Prior to the 1800s, people dwelling in rural locations made

Question

Prior to the 1800s, people dwelling in rural locations made up nearly 90 percent of the entire human population;  in 2007, they decreased by 50 percent.

A. in 2007, they decreased by 50 percent. 
B. in 2007, they decreased to less than 50 percent. 
C. decreasing to less than 50 percent in 2007. 
D. in 2007, this proportion decreased to less than 50 percent. 
E. which decreased to less than 50 percent in 2007.

Somehow I am not convinced with the quality of this question, does GMAT change the meaning i.e. clearly decreased by 50% and less than 50% are not exactly the same!

rituchaturvedi7 · Answer

I think D is the best option as they in options A and B could refer to rural population or total population,similarly which in option e is not clear.
D removes the ambiguity and clearly states what the percentage stands for.C is the passive form which is not preferred.

marcovg4 · Answer

First, you need a clause after a semicolon, so C and E are out. 
Second, in order to rmove any sort of ambiguity, it is necessary to restate "proportion" and 
Third, the overall proportion actually was reduced by 50%, so 90% less 50% equals 40% which is less than 50%.

D is the right choice.

DmitryFarberMPrep · Answer

The meanings of the 5 choices don't all have to be the same--we simply select the one that conveys a clear and sensible meaning without breaking any grammar rules. As the others stated, D correctly states that the proportion (not the people) decreased. However, I don't love D. It makes it seem that the proportion decreased all of a sudden in 2007. The answer would be better if it said "by 1997," or "in 1997, this proportion had decreased . . ."

hovhannesmkrtchyan · Answer

I think there is something wrong with this question, as each of the answer choices has a fatal flow in it. 
In choice A, "they" has no logical antecedent. "they" cannot refer to population because of singular/plural problem and it cannot refer to people, because people cannot decrease by 50% but population can.
In choices B, D and E, decrease to less than 50% is incorrect, since we distort the intended meaning of the sentence. Population that decreases by 50% is not the same as population that is less than 50%. Yes, I agree that the population in rural locations that is made up of 90% of human population and then decreases by 50% technically becomes less than 50%, but we don't communicate the intended meaning of the original sentence.

Please let me know, if my reasoning is flawed.

AndrewN · Answer

I am not sure what you mean,  hovhannesmkrtchyan , by invoking  the intended meaning of the original sentence . As  DmitryFarber  pointed out above, the intended meaning should be clearest in the correct answer choice, nothing more. It is a common misconception that the original sentence is a paragon of intended meaning; in fact, only the non-underlined portion should be taken as gospel. Here, we know that at one point in time, rural-dwellers made up roughly 9/10 of the entire human population living anywhere. Choices (C) and (E) are out on grammatical grounds, since what follows a semicolon needs to be an independent clause. Choices (A) and (B) are out because of  they , as you noted yourself. Looking at (D), though, if you fill in the words to the comparison that is being drawn, there is nothing glaringly incorrect with the answer:

Prior to the 1800s, people dwelling in rural locations made up nearly 90 percent of the entire human population; in 2007,  the proportion of people dwelling in rural locations, compared to any other location , decreased to less than 50 percent  of the entire human population .

Again, I agree with Mr. Farber above about how a little grammatical tweaking could indicate that  by the year 2007, the proportion had changed , but choice (D) has nothing in it that is outright incorrect, either in terms of its grammar or its meaning. The other choices are worse, so (D) wins out.

- Andrew

lostminer · Answer

Dear  ExpertsGlobal   KarishmaB  can you explain this ?

The pronoun "THIS" in option D is referring to "people dwelling in rural locations", is this correct ? if it is, then option D should be incorrect.

ExpertsGlobal5 · Answer

Hello  AbhiR3 ,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, in this case, "this" serves as a preposition rather than as a pronoun; thus, Option D suffers from no pronoun error and is correct.

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

Prior to the 1800s, people dwelling in rural locations made

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