Some scientists contend that many species of dinosaur had a metabolism

Question

Some scientists contend  that many species of dinosaur had a metabolism more like  a warm-blooded mammal's than a cold-blooded reptile's.

(A) that many species of dinosaur had a metabolism more like
(B) that the metabolism of many dinosaur species were more like
(C) that the metabolisms of many species of dinosaurs were more like those of
(D) there were many species of dinosaurs that had metabolisms more like those of
(E) there were many dinosaur species that had a metabolism more like that of

My major question here is can we or can we not eliminate that. Does anyone have a rule for when "that" can be eliminated?

thanks

XYZABCABC · Answer

Hi Experts,

Please resolve my below query:

Per my understanding, in order to use past perfect, the sentence must also contain
EITHER a verb in the simple past tense
OR a time marker that occurred in the past but later than the past perfect action.

In the answer choice A, is the usage of "HAD" correct?

daagh · Answer

xyz 
"Had' is not a past perfect auxiliary verb here. It is the simple past of 'have'

crazi4ib · Answer

adishail   scheol79  any thoughts from the experts? thanks!

AjiteshArun · Answer

Hi  crazi4ib ,

Both  species of dinosaur  and  species of dinosaurs  are correct. This also applies to  dog / dogs ,  cat / cats ,  insect / insects ...

saury2k · Answer

In Option B, if instead of "were" it has "Was", will that correct the answer. Just Curious. As i want to understand if the comparison is made correctly in both A and B.

jawele · Answer

Hi

How could "many species of dinosaur had  a metabolism " ? Could anybody please enlighten? There is this OG problem about banks that needed to inform their clients about their deposits. Several options say "a deposit" although the deposits are made by the bank's clients. So this issue was pointed out. However, right now it seems to be OK.

Thanks

MikeScarn   GMATNinja   GMATNinja Two  aragonn   generis   hazelnut

generis · Answer

Hi jawele , the official question that you describe starts with "The Gordon-Dodd bill requires . . ." and is located HERE . I will answer what I think is your question, though your reference to the Gordon-Dodd question makes me wonder whether I understand your issue. Are you referring to daagh's comment about option E in that question? I believe that you object to many species of dinosaur had A metabolism . A check is different from a physical trait. Many Xs had a Y is okay. Many Xs possessed a distinctive physical feature, while other Xs did not have this feature. The feature is a permanent part of that subgroup's physiology—every member of that subgroup has that physical characteristic. Unlike multiple customers who incorrectly had single "check" (there should be many checks per customer), every member of the dinosaur subgroup: (1) should have only one metabolism, and (2) possesses it genetically. I agree that the sentence is awkward. I suspect that the authors were trying to avoid the use of the words mammals' and reptiles'. (Long story.) This sentence is okay, too: In the mid-1800s, most kinds of skirts had a shape more like a mushroom's or a UFO's than a garment's. hoopskirt.jpg I hope that helps. If not, try reframing your question. I will be happy to try to help.

GMATNinja · Answer

Sorry, I just realized that your question got lost in the shuffle, saury2k . I'm late to the party, but for whatever it's worth: you'll drive yourself mad trying to analyze altered versions of answer choices. As long as you understand why (B), as written, should be eliminated, I would leave it at that. Even if you change the verb, (B) seems to refer to a single metabolism shared by many species. In (A), it's clear that we are talking about MANY species and that each had a SINGLE metabolism -- what kind of metabolism? A metabolism more like a a warm-blooded mammal's metabolism than a cold-blooded reptile's metabolism. But again, there is no sense hurting brain cells by tweaking answer choices. The folks at GMAC spent a massive pile of time and money on these questions, so let's just make sure we can answer them as written, and that's enough.

I hope this helps!

lakshya14 · Answer

"HAD" doesn't follow any past event? Then how come (A) is the correct choice?

GMATNinja · Answer

As explained in this post , "had" is just the past tense of "to have": "I have a bag of French fries." - present tense

"I had a bag of French fries." - past tense So we don't have to worry about past perfect here. I hope that helps!

gamebredfighter · Answer

(B) that the metabolism of many dinosaur species were more like

MartyTargetTestPrep  : I dont understand why "were" is wrong. If "were" was " was" would it be right? Your help is much appreciated.

MartyTargetTestPrep · Answer

"The metabolism" is singular and, thus, disagrees with the plural "were." "Of many dinosaur species" is a merely a modifier that modifies, illogically, the singular "metabolism" and does not make the subject plural.

gagan0303 · Answer

GMATNinja  what is wrong with C?

lakshya14 · Answer

Repetition of "metabolism" for warm blooded mammals. The non-underlined possessive "warm blooded mammal's" already has "metabolism" in possessive form by "warm blooded mammals' ". But it also has "those" which means "metabolism" for warm blooded mammals in underlined sentence creating a repetition error.

GMATNinja · Answer

Well said,  lakshya14 !

Indeed, (C) seems to suggest that the  metabolisms  of a warm-blooded mammal had  metabolisms  of their own! That of course doesn't make any sense, so (C) is out.

jabhatta2 · Answer

Hi  chetan2u  - this ambiguity should then also apply to option A, no ? Why doesn't the above ambiguity you mention apply in option A

I think choice B and A DONT have an ambiguity problem

Choice B only suffers from a S-V problem and not an ambiguity problem

Furthermore in choice B , i thouht it did not suffer an abiguity problem you mention because the "LIKE" can be part of the root phrase when putiing the parallelism together. Thoughts ?

Choice B

the metabolism of many dinosaur species were more  like 
X element : a warm-blooded mammal's
and 
Y element : a cold-blooded reptile's.

jabhatta2 · Answer

Hi  MartyTargetTestPrep  - on B - i see option B has a subject - verb issue.

I was curious, if you think B suffers from any other issues (wrong comparinson perhaps / incorrect construction perhaps / ambiguity perhaps)

I think option B is okay (other than the subject verb) 
 
Thank you

MartyTargetTestPrep · Answer

Here's the (B) version.

Some scientists contend  that the metabolism of many dinosaur species were more like  a warm-blooded mammal's than a cold-blooded reptile's.

Notice that "the metabolism of many dinosaur species" implies that one "metablolism" was shared by "many dinosaur species."

So, the meaning conveyed by the (B) version is not logical.

Admittedly, the (A) version is also a little weird.

(A) that many species of dinosaur had a metabolism more like

Does the (A) version also convey that "many species" had one "metabolism"? Sort of.

However, "many species of dinosaur had a metabolism more like a warm-blooded mammal's" in the (A) version can be understood to mean "many species of dinosaur did this particlular thing, which was having a metabolism more like a warm-blooded mammal's," which meaning makes sense, whereas in the (B) version "the metabolism of many dinosaur species" can only be read as suggesting the illogical idea that one metabolism was the metabolism of many species.

So, we can choose (A) over (B) for this reason.

jabhatta2 · Answer

Hi  MartyTargetTestPrep  - thank you for responding. When you mention the purple -- i actually thought there was nothing wrong with that. 
0)
Below are images of a 3 dinosaurs (one for land / one for water and air) and all three of them (being dinosaurs) share  the 'one' metabolism  (perhaps all of them have  fast  metabolism ...)

I dont think there's anything wrong in saying all 3 of these dinosaurs (land /water and air) had the  same metabolism  (i.e. all three of these dinosaurs have fast metabolism)

All three of these dinosaurs had a metabolism like a lion's metabolism (Lion is warm blooded and Lions have a a fast metabolism) and not a snakes' metabolism (snakes are cold blooded, snakes have a slow metabolism)

Thoughts ?

MartyTargetTestPrep · Answer

Well, I would suggest the metabolisms of three different dinosaur species were not exactly the same. So, it doesn't quite make sense to say that many dinosaur species had one metabolism.

However, what you're saying has some merit as well.

At the same time, part of the SC game is determining what the question writer thought to be correct, and by analyzing the choices, we can get the sense that the question writer felt that the idea that many dinosaur species had one metabolism isn't logical. So, in this case, I personally would go with that sense.

Some scientists contend that many species of dinosaur had a metabolism

Prep Toolkit

Top 5 GMAT Debrief Videos

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards

GMAT Sentence Correction (SC - EA only) Questions

Some scientists contend that many species of dinosaur had a metabolism

Prep Toolkit

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards