The first animal shelter in the United States was established in 1869

Question

Pack 16, Question 3 of 5:

The first animal shelter in the United States was established in 1869 by the Women’s SPCA of Pennsylvania  promoting that stray animals have humane care and appropriate food so as to rehome them.

A. promoting that stray animals have humane care and appropriate food so as to rehome them
 
B. who were promoting stray animals have humane care and appropriate food for their rehoming

C. promoting humane care and appropriate food to rehome stray animals

D. who promoted humane care and appropriate food for the means of stray animal rehoming
 
E. promoting as the means for stray animal rehoming humane care and appropriate food

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lemonmelon · Accepted Answer

Concepts tested: Modifiers, Relative Pronouns, Idiom

Meaning: The meaning is fairly straightforward. Sentence tells you that Women's SPCA established animal shelter. The part "promoting that stray animals......" is a modifier and gives additional info and context about the preceding part of the sentence.

Note that Women is in possessive (Women’s SPCA of Pennsylvania). Therefore, there is no antecedent for the relative pronoun " who " in the non-underlined sentence. Options B and D are, therefore, incorrect.

Let's look at other answer choices:

A.  promoting  that  stray animals have humane care and appropriate food so as to rehome them  
Error: Promoting doesn't take "that". Additionally, the sentence as written says animals will be rehoming themselves. Wrong!

E.  promoting as the  means for  stray animal rehoming humane care and appropriate food  
Always remember: "Means for" is 100% wrong. Correct idioms are "means of" and "means to". Also, the sentence "stray animal rehoming humane care.." is non-sensical and should be easily discarded

C.  promoting humane care and appropriate food to rehome stray animals  
No errors and is the correct answer choice. Modifier "promoting.....animals" modifies Women's SPCA of Pennsylvania. Infinitive verb "to rehome" shows the purpose of establishing the animal shelter

Hit Kudos if you like the answer. Thanks!

monikakumar · Answer

IMO C

A. Meaning error -> "animals have humane care" (but animals should be given humane care) and "promoting that" seems to be awkward
B. "were" plural refers to singular "SPCA"
D. "for the means of" seems to be wordy and "care and food" are not means.
E. "stray animal rehoming" its not animal rehoming, but its SPCA rehoming stray animals

C. Correct. Better compared to other options.

raunakd11 · Answer

Pack 16, Question 3 of 5:

The first animal shelter in the United States was established in 1869 by the Women’s SPCA of Pennsylvania promoting that stray animals have humane care and appropriate food so as to rehome them.

A. promoting that stray animals have humane care and appropriate food so as to rehome them

B. who were promoting stray animals have humane care and appropriate food for their rehoming

C. promoting humane care and appropriate food to rehome stray animals

D. who promoted humane care and appropriate food for the means of stray animal rehoming

E. promoting as the means for stray animal rehoming humane care and appropriate food

Hello guys!

Eliminate Option A, 'so as to' sounded incorrect and the statement seemed off.
Eliminate Option B, adding an infinitive could have been a better idea for the sentence and 'were' refers to a plural noun; we need a singular here.
Eliminate Option D, 'means of' seems unrequired and wordy.
Eliminate Option E, it misses the usage of an infinitive.

Option C seems fine to me!

IMO,
Hit Option C.

Thank you!

Regards,
Raunak Damle

HoneyLemon · Answer

The first animal shelter in the United States was established in 1869 by the Women’s SPCA of Pennsylvania  promoting that stray animals have humane care and appropriate food so as to rehome them.

A. promoting  that stray animals have humane care and appropriate  food so as to rehome them

1.This choice does not convey the meaning properly. . promoting that stray animals have humane care and appropriate .. conveys illogical meaning

B. who were promoting  stray animals have humane  care and appropriate food for their rehoming

1.This choice does not convey the meaning properly. . promoting stray animals have humane care and appropriate .. conveys illogical meaning

C. promoting humane care and appropriate food to rehome stray animals

1. Correct ...Prompting correctly modifies to the women's of spca..

2. To rehome stray animals denote the purpose of the women.

D. who promoted humane care and appropriate food  for the means of  stray animal rehoming

1.This choice does not convey the meaning properly. . For the means of is not the correct idiom to be used here.

E. promoting as  the means for  stray animal rehoming humane care and appropriate food

1.This choice does not convey the meaning properly. . as the means for conveys ilogical meaning .

C  is the best choice.. imo

EMPOWERgmatVerbal · Answer

Official Explanation

The first animal shelter in the United States was established in 1869 by the Women’s SPCA of Pennsylvania,  promoting that stray animals have humane care and appropriate food so as to rehome them.

A.  promoting  that stray animals have humane care and appropriate food  so as to rehome them  
 
 B.  who were promoting  stray animals have humane care and appropriate food  for their rehoming

C.  promoting  humane care and appropriate food  to rehome stray animals

D.  who promoted  humane care and appropriate food  for the means of stray animal rehoming  
 
 E.  promoting  as the means  for stray animal rehoming  humane care and appropriate food

This question deals with several issues:

1. Pronouns need to clearly refer to their antecedents. 
2. Modifier placement should be directly before or after the noun it is modifying. 
3. Lastly, sentences should not be overly wordy.

Let’s start with pronoun-antecedent agreement.  We need to make sure any pronouns we find refer back to clear antecedents. 
 
 A. promoting that stray animals have humane care and appropriate food so as to rehome  them  
This is  INCORRECT . It is unclear whether the pronoun “them” refers to the “Women’s SPCA,” or the “stray animals.” We’re certainly not going to rehome the wonderful people at the Women’s SPCA - but the sentence isn’t 100% clear about that!
 
 B. who were promoting stray animals be cared have humane care and appropriate food for  their  rehoming 
This is INCORRECT. It is unclear whether the pronoun “their” refers to “Women’s SPCA,” or the “stray animals.”

C. promoting humane care and appropriate food  to rehome stray animals  
This is  OKAY  for now. The sentence removes the pronoun entirely to remove any confusion about who/what is being rehomed.

D. who promoted humane care and appropriate food  for the means of stray animal rehoming  
This is  OKAY  for now. The sentence removes the pronoun entirely to remove any confusion about who/what is being rehomed.
 
 E. promoting as the means  for stray animal rehoming  humane care and appropriate food 
This is  OKAY  for now. There are no pronouns to deal with here.

We can eliminate options A & B  because they have vague pronouns and unclear antecedents.  Let’s move on to #2 on our list: modifiers.  We need to make sure any modifier phrases we have are located next to their antecedents. While we’re here, let’s also check for overly wordy phrases too! To make problems easier to spot, let’s add in the non-underlined portion:

C.  The first animal shelter in the United States was established in 1869 by the Women’s SPCA of Pennsylvania,   promoting  humane care and appropriate food  to rehome stray animals.  
This is  CORRECT . The sentence removes the pronoun entirely to remove any confusion about who/what is being rehomed. There also aren’t any problems with modifiers and antecedents. Finally, it’s also written with concise, clear language.

D.  The first animal shelter in the United States was established in 1869 by the Women’s SPCA of Pennsylvania,   who promoted  humane care and appropriate food  for the means of stray animal rehoming . 
This is  INCORRECT . By starting the modifier with “who,” it’s now unclear if the phrase is referring to the shelter or the Women’s SPCA. Also, the phrase “for the means of stray animal rehoming” is overly wordy. Saying “to rehome stray animals” is much shorter and means the same thing!
 
 E.  The first animal shelter in the United States was established in 1869 by the Women’s SPCA of Pennsylvania,  promoting  as the means for stray animal rehoming  humane care and appropriate food. 
This is  INCORRECT . This is a misplaced modifier! The phrase “as the means for stray animal rehoming” belongs after “promoting humane care and appropriate food,” not stuck in the middle of it.

There you have it - option C is the correct choice!

Don’t study for the GMAT. Train for it.

EMPOWERgmatVerbal · Answer

Well done, lemonmelon ! You cracked the code on this one, and we look forward to more great explanations on future questions! Kudos to you!

EMPOWERgmatVerbal · Answer

Well done monikakumar ! You cracked the code on this one! Kudos to you, and we look forward to seeing how you tackle the next one!

EMPOWERgmatVerbal · Answer

Great job raunakd11 ! You cracked the code on this one - kudos to you! We look forward to seeing how you tackle Question 4!

EMPOWERgmatVerbal · Answer

Another solid explanation  DasAshishAshutosh ! Kudos to you! Looking forward to another great explanation in Question 4, which should be posted soon!

800Dreamer · Answer

Hi I got stuck between the meanings of A and C. Isnt A about promotion to have food and B about only the food itself.
Also Women’s SPCA of Pennsylvania is a collective noun. Why are we saying that "that" might refer to SPCA also? I thought it is unambiguously referring to stray animals.

Pankaj0901 · Answer

I have a few doubts: 
1. Isn't the "," (comma) missing before word "promoting'? Since "promoting...." is a modifier, which is modifying the preceding sentence, there should be a comma to separate the 2 statements?
2. The verb for the noun "human care" is "promoting". Similarly what's the verb for "appropriate food"? The sentence looks incomplete/weird in Option C without the verb for "appropriate food". Or, is it: 1) PROMOTNG human care and 2) PROMOTING appropriate food to rehome stray animals ? Even this structure looks a bit weird.
Request experts to please enlighten.

The first animal shelter in the United States was established in 1869 by the Women’s SPCA of Pennsylvania  promoting that stray animals have humane care and appropriate food so as to rehome them. 
Option C: promoting humane care and appropriate food to rehome stray animals

Pankaj0901 · Answer

Request someone please to please help understand this..

AnirudhaS · Answer

Yes i think the comma is key here and is missing in the question.  EMPOWERgmatVerbal  can you help put the comma back in please. thanks.

EMPOWERgmatVerbal · Answer

Thanks for your questions PANKAJ0901 and AnirudhaS ! Let's go through your concerns, one at a time: 1. The comma before the word "promoting" is NOT underlined, so it stays as part of the sentence no matter which option you choose. It doesn't need to be added back in because it's already there in all the options. 2. The word "promoting" is tied to BOTH "human care" and "appropriate food." There is nothing wrong with the word "promoting" applying to both items because the word "and" connects them. It's like saying "I enjoy eating ice cream and brownies." The verb "eating" applies to BOTH items because they're connected with the word "and." It's also a totally true statement - I truly enjoy eating both.

We hope this helps! If you have other questions, please tag us at EMPOWERgmatVerbal and we'll be notified immediately that you have questions!

ravigupta2912 · Answer

A. promoting that stray animals have humane care and appropriate food so as to rehome them -- "them" pronoun ambiguity. "Promoting that" may not be the correct idiom. Promoting X is better. Eliminate.

B. who were promoting stray animals have humane care and appropriate food for their rehoming -- "their" pronoun ambiguity. 
Also usage of "were" is only appropriate in subjunctive situations and this isn't one. "Women's SPCA" is a singular noun. Eliminate.

C. promoting humane care and appropriate food to rehome stray animals -- Correct answer.

D. who promoted humane care and appropriate food for the means of stray animal rehoming -- "for the means of" is incorrect idiom. "means to" would be more appropriate here since we are talking about achieving an aim. Eliminate.

E. promoting as the means for stray animal rehoming humane care and appropriate food -- promoting as the means to A, B & C. First of all, "means for" is incorrect idiom. "Means to" is better. Second, the structure of the sentence is wordy. promote B & C as a means to A sounds much better. Eliminate after review of C.

Pankaj0901 · Answer

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The first animal shelter in the United States was established in 1869

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The first animal shelter in the United States was established in 1869

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