The deer, despite having traveled hundreds of miles to reach the Canad

I’m not crazy about the “despite having traveled… and being free…”, but I’m not 100% sure that it’s wrong. I guess the sequencing makes sense, but it sounds awkward. Then again – “awkwardness” is a lame reason to eliminate an answer choice, especially on the first pass through. (See our beginners’ guide to SC for more on why “awkwardness” shouldn’t be your primary concern.)

But the verb tenses are a legit problem. “The deer… has struggled to acclimate to the habitat that wildlife biologists had predicted would enable them to thrive.” That doesn’t quite work: why would we pair the past perfect (“had predicted”) with an action in present perfect (“has struggled”)? I’d be OK if “has struggled” just said “struggled”, but this version doesn’t work.

More importantly: “the deer” is plural. More on that in a moment. Either way, (A) is out.



Sneaky! “Deer” could be either singular or plural, so you have to let the question somehow “tell you” how to handle it. (Here’s an official example of this concept.) In this case, the word “them” is not underlined, so we know that “deer” has to be plural. So the “it” in (B) is wrong.


I'm OK with basically everything here, except for the verb tenses: there’s no good reason to use the past perfect “had struggled” here, since we have no “time marker” (usually, another action in simple past tense) that occurred later. (C) is gone.


I feel kinda bad for the poor deer, because they’re still struggling in the present. But I can’t figure out why we would use present tense here, considering that we have another action in past perfect (“had predicted”). I think we need simple past tense in this case. (D) is gone.


The “which” looks fine, “they” agrees with “them” later in the sentence, and the verb tense is finally correct. (E) is the winner.
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My answer: E (Awaiting OA)

The deer, despite having traveled hundreds of miles to reach the Canadian wilderness and being free to roam without fear of highway traffic or other man-made dangers, has struggled to acclimate to the habitat that wildlife biologists had predicted would enable them to thrive.

(A) despite having traveled hundreds of miles to reach the Canadian wilderness and being free to roam without fear of highway traffic or other man-made dangers, has struggled -SV agreement. "has" should be "have".
(B) in spite of having traveled hundreds of miles to reach the Canadian wilderness where it would be free to roam without fear of highway traffic or other man-made dangers, struggled -SV agreement. "it" should be "they".
(C) despite having traveled hundreds of miles to reach the Canadian wilderness that offered freedom to roam without fear of highway traffic or other man-made dangers, had struggled -"perfect tense" can be avoided.
(D) after traveling hundreds of miles to reach the Canadian wilderness that offered freedom to roam without fear of highway traffic or other man-made dangers, struggles -SV agreement + tense issue
(E) which traveled hundreds of miles to reach the Canadian wilderness where they would be free to roam without fear of highway traffic or other man-made dangers, struggled -Correct.

The deer, despite having traveled hundreds of miles to reach the Canadian wilderness and being free to roam without fear of highway traffic or other man-made dangers, has struggled to acclimate to the habitat that wildlife biologists had predicted would enable them to thrive.

(A) despite having traveled hundreds of miles to reach the Canadian wilderness and being free to roam without fear of highway traffic or other man-made dangers, has struggled --- Note the pronoun 'them' in the non-underlined part. The deer is plural; therefore, 'has struggled' is SV number mismatch

(B) in spite of having traveled hundreds of miles to reach the Canadian wilderness where it would be free to roam without fear of highway traffic or other man-made dangers, struggled -- do not see any point in the contrast marker 'in spite of'. The Canadian habitat would be helpful not because of their odyssey

(C) despite having traveled hundreds of miles to reach the Canadian wilderness that offered freedom to roam without fear of highway traffic or other man-made dangers, had struggled ---- 'The Struggle' was neither earlier nor simultaneous to 'had predicted'. Therefore, use of past perfect 'had struggled' is wrong

(D) after traveling hundreds of miles to reach the Canadian wilderness that offered freedom to roam without fear of highway traffic or other man-made dangers, struggles ---The singular 'struggles' is plain wrong.

(E) which traveled hundreds of miles to reach the Canadian wilderness where they would be free to roam without fear of highway traffic or other man-made dangers, struggled -- correct choice.
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VKat
Why not? e.g. The cow, which yielded 15 liters of milk in the competition got the first prize. We can also use 'that' as an alternative for an animal, but with different connotations.
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Although E is correct in grammar but if you remove WHICH modifier, the meaning is lost.
I think DESPITE mentions the paradox clearly.

What do you think?

Hm, interesting question! I don't think that it would be wrong to use "despite" here, but I don't think that it's ideal, either. The intended meaning is that the deer struggled despite the biologists' prediction, and despite the lack of "highway traffic or other man-made dangers." But in (A) and (C), "despite" is immediately followed with "having traveled hundreds of miles..." -- and the deer's travels are irrelevant to the deer's struggles to acclimate. So there's no real reason to use "despite", since there's no apparent paradox between the deer's travels and its struggles to acclimate. But I wouldn't automatically eliminate (A) or (C) because of the use of "despite" -- I think it's probably acceptable, but not strictly necessary.

More importantly, there are other problems with (A) and (C), as described above. I don't think that the "which" modifier is perfect either, but it's not clearly wrong -- and the other problems in the other answer choices are far more important.

I hope this helps!
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Can someone explain the usages and differences between 'despite of' and 'inspite of'?

Arjun02 "Despite" and "in spite of" are essentially the same, and either can be used. However, "despite of" is never used.
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Is having traveled (from option B) correct ? I Know the answer due to sv agreement. I want to understand if having traveled is correct or not. Thanks in advance

DmitryFarber So suppose if option B didn't have 'it' and instead have 'they', would it be a more appropriate answer than E?

I am asking this question because I chose answer B as I didn't notice the error between 'it' and 'they'. Also I didn't find any other error in option B.

Arjun02 That's a dangerous game to play. The right answers are right, not just better than the others, so there's no real reason to prefer some other variation to E. As for B, the only other difference is at the beginning. So do we want "in spite of having traveled"? Definitely not. The deer didn't struggle to acclimate to a new climate in spite of having traveled. On the contrary, they struggled to acclimate because they had traveled to a new climate. The contrast we need to see is between the prediction by biologists and the actual result.
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dear MikeScarn, GMATNinja, Abhi077, GMATNinjaTwo, hazelnut, @generis,@DmitryFarber
is it solid to cross off C because of "that" after Canada wildness, rather than "where"


thanks in advance.

There is nothing inherently wrong with the form "having traveled". For example, you could certainly say,

"Having traveled hundreds of miles to reach the lake, the deer were tired." - This tells us that one action (the traveling) occurred before another action (being tired).

But in choice (B), "having traveled" comes after "in spite of". We expect a noun to follow "in spite of," as prepositions, by definition, introduce nouns. For example,

"In spite of the cold, Jonas went for a run."

We could certainly use an -ing form that acts as a noun (a gerund, if you like the jargon) after "in spite of". For example,

"In spite of the waiting, I enjoyed my trip to the Department of Motor Vehicles to renew my license." - (This sentence has never actually been spoken in the history of driver's licenses.)

But "having traveled" is not a noun form and thus doesn't work after "in spite of".


I wouldn't eliminate (C) for that reason alone. There's nothing inherently wrong with using "that" to modify "wilderness". For example,

"The plane crash survivor was lost in the wilderness that lies to the east of Canada's Yukon Territory."

The verb tense issue described in this post is a better reason to eliminate (C).

I hope that helps!
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Hi Ninja

Doesnt which in E makes it non essential modifier. Since the "Comma" was before the underlined portion

Check out this post for my not-so-satisfying thoughts on essential vs non-essential modifiers. If you have questions after reading that, just let us know.
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Hi GMATNinja AndrewN

Do we uses despite with a clause?
My understanding was the despite/in spite of only follows and phrase

Hello, shanks2020. You can use despite/in spite of ahead of an embedded clause, but you would not use such a construct ahead of an independent clause. We can take the following sentences, for instance, to illustrate the point:

CORRECT: Despite the fact that the soldier had lost both of his legs during the war, he ended up becoming a Paralympic athlete.

INCORRECT: Despite the soldier had lost both of his legs...

If my sentence were being tested, I doubt the first would win out if there were another version with a phrase—e.g., Despite the soldier losing/having lost both of his legs...—but the clause version is not inherently incorrect.

I hope that helps answer your question. Thank you for thinking to ask.

- Andrew
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Thanks AndrewN for the reply.

What would you mean by embedded clause in your explanation?
In the sentence - Despite "having lost both ..." does the part after HAVING form a clause?
My understanding is yes, but still not sure because there is no subject. A clause should have both subject and verb.

I was referring to the that clause in my sentence as the embedded clause, one that would not be used on its own to form a sentence. You are correct in saying that an independent clause should contain both a subject and a verb. For this reason, we could not call my having lost both... example a clause. It would be a phrase instead, one that would modify the eventual subject of the main clause (something like he). It can be a bit confusing at times to determine whether a that clause is actually being used as the subject of a sentence, or whether an -ing phrase is actually a gerund, but with more exposure to such sentences, and with an eye on the verb that must be present to allow this type of subject to operate in a sentence, the challenge becomes less daunting. Consider the following sentences, in which I will mark each subject and predicate of the main clause (the predicate will start with the verb):

1) That the criminal convicted of embezzlement was greedy is a bygone conclusion. (Akin to saying, [Something] is a bygone conclusion.)

2) Being a teenager is difficult. (Akin to saying, [Something] is difficult.)

One way to improve at SC is to become adept at identifying subjects and verbs. As simple as it seems, the GMAT™ can throw some really pretzel-ly sentences your way at times. But focusing on the basics can still help you solve even some of the hardest questions.

I hope I have not muddled the picture. (Fingers crossed.)

- Andrew
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