Paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould has argued that many biological trait

"simply" can not modify "random" logically. it is not logical to have modification this way. "simply" must be an adverb.

so, in choice C , the pattern is
"are not X but simply Y". this is incorrect because we can not insert an adverb "simply", here. the correct idiom is
"are not X but Y

perfect explanation!!! thank you crashVcrush

Can someone elaborate on the role of "favored" in the correct answer choice? Does it modify "the products of natural selection" only or does it modify the preceding phrase?

And
What do "they" in "because they enhance production" refer to?
Tks

Isn't Not x but y a closed parallelism marker? what's inside the two parallelism elements should match? There is no "are" after Not, so there should be no "are" after but as well?

Meisme I was going to put together a response to your question, but on looking back through the thread I see I already wrote about this a few years ago. I hope it helps!

Paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould has argued that many biological traits are not the products of natural selection, favored due to their enhancement of reproduction or survival, but that they are simply random by-products of other evolutionary developments.

(A) due to their enhancement of reproduction or survival, but that they are
(B) due to the reproduction or survival they enhance, but they are
(C) because they enhance reproduction or survival, but
(D) because they enhance reproduction or survival, but are
(E) because of enhancing reproduction or survival, but are

Paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould has argued that many biological traits [ are not the products of natural selection, favored due to their enhancement of reproduction or survival,] [ but that they are simply random by-products of other evolutionary developments.]
I don't think that "that they" after the "but" is necessary.
Paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould has argued that many biological traits [ are .... ,] [ but are ....]
This leaves us with option (D) and (E)
(D).
Paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould has argued that many biological traits [ are not the products of natural selection, favored because biological traits enhance reproduction or survival,] [ but are simply random by-products of other evolutionary developments.]
(E)
Paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould has argued that many biological traits [ are not the products of natural selection, because of enhancing reproduction or survival, ][ but are simply random by-products of other evolutionary developments.]
"because" should be followed by a noun. This makes (E) wrong.
Which leaves us with option (D) as our answer.
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GMATBuddha
Quitters never win, WInners never quit.

Can anyone explain why in option D and Option C, why the usage of 'they' is not ambiguous?
According to me, 'they' could refer to both 'The products of natural selection' and 'Many Bio Traits'.
Because of this ambiguity, I chose Option E. Since verb+ing modifier is used, so I thought this modifier is being used for 'The products of natural selection'.

Hi agarwal1993, pronoun ambiguity, for one thing, should never be a reason to eliminate an answer choice.

Also, in case of pronoun ambiguity, application of following rule often comes in handy:

Pronoun-subject in one clause can be presumed to refer to noun-subject of another clause.

With option D, the sentence is:

Paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould has argued that many biological traits are not the products of natural selection, favored because they enhance reproduction or survival, but are simply random by-products of other evolutionary developments.

Two clauses are:

i) many biological traits are not the products of natural selection - many biological traits is the noun-subject

ii) they enhance reproduction or survival - they is the pronoun-subject

So, going by the above rule, they would correctly refer to many biological traits.

In any case, as I mentioned above, pronoun ambiguity should not be the only reason to eliminate an answer choice.


E would be incorrect because the doer of enhancing reproduction or survival is not coming out clearly.

p.s. Our book EducationAisle Sentence Correction Nirvana discusses Pronoun ambiguity, its application and examples in significant detail. If you or someone is interested, PM me your email-id; I can mail the corresponding section.

Hey there,
Thank you for posting the question. Let me try and help you out!
The Important thing first. Let’s start by looking at the intended logical meaning.

Meaning Analysis:
The sentence talks about an argument presented by the Paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould. So Gould argued that various biological features are not the product of natural selection. In fact the biological features are random by-products made while other evolutionary developments. The belief that the features are the product of natural selection is favored because of the fact that these biological features improve reproduction or survival. This is the intended logical meaning.
Now let's look at your question

In the meaning analysis, we talked about biological traits to be the products of natural selection.
That means many biological traits = products of natural selection.
Now whether 'they' refers to many biological traits or products of natural selection, it actually means the same.

eg if A=B and B=C ,then A=B=C.
Therefore the usage of they is not ambiguous.

(C) because they enhance reproduction or survival, but

When you read this choice, it is a little confusing that 'but simply random by-products of other evolutionary developments.' is an extension of "reproduction or survival" or the contrast for "products of natural selection". Logically it should be the contrast for natural selection but this is not clear from this choice. It seems that 'but...' is adding more details to the reproduction or survival part.

(D) because they enhance reproduction or survival, but are
Here because of the repetition of are after but, the author clarifies that "the modifier is over" and now we are back to the contrast. Hence the logical intended meaning is clear and is correct.

(E) because of enhancing reproduction or survival, but are
This choice does not convey the meaning. We do not know from the sentence what is enhancing reproduction or survival. Incorrect

I hope this helps
thanks
Anmol

Hi DmitryFarber egmat
the rule is once outside or twice inside.
If "are" is outside i.e "are NOT x" then why would we use "are" again after BUT? now the sentence reads "are NOT x but ARE y" isn't this incorrect grammatically. you would eliminate it before even thinking of the meaning cus of the rule.

would love some clarity.

Kritisood Sure, your point holds just fine if we are using the first structure I mentioned, in which NOT and BUT are the parallel markers. However, it doesn't apply if we read BUT as a single, open parallel marker. It's perfectly fine to say "I am not rich but I am happy." In this case, the parallel terms are the entire clauses ("I am not rich"; "I am happy."). The "but" simply links the two, so we don't read this as "I am (NOT rich BUT I am happy)." That reading would definitely be bad! Does that distinction make sense?

It def does though I doubt I would get this question correct because the Not x But y parallel markers are so ingrained in our heads for GMAT :S

Also, how to know which structure to use when in this case?
I havent seen this construction before where the once outside twice inside rule doesn't apply. Should i just consider this as an exception and move on?

Sure, you could go with that. I think what it comes down to is that on really hard SC questions, the sentence may not be doing quite what we think it is. There is often more than one way to read a sentence, and what seems to be clearly breaking a rule from one perspective is actually okay from another one. I don't mean that the rules are inconsistent (although that can be the case), but that there are cases when they aren't invoked. In this case, we're not breaking "once outside, twice inside." Rather, we're backing up and making two parallel verb phrases rather than two parallel modifiers.

Paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould has argued that many biological traits are not the products of natural selection, favored because they enhance reproduction or survival, but are simply random by-products of other evolutionary developments.

In the above sentence what does the clause "favored because they enhance reproduction or survival" modifies ?

Paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould has argued that many biological traits are not the products of natural selection, favored due to their enhancement of reproduction or survival, but that they are simply random by-products of other evolutionary developments.

key idea: ''Due to'' is used to describe a noun and is usually preceded by a variant of the verb form ''to be''.

In (A) and (B), we do not have a noun that precedes ''due to''. Instead, we have the verb ''favored''. Hence, eliminate (A) and (B).

(C) because they enhance reproduction or survival, but - (C) introduces the following structure: Stephen Jay....has argued that...traits are not ......., ....., but... " In the clause that follows ''but'', we do not have the verb 'are'. Without the ''are'', we do not have a full clause.

(D) because they enhance reproduction or survival, but are - does not introduce any error. Hence, (D) is the correct answer choice.

(E) because of enhancing reproduction or survival, but are - the verb ''enhancing'' does not have a clear subject.

This question is a little sketchy.

Yes, "are not X but are Y" can be correct in certain contexts, but this sentence is not really one of those contexts. Hence all the confusion.

The writer used an "are not X but are Y" construction, when the point made, that the traits are not one thing but another, calls for a "not X but Y" structure.

Paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould has argued that many biological traits are not the products of natural selection, favored due to their enhancement of reproduction or survival, but that they are simply random by-products of other evolutionary developments.

(A) due to their enhancement of reproduction or survival, but that they are "due to" should modify only a noun and not a clause. Eliminate.

(B) due to the reproduction or survival they enhance, but they are "due to" should modify only a noun and not a clause. Eliminate.

(C) because they enhance reproduction or survival, but This is a close one but has a meaning problem. This can be interpreted to mean that "they" (biological traits) favor "random by-products of other evolutionary developments" rather than being by-products themselves. I will hold on to this option at the moment and go with it if there is no better choice.

(D) because they enhance reproduction or survival, but are Correct answer. Removes the ambiguity in (C) perfectly and there are no other errors. We can now eliminate option (C).

(E) because of enhancing reproduction or survival, but are "because of" must be followed by a noun. Eliminate.

Hope this helps.