Peyer's patches, located in the lowest portion of the small intestine

Magoosh Official Explanation

A question about Peyer’s patches, which are important in keeping our guts healthy.

Choice (A) has the subject “Peyer’s patches” and the full verb “are.” The latter part of the sentence is inside a “that”-clause. This is well-organized, concise, and error-free.

Choice (B) has [subject][noun modifier][noun modifier] “and these regions identify”—the second part, after the “and,” is a full independent clause, but the first part has a subject and no verb, the famous missing verb mistake. This choice is incorrect.

Choice (C) has an awkward wording “are located in … as regions of lymphatic tissue.” What on earth does that mean? Does it mean that if they were located somewhere else, they wouldn’t be lymphatic tissue? The construction illogically implies a connection between location and substantial identity. This choice is incorrect.

Choice (D) has “PP are located … and, as such, are identifiers .. and facilitate”—this is problematic as parallelism. First of all, in a list of three elements, the word “and” should not appear twice. More importantly, the use of “are identifiers” rather than simply “identify” is quite awkward. This choice is incorrect.

Choice (E) is awkward. Notice the entire second half of the sentence is a gigantic prepositional phrase beginning with “for.” The actions of identifying and facilitating are changed their noun form—this change has the effect of making the sentence more plodding and punchless. Nouns tend to be about statis, things that sit still, and verbs are about action & movement. Finally, the preposition “for” is awkward: it implies that “Peyer’s patches” were put there in some intentionally designed way. Whether that’s ultimately true is well beyond GMAT SC: the implications made in GMAT SC are considerably more modest. This choice is incorrect.

The only possible choice is (A).