clearly overcomes the problem and refers us back to the colonies.
_________________

What we've said is that pronoun ambiguity is not an absolute rule that you always need to follow. Just because you have a pronoun with multiple possible antecedents doesn't automatically make it wrong. (For more on that, check out this video.)

Does that mean that pronoun ambiguity is never a problem? Nope, that's not quite true. If an ambiguous pronoun makes the sentence confusing and there are less-confusing options, then that gives you a vote against the more confusing options (i.e. B and D in this case).

Does that mean that B and D are wrong SOLELY because of the pronoun ambiguity? Absolutely not, and unfortunately there are very few black and white rules that you can blindly apply on GMAT SC. The point of our explanation was that (C) is a better choice.

I hope that makes sense!
_________________

Hi experts

Is option A a run-on sentence (2 ICs connected by a comma)?
IMO - "Each of which....." can not stand alone as a separate sentence. However, I am still unsure about this

Regards, Devansh

No, the part after the comma is just a modifier that gives us more information about the colonies, and that's perfectly fine.

As we say all the time, the GMAT is pretty lenient when it comes to comma usage. Commas are frequently used to separate extra modifying information from the rest of the sentence, as is the case here. Commas are also sometimes used simply for clarity, often to help organize or break up a long, complicated sentence.

If you have two independent clauses joined by a conjunction, then you need a comma. But having a comma certainly does not automatically mean that you NEED another independent clause.

Other examples can be found here and here.

I hope that helps!
_________________

Hello devansh18,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, no - Option A is not a run-on sentence. "each of which...her" is a modifying phrase, wherein the "comma + which" construction links "animals" to "consists of a single reproductive female and workers that defend her".

Please remember, only constructions that can serve as complete sentences can be independent clauses.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
Experts' Global Team
_________________

is- ''each of which consists of a single reproductive female and workers that defend her'' in A] an independent clause and therefore a semicolon required?