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

Dear Friends,

Here is a detailed explanation to this question-

Concepts tested here: Pronouns + Grammatical Construction

• A pronoun and its derivatives can only refer to one noun or pronoun in a given sentence.
• Semicolons and the “comma + conjunction” construction are used to link two independent clauses; commas are used to link an independent clause with a dependent one; commas cannot be used to join two independent clauses.


A: This answer choice incorrectly uses "them" to refer to "prairie dogs" and uses "their" to refer to "breeding females"; remember, a pronoun and its derivatives can only refer to one noun or pronoun in a given sentence.

B: This answer choice incorrectly uses "their" to refer to both "prairie dogs" and "breeding females"; remember, a pronoun and its derivatives can only refer to one noun or pronoun in a given sentence.

C: This answer choice incorrectly uses "them" to refer to "prairie dogs" and uses "their" to refer to "breeding females"; remember, a pronoun and its derivatives can only refer to one noun or pronoun in a given sentence.

D: Correct. This answer choice correctly uses the pronoun "their" to refer to only one noun - "breeding females". Further, Option D correctly uses a comma to join the independent clause "Prairie dogs live in tight-knit colonies..." with the dependent clause "consisting of several breeding females...pups".

E: This answer choice incorrectly uses a comma to join the independent clauses "Prairie dogs live in tight-knit colonies..." and "each coterie includes several breeding females...pups"; remember, semicolons and the “comma + conjunction” construction are used to link two independent clauses; commas are used to link an independent clause with a dependent one; commas cannot be used to join two independent clauses.

Hence, D is the best answer choice.

To understand the use of punctuation on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~10 minutes):



All the best!
Experts' Global Team

The simple clue is that the pronouns 'their' and 'them' have no eligible logical antecedents. 'Their' could be the animals' pup, or the dogs' pups or the breeding males' pups or breeding females' pups. Similarly, 'them' could refer to the dogs, the colonies, or the coteries. We can easily eliminate choices A, B, and C in a stroke.
The next clue is that E is a run-on. Your answer is D, considering the problems with the usage of 'with' and 'that' in some other choices.

I feel your pain. What this comes down to is that any "rule" involving commas is going to have exceptions, both because modifiers are so often set off by commas and because commas can be used in unconventional ways to improve the clarity of a sentence.

Take a silly example: "Much to my dismay, I found my child gnawing a hole in a box of dish detergent." Here, "gnawing" modifies "child" and there's no comma, so this is the construction we're accustomed to.

But now imagine that I want to insert another modifier describing where I found my child: "Much to my dismay, I found my child in the linen closet gnawing a hole in a box of dish detergent." At first read, it kind of sounds as though the linen closet is eating the box of detergent! To make it clearer to the reader that this isn't the case, I'd likely include a comma after "closet." An absolute rule? No. But it's a reasonable choice.

It's more or less the same thing in this example. Consider the relevant clause without the comma: "Prairie dogs live in tight-knit colonies, called coteries, of roughly a dozen consisting of several breeding females." We've got the two modifiers in red between "colonies" and "consisting," so in this instance it seems as though "consisting" is referring to the closest noun, "dozen." By including the comma after "dozen," the writer is signaling to the reader that we can't assume "consisting" is modifying "dozen," but rather, that we have a series of modifiers ("called coteries," "of roughly a dozen," and "consisting"), all of which refer back to "colonies." Is this ideal? No. But it also isn't definitively wrong, and the other four answer choices all contain more severe errors.

The big takeaway: no comma rule is absolute, and commas aren't generally a deciding factor on official GMAT questions. And when there is a violation of what seems to be fairly standard comma usage, it's almost certainly because a non-essential modifier has made the sentence more difficult to understand, and the comma is there to create a clearer meaning. If a comma is tripping you up, look for other decision points.

I hope that helps!

Looks like you guys have confused absolute phrase with independent clause.

"each colony consisting of a single reproductive female and workers that defend her" --> This is correctly an absolute phrase. We have a noun + Noun Modifier. No verb.

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. --> Notice the word includes. It is a verb. So, subject is each coterie and verb is includes. Hence, it is an independent clause.

My current understanding is absolute phrase should not have a verb and a subject together.

Let me know if you guys think something else.

Spend over 5 mins in this question

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.
"that" here is ambiguous. Also, "their" here is ambiguous since "their" could refer to "several breeding females" or "one or two breeding males"

(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.
"their" here is ambiguous. "one or two breeding males that switch coteries frequently" changes the original meaning of sentence.

(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.
correct idiom is "colonies of something"

(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.
CORRECT. "consisting of" modifies "tight-knit colonies of roughly a dozen"

(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.
correct idiom is "colonies of something"

I completely agree with abhimahna here. warriorguy, does this answer your question from the chat today? Sorry that I didn't get to it during the session -- I figured that it would be better saved for this spot, but abhimahna beat me to it! In a good way.

The phrase "colonies... of roughly a dozen" definitely states that there's a roughly a dozen of something in each colony -- and presumably, "roughly a dozen" means "roughly a dozen prairie dogs."

In all honesty, I would like (D) a little bit better if it said something like "colonies... of roughly a dozen animals", but I'm OK with the idea that the phrase "roughly a dozen" means roughly a dozen prairie dogs. Nothing else could possibly make sense, so the omitted word isn't an absolute error in this case.

I hope this helps!

Prairie dogs live in tight-knit colonies, called coteries, 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.

Correct answer must be (D), for the highlighted errors in other options...

Nope, that phrase "one or two..." is just part of a parallel list. The coteries consist of three types of prairie dogs (three parallel nouns): "several breeding females..., one or two breeding males..., and the females' new pups."


A comma splice happens when two independent clauses are joined by a comma. So in (E), we have: "Prairie dogs live in tight-knit colonies (... modifiers, blah blah...), each coterie includes several breeding females..." Two full, independent clauses, with just a comma separating them. Not cool.

I hope this helps!

I'm not 100% sure that I'm interpreting your question correctly, but I'll give it a shot!

Basically, the idea is that the word "and" indicates a parallel list of three nouns in this case -- and any of the modifiers beginning with the word "that" modify ONLY the preceding noun. So if we highlight just the parallel elements in the sentence, it seems pretty clear: "Prairie dogs live in tight-knit colonies, called coteries, 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.

That seems OK to me, because it's just saying that the colonies consist of those three types of prairie dogs: several breeding females, one or two breeding males, and the females' new pups. The rest of the stuff just gives us extra information about certain types of prairie dogs (the males frequently switch colonies, but the females don't), and that information does nothing to disrupt the parallel list.

Does that help at all?

Hi NandishSS!

Here, "consisting ..." is simply modifying "colonies", which is just the subject of the clause (not the whole clause). urvashis09 explained this well

Hope that helps!
-Carolyn

Thank you for the kind words, NikMan! Glad to hear that my GMAT Club ramblings have been helpful.

On to your questions...

1. The trouble with the pronoun "each" is that it's placed right next to "animals", so it sounds like "each" refers to "animals." You're right that "each" logically needs to refer to "colonies", but the placement of "each" is confusing and not ideal. Notice that "each" isn't even present in the correct answer.
2. The modifier is actually fine in the phrase you mentioned: "several breeding females that often stay together." The females stay together, right? So I don't see any issue there -- and that phrase is in the correct answer, too. But yes, "that" can definitely be used as a pronoun -- check out this article or this video for more on "that".
3. Yeah, it's just clearer in this case if "their" is replaced with "the females'". Pronoun ambiguity isn't an absolute rule on the GMAT (more on that in this video), so we can debate whether "their" is DEFINITELY WRONG here, but it's definitely better to remove the ambiguity entirely since we have that option.

I hope this helps, and have fun studying!

If "that" is used as a modifier -- technically a relative pronoun, if you like jargon -- it can absolutely be used to describe a plural noun. For example, "The blood-spattered halloween costumes that my daughter picked out were all entirely inappropriate for a toddler." Here, "that" is correctly modifying "costumes."

If "that" is used as a nice, normal pronoun -- a demonstrative pronoun, if you're into terminology -- it must refer to a singular noun. For a plural noun, we'd use "those." "The costumes my daughter is considering are far more blood-spattered than those of her squeamish peers." Here, "those," a conventional pronoun, refers to "costumes."

For a more in-depth look at the various uses of "that," check out this article.

I hope that helps!

Good question! I wouldn't say the "that" is incorrect. It's certainly confusing, as there are multiple modifiers separating "that" from the word it modifies, "colonies." But you could argue that the same confusion applies to "consisting" referring to "colonies" in (D), which we know is correct. So I'd rely on the pronoun problems and the resulting confusion to eliminate (A).

I hope that helps!

There's no rule that says that an -ing modifier MUST modify the previous clause. An -ing modifier can absolutely function as a nice, boring adjective and modify a noun (for more on that, check out this article).

In this case, what is it that consists of (1) several breeding females, (2) one or two breeding males, and (3) the females’ new pups? To answer that question, let's first simplify things a bit. Notice that "called coteries, of roughly a dozen" gives us more information about the tight-knit colonies. If we drop those modifiers, we are basically left with:

"Prairie dogs live in tight-knit colonies consisting of (1) several breeding females, (2) one or two breeding males, and (3) the females’ new pups."

So, what consists of (1), (2), and (3)? The tight-knit colonies, right? So "consisting" functions as a regular adjective here.

Can -ing words modify clauses? Absolutely. Can they only modify clauses? Nope, they can also modify nouns.

I hope that helps!

Good question!

Bear in mind that another way we can use an -ing modifier is to describe the preceding noun. For example:

Tim screamed at the child defacing his property with elaborate spray-painted portraits of Smurfs.

Here, "defacing" is modifying "child," rather than the entire previous clause. You probably didn't have any trouble recognizing that. But "defacing" could still modify "child," even if there were another modifier in between.

Tim screamed at the child, a mischievous lad named Banksy, defacing his property with elaborate spray-painted portraits of Smurfs.

It might be tempting to think that because the "-ing" comes after a comma, it has to modify the whole clause. But we need to pay attention to context here. That comma is only there as part of a pair of commas introducing the modifier "a mischievous lad named Banksy."

If we remove that modifier, the sentence becomes identical to the first example, so "defacing" works the same way -- it still modifies the "child."

Same deal here. Take another look at the relevant portion of (D):


Now we have two modifiers set off by commas: "called coteries" and "of roughly a dozen."

Without those modifiers, we'd have the following construction: "Prairie dogs live in tight-knit colonies consisting of several breeding females." So "consisting of several breeding females" is actually describing the noun "colonies." It's just hard to see this in (D) because of the intervening modifiers. Tricky, but also totally acceptable.

I hope that helps!

Hi abhimahna,

Thanks for the clarification.

I thought that "each coterie ...." is an absolute phrase describing the "coteries" in the previous clause and hence it is ok to connect it without a FANBOYS conjunction...

Seems like I will have to look back into my "absolute phrase" concepts !!