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:
(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.
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.
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(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).
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(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.
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(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).
Thanks for this wonderful explanation. I got this question wrong because of a conceptual gap in comma+ing modifiers.
As per my understanding "comma+ -ing modifier" should modify the subject of the preceding clause in order for it to hold true- including and during are the two exception to this rule.
I know these -ing modifier can. (a) show cause and effect of preceding clause (b) show "how aspect" of previous clause (c) Or, just be logical extension of preceding clause, but in any case they should modify the doer of previous clause.
Eg: Sun rose early, shinning brilliantly across the sky. In this case "shining" should modify "Sun". In different terms, Sun shone brilliantly across the sky, this is the kind of logic I have developed for "comma + -ing modifiers".
, 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.
should modify the subject of preceding clause Viz.
, but this wont make sense? It is the colonies that contain several females....... and not "Dogs".
close
04 Jun 2021, 12:52
