Prairie dogs live in tight-knit colonies, called coteries, of roughly a dozen of them, that consist of several breeding females that often stay together for their entire lives, one or two breeding males that tend to switch coteries frequently, and their new pups. (A) of roughly a dozen of them, that consist of several breeding females that often stay together for their entire lives, one or two breeding males that tend to switch coteries frequently, and their new pups. (B) of roughly a dozen animals, each with several breeding females that often stay together for their entire lives, one or two breeding males that switch coteries frequently, and their new pups. (C) that have roughly a dozen of them, with several breeding females that often stay together for their entire lives, one or two breeding males that tend to switch coteries frequently, and the females’ new pups. (D) of roughly a dozen, consisting of several breeding females that often stay together for their entire lives, one or two breeding males that tend to switch coteries frequently, and the females’ new pups. (E) with roughly a dozen animals, each coterie includes several breeding females that often stay together for their entire lives, one or two breeding males that tend to switch coteries frequently, and the females’ new pups.

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Prairie dogs live in tight-knit colonies, called coteries, of roughly

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Crytiocanalyst

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01 Sep 2021, 23:28

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souvik101990

Prairie dogs live in tight-knit colonies, called coteries, of roughly a dozen of them, that consist of several breeding females that often stay together for their entire lives, one or two breeding males that tend to switch coteries frequently, and their new pups.

(A) of roughly a dozen of them, that consist of several breeding females that often stay together for their entire lives, one or two breeding males that tend to switch coteries frequently, and their new pups.
Them is a problem since it doesn't address with whom therefore out

(B) of roughly a dozen animals, each with several breeding females that often stay together for their entire lives, one or two breeding males that switch coteries frequently, and their new pups.
does each refer to the colonies or animals cannot be pin down therefore out

(C) that have roughly a dozen of them, with several breeding females that often stay together for their entire lives, one or two breeding males that tend to switch coteries frequently, and the females’ new pups.
Similar reasoning as A

(D) of roughly a dozen, consisting of several breeding females that often stay together for their entire lives, one or two breeding males that tend to switch coteries frequently, and the females’ new pups.
The meaning is perfect therefore let us hang onto it

(E) with roughly a dozen animals, each coterie includes several breeding females that often stay together for their entire lives, one or two breeding males that tend to switch coteries frequently, and the females’ new pups.
of is better usage than with therefore out

Therefore IMO D

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GMATNinja

This is a classic case of "I really don't like the right answer, but I found four wrong answer choices, so... I guess the GMAT doesn't care whether I like anything."

Quote:

All sorts of weird stuff here. "Them" is a problem: if it refers to the most recent plurals ("coteries" or "colonies"), then it makes no sense. I suppose that it's possible that "them" reaches all the way back to "prairie dogs", but even then, it would be a little bit redundant ("prairie dogs live in colonies of roughly a dozen prairie dogs"). I'm also not crazy about "their new pups," because "their" would seem to refer to "coteries" (which makes no sense) or "males" (which doesn't make too much sense, since the males switch coteries frequently).

If you wanted to be really conservative, I suppose that you could hang onto (A), but there's a lot of crappy stuff here, and we'll have a better option below.

Quote:

(B) of roughly a dozen animals, each with several breeding females that often stay together for their entire lives, one or two breeding males that switch coteries frequently, and their new pups.

"Each" seems to refer to "animals", and that makes no sense at all. And "their new pups" is shaky, too, as mentioned above. Eliminate (B).

Quote:

(C) that have roughly a dozen of them, with several breeding females that often stay together for their entire lives, one or two breeding males that tend to switch coteries frequently, and the females’ new pups.

"Them" has the same problem as in (A). Again, you could be conservative and keep this one for now if you really wanted to, but I think we can do better.

Quote:

(D) of roughly a dozen, consisting of several breeding females that often stay together for their entire lives, one or two breeding males that tend to switch coteries frequently, and the females’ new pups.

And this is better! We could argue that "of roughly a dozen" doesn't sound great, but nobody cares about sound here. There's no pronoun issue whatsoever -- and "the females' new pups" clarifies the end of the sentence, too. Keep (D).

Quote:

(E) with roughly a dozen animals, each coterie includes several breeding females that often stay together for their entire lives, one or two breeding males that tend to switch coteries frequently, and the females’ new pups.

I actually think that the first part of the sentence sounds good here, but we should never worry about "sound" on GMAT SC. More importantly: this is a classic comma splice, featuring two full sentences improperly separated by a full comma. So it's wrong, even if we think it sounds nice. Eliminate (E).

That leaves us with (D).

hi
I have a question both Option D & E have the Full verb 'stay' in them so why cant D be a Run on sentence scenario please help me understand this

Thanks
Aravind

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Aravind04

GMATNinja

This is a classic case of "I really don't like the right answer, but I found four wrong answer choices, so... I guess the GMAT doesn't care whether I like anything."

Quote:

(B) of roughly a dozen animals, each with several breeding females that often stay together for their entire lives, one or two breeding males that switch coteries frequently, and their new pups.

"Each" seems to refer to "animals", and that makes no sense at all. And "their new pups" is shaky, too, as mentioned above. Eliminate (B).

Quote:

"Them" has the same problem as in (A). Again, you could be conservative and keep this one for now if you really wanted to, but I think we can do better.

Quote:

hi
I have a question both Option D & E have the Full verb 'stay' in them so why cant D be a Run on sentence scenario please help me understand this

Thanks
Aravind

Hello Aravind04,

We hope this finds you well.

Having gone through the question and your query, we believe we can resolve your doubt.

In Options D and E, "stay" is not an active verb; it is part of the modifying phrase "that often stay together for their entire lives" that modifies "females".

Further, the main clause of this sentence is "Prairie dogs live in tight-knit colonies...of roughly a dozen", wherein the active verb is "live"; the rest of the sentence is a modifying phrase - "consisting of several breeding females..., one or two breeding males..., and the females’ new pups" - that modifies "colonies".

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

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Aravind04

hi
I have a question both Option D & E have the Full verb 'stay' in them so why cant D be a Run on sentence scenario please help me understand this

Thanks
Aravind

Looks like another expert beat us to the punch, but in case it helps, check out these two posts for more on why (E) doesn't work:

https://gmatclub.com/forum/prairie-dogs ... l#p2050556

https://gmatclub.com/forum/prairie-dogs ... l#p2403369

As we explained in an earlier post, "consisting of... and the females’ new pups" is a big ol' modifier that describes the tight-knit colonies. And there's a parallel list buried in that big ol' modifier: "Prairie dogs live in tight-knit colonies, called coteries, of roughly a dozen, consisting of {X, Y, and Z}.

The first element in that parallel list is, "several breeding females that often stay together for their entire lives" - and within that element, the "that..." part is a noun modifier that describes the breeding females. So "stay" is indeed a verb, and it agrees with the noun being modified (breeding females). But "stay" is not the main verb of an independent clause.

Phew... lots of modifiers to keep track of here, but I hope that helps!

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Quote:

Hi Ninja! Thanks for your great post. Just a few doubts here...

At D), although you mention that there is nothing wrong with "of roughy a dozen", shouldn't that be structured as "of roughly a dozen animals" since as original would get unclear if refering to the animals or the coteries?

At E), if we switch to ";" in "with roughly a dozen animals; each coterie..." would have make it correct, right?

Thanks!

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lucasd14

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Quote:

Nah. If I wrote "The kids at Tim's school were organized into groups of six," you wouldn't say it was wrong because it needs to specify "six kids," right? Context makes it clear. Same deal for a "coterie of a dozen." We're clearly talking about prairie dogs, so it's fine.

Quote:

At E), if we switch to ";" in "with roughly a dozen animals; each coterie..." would have make it correct, right?

I'm with you here -- the comma splice looks the big issue in (E), so if you fix that, I'm not seeing anything else that qualifies as an error.

I hope that helps a bit!

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