The 32 species that make up the dolphin family are closely related to

tramobile, the sentence already tells you that The 32 Species is plural. Notice the part that says - The 32 species that make up the dolphin family are closely....". Also, 32 species has to be plural.

The presence of "The" does not dictate whether a noun is plural or singular. Some very basic examples that you can relate to -
1. The girls in my class ARE extremely smart.
2. The Eiffel Tower IS the best thing I've ever seen.

I pick B (parallel relative pronoun)
Since we have two relative pronoun which modify "the killer whale"
1.which can grow to be 30 feet long---->growing as big as 30 feet long
2.which is famous for its aggressive hunting pods. ---famous for its agressive hunting pods.

A. the killer whale, (relative pronoun)which can grow to be 30 feet long and (verb)is

C. include the animal known as the killer whale, (relative pronoun)growing up to 30 feet long and being(which is being--passive relative)---Active not parallel passive

D. include the animal known as the killer whale, (relative pronoun)which can grow as big as 30 feet long and (verb)is

E. include the animal known as the killer whale, (relative pronoun) which can grow to be 30 feet long and clause it is

The 32 species that make up the dolphin family are closely related to whales and in fact include the animal known as the killer whale, which can grow to
be 30 feet long and is famous for its aggressive hunting pods.

(A) include the animal known as the killer whale, which can grow to be 30 feet long and is

(B) include the animal known as the killer whale, growing as big as 30 feet long and

(C) include the animal known as the killer whale, growing up to 30 feet long and being

(D) includes the animal known as the killer whale, which can grow as big as 30 feet long and is

(E) includes the animal known as the killer whale, which can grow to be 30 feet long and it is

For option (B)

Please correct me if I'm wrong some where

Clauses
Cl1 32 species make up the dolphin family
Cl2 32 species that.... family are closely related(Verb1) to whales & in fact
include (Verb 2) the animal know as the killer whale,

Now we know that for the Verb-ing modifier
S V Object , -ing
-ing modifies whole preceding clause (DESCRIBE/RESULT) and not the preceding noun or the subject

As per the explaination in the OG for choice B
"Changing the verb to the participial growing
introduces ambiguity, because it could refer
backto the subject of the sentence {32
species)."

1) Please help to clarify how can -ing modify(thus create amiguity) the subject and not the whole clause

2) For choice B
CL2 : 32 species <are closely related ...> & <include .....whale>,

mod1 <growing upto 30 feet> :

If we consider only this mod. would it be correct to say that it(such an -ing modifier) can meaningfully describe about the CL2 as a whole ?
would it make any sense here

Because it becomes confusing in few questions in which -ing is used to modify the preceding clause (whereas it made more sense to modify preceding noun by using relative pronoun)
(i.e can such cases of modifier be considered as a DESCRIPTION of the preceding clause)

(if possible Please explain with an example for this doubt )

(A) include the animal known as the killer whale,which can grow to be 30 feet long and is -- Correct; which comes right after the comma and modifies the noun right before it.
(B) include the animal known as the killer whale,growing as big as 30 feet long and -- Incorrect use of -ing verb, changes the meaning
(C) include the animal known as the killer whale,growing up to 30 feet long and being -- Incorrect use of -ing verb, changes the meaning
(D) includes the animal known as the killer whale,which can grow as big as 30 feet long and is -- includes is wrong
(E) includes the animal known as the killer whale,which can grow to be 30 feet long and it is[/quote] -- includes is wrong

Another problem in B is with ' as big as 30 feet long. One can call it either " as big as 30 feet" or just 30 feet long, but not a combination of both big and long.
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I just got a small doubt with the explanation provided by you.

Obviously the correct ans is OA A.

But in case of B and C, growing modifies the Entire preceding clause and not the subject alone. As per my understanding, Growing as big as........ and Growing up to be..... is a verbing modifier.

[b]A verbing modifier that appears after a clause and is preceded by a comma, modifies the entire preceding clause.

In this case modification of entire preceding clause, as in options B and C is wrong.

OA A has the correct modification. Which modifies Killer Whale.

D and E can be ruled out for S-V agreement.

It would be nice of you if you can point out where my thinking is wrong. Please guide me.[/b]

Hi Sahil,

Thanks for posting your doubt here.

The reason why the modified version of Choice E is incorrect is that the list is not grammatically parallel now. The elements in the list are as follows:

1. which can grow to be 30 feet long and
2. it is

Please note that while the first entity in the list is dependent clause, the second is an independent clause. Since both the information pertain to killer whale, which should be uses as the subject of both the verbs can grow and is connected by the connector and to create the correct parallel list.

Hope this helps.
Thanks.
Shraddha
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The 32 species that make up the dolphin family are closely related to whales and in fact include the animal known as the killer whale, which can grow to be 30 feet long and is famous for its aggressive hunting pods.

A. include the animal known as the killer whale, which can grow to be 30 feet long and is
B. include the animal known as the killer whale, growing as big as 30 feet long and
C. include the animal known as the killer whale, growing up to 30 feet long and being
D. includes the animal known as the killer whale, which can grow as big as 30 feet long and is
E. includes the animal known as the killer whale, which can grow to be 30 feet long and it is[/quote]

The 32 species that make up the dolphin family are closely related to whales and in fact include the animal known as the killer whale, which can grow to be 30 feet long and is famous for its aggressive hunting pods.

(D) includes the animal known as the killer whale, which can grow as big as 30 feet long and is
(E) includes the animal known as the killer whale, which can grow to be 30 feet long and it is
The subject here is "The 32 species", a plural subject.
Therefore, (D) & (E) are out, on the basis that they both use "includes", which refers to a singular noun.

(B) include the animal known as the killer whale, growing as big as 30 feet long and
In (B), growing is not modifying whales, instead it is modifying the preceding clause

(C) include the animal known as the killer whale, growing up to 30 feet long and being
Same error as in (B) "Correct me if I'm wrong"

(A) include the animal known as the killer whale, which can grow to be 30 feet long and is
include (correct verb usage)
, which can (correctly modify the killer whale)
can grow ... and is (parallelism)

Hi deddex , have you read the thread?

(B) leads to ambiguity.
(A) keeps the focus on the killer whale.

Some people call comma + which (grows) a "noun modifier." It is.

In (B):comma + participle
(comma + ___ING)
modifiers generally modify the entire previous clause, At the least "growing" would have to modify "species." Neither construction accords with the intended meaning.

We have ambiguity: what is growing? The species? The dolphin family?

By contrast, in (A)
comma + which
("which grows) can
modify only the immediately preceding noun, in this case, "the killer whale."

That reference is in accordance with the intended meaning.

Hope that helps.
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We'll have to keep in mind that there is a can there.

A plant can grow. ← Plant is singular, but that doesn't affect the verb.
Plants can grow. ← With a can, the verb will remain the same whether the subject is singular or plural.

A plant can grows.
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Arup

The inclusion of 'which' in the second arm is not part of any of the choices and therefore is out of scope for us. We must limit our analysis to end up with the best of the choices. That is the essence of GMAT.

Even academically, we are permitted to skip the subject for the second arm, if the subject of the first arm can be also the subject of the second arm.

Per se, the way to parse this part is --- the 'which stands as the common subject for both the phrases.
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ArupRS , I am not sure whether the highlighted words are a followup question. I think that they are.

As daagh explained nicely, grammatically, no, the second pronoun is not required.

Although repetition is not required, if the first subordinate clause ([which] can grow to be 30 feet long)
were really long or complicated, we might need a second "which" for the sake of clarity. That choice is stylistic.

Finally, you may be thinking of the situation in which we have a verb followed by that
and the "second arm" needs to be tied back to the verb by repeating that.

The two sentences below are taken from an excellent post by GMATNinja that you can find here.
He discusses a circumstance in which we need to repeat the word that. He writes:

I believe that Santa Claus is real and that the Knicks will win the 2018 NBA title.
(Correct. The subordinate clauses are parallel and express the meaning properly.)

I believe that Santa Claus is real and the Knicks will win the 2018 NBA title.
(Not correct. Meaning is distorted. We need a second that. See the post for an explanation.)
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rashwiniyer , no, "grow to be" is not weird, though if you are not a native speaker you might have heard only "grow up to be."

The phrase "grow up to be" typically is used to describe children.

She may grow up to be the first woman president of the United States.
He should grow up to be as athletic and well-proportioned as his father is.

This question is official. The answer is correct.
The sentence discusses what physical length a killer whale can be → can grow to be.

The prose in (A) is both correct and well-written.

You probably hit an unusual mental road bump.

Hope that helps.
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Hi, parallelism is:

which
i) can grow....
and
ii) is....

Both are verbs.

In parallelism, don't look for word-on-word similarity.
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Here's my explanation of this question. Definitely, there's some good theory of modifiers that could be applied.





Regards,


Rod
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Hi daprince, you might want to go thru this post on when to repeat which/that.
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Hello VIGHNESHKAMATH,

We hope this finds you well.

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

The intended meaning here is that the "killer whale" is one of the 32 species that make up the dolphin family - in other words, the 32 species that make up the dolphin family include the killer whale.

The verb "include" must act upon "32 species" because it is the species that do the act of "including" the killer whale; the killer whale is not "including" anything.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
Experts' Global Team
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Great post, except for the last example:

*”The killer whale is as BIG as the SIZE of a VW beetle car.’l

Logically, something can not be as BIG as a SIZE.

You would just compare the “killer whale” to the “VW beetle”

Posted from my mobile device

Yeah, make is one clue that "The 32 species" is plural; another clue is "are" (The 32 species ... are closely related to whales).
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