The eyes of the elephant seal adapt to darkness more quickly than any

Can you eliminate E because of a comma splice ? ( tested, it allows them to hunt efficiently under the gloomy conditions at its feeding depth ....)

No. The two clauses are connected by the subordinating conjunction "because." So, there's no comma splice issue.

Hello mcepeci,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, no; Option E does not feature a comma splice.

The use of "Because" in Option E makes the first clause a dependent clause, so the use of a comma to join it to an independent clause is not incorrect.

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

GMATNinja linked to a post (https://gmatclub.com/forum/p2103465) that is no longer available regarding the ambiguity of the "it". Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I realize that this question is discussed at nauseum, but I also did not like the use of "it" referring to the subject in a noun phrase. However, it looks like because the "it" is in a comma -ing mod, that this is acceptable.

For instance, if you were to change Choice C to "The eyes of the elephant seal adapt to darkness more quickly than do those of any other animal yet tested, SO IT CAN hunt..." this would definitely be incorrect because the comma -ing modifier is removed and the "it" cannot logically refer to the elephant seal because of the noun phrase?

Any further clarification would be greatly appreciated.

ExpertsGlobal5
Thank you! To clarify, would "it" still correctly refer to the animal and not the eyes if you said ",so it" instead of "allowing it". I am hoping to understand how the -ing modifier influence the meaning of the sentence vs. if you had ",so it". Thank you again

The pronoun reference here would still be fine, as it is in the original choice C.

I have the same question. Can someone explain please?

Greetings,
Kevin

There's no such rule. I'm curious, where did you get the idea that that rule exists? Many TTP users have mentioned that "rule" as well.

Hello kevsaf95,

We hope this finds you well.

To clarify, no such rule exists; pronouns can absolutely refer to nouns that are a part of prepositional phrases.

We suspect you may have become confused with a different rule - that if a modifier acts on a noun phrase that contains a prepositional phrase, the modifier will refer to the main noun of the noun phrase, even if the modifier is closer to the noun of the prepositional phrase.

For example: "The King of England who lost to Cromwell was Charles I."

Here, "who" refers to "King", not to "England".

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

Hi,
Thanks for the explanation

What about the possive nouns? For example, what if the question was like this?:

(C) The elephant seal's eyes seal adapt to darkness more quickly than do those of any other animal yet tested, allowing it to hunt efficiently under the gloomy conditions at its feeding depths of between 300 and 700 meters.

Would it be ok, too? Or the rule just works with nouns preceded by a preposition?
Pd: which is noun preceded by the preposition in the original sentence? "The eyes" or "the elephant"?

Greetings,
Kevin

kevsaf95

Hey Kevin ,

Greetings.

Below is a link to an interesting official question. Give it an honest attempt once before reading my response further.

Question: https://gmatclub.com/forum/although-she ... l#p1549650


Now that you've solved the question above, I'm sure you've understood why I directed you to it. The following is my answer to your query.


As per the "rules", a pronoun should only refer to and replace a noun. This means, strictly speaking, a pronoun must not refer to a possessive noun.


However, the GMAT is known to have flouted this rule, as in the question above.


So, what's the takeaway? Although the rule is that a pronoun must not refer to a possessive noun, the GMAT is wishy-washy when it comes to pronoun rules. Hence, always keep this and other pronoun ambiguity rules at the bottom of the pecking order. Always look for more deterministic errors and never let this rule be the first reason for eliminating answer choices.

One thing is certain though, the GMAT always relies on LOGIC to resolve pronoun issues. So, if you go by the meaning-based approach, you should be fine.


I hope this helps improve your understanding.


Happy Learning!

Abhishek

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