The first detailed study of magpie attacks in Australia indicates that

Dear Friends,

Here is a detailed explanation to this question-

Concepts tested here: Tenses + Pronouns + Awkwardness/Redundancy

• Past perfect tense (marked by the use of helping verb "had") is used when a sentence contains two actions in the past; the helping verb "had" is used with the action in the "greater past", and the simple past tense is used with the action that took place most recently.
• The simple past tense is used to refer to actions that concluded in the past.
• The present perfect tense (marked by the use of the helping verb “has/have”) is used to describe events that concluded in the past but continue to affect the present.
• The simple present tense is used to indicate actions taking place in the current time frame, indicate habitual actions, state universal truths, and convey information that is permanent in nature.
• "that" cannot be used to refer to a human being.

A: This answer choice incorrectly uses the past perfect tense verb "had reached" to refer to the later of two actions that concluded in the past - the men and women born in Australia being attacked by magpies and the men and women reaching adulthood; remember, past perfect tense (marked by the use of helping verb "had") is used when a sentence contains two actions in the past; the helping verb "had" is used with the action in the "greater past", and the simple past tense is used with the action that took place most recently. Further, Option A incorrectly uses the present perfect tense verb "have been attacked" to refer to the earlier of two actions that concluded in the past - the men and women born in Australia being attacked by magpies and the men and women reaching adulthood; remember, past perfect tense (marked by the use of helping verb "had") is used when a sentence contains two actions in the past; the helping verb "had" is used with the action in the "greater past", and the present perfect tense (marked by the use of the helping verb “has/have”) is used to describe events that concluded in the past but continue to affect the present.

B: This answer choice incorrectly uses the simple present tense verb "reach" to refer to the later of two actions that concluded in the past - the men and women born in Australia being attacked by magpies and the men and women reaching adulthood; remember, past perfect tense (marked by the use of helping verb "had") is used when a sentence contains two actions in the past; the helping verb "had" is used with the action in the "greater past", and the simple past tense is used with the action that took place most recently; the simple present tense is used to indicate actions taking place in the current time frame, indicate habitual actions, state universal truths, and convey information that is permanent in nature. Further, Option B uses the needlessly wordy phrase "who were born in the country", leading to awkwardness and redundancy.

C: Correct. This answer choice correctly uses the simple past tense verb "reached" and the past perfect tense verb "had been attacked" to refer to the later and earlier of two actions that concluded in the past - the men and women born in Australia being attacked by magpies and the men and women reaching adulthood - respectively. Further, Option C avoids the pronoun error seen in Option D, as it does not use the pronoun "that". Additionally, Option C is free of any awkwardness or redundancy.

D: This answer choice incorrectly uses "that" to refer to "98 percent of men and 75 percent of women"; please remember, "that" cannot be used to refer to a human being. Further, Option D incorrectly uses the simple past tense verb "were attacked" to refer to the earlier of two actions that concluded in the past - the men and women born in Australia being attacked by magpies and the men and women reaching adulthood; remember, past perfect tense (marked by the use of helping verb "had") is used when a sentence contains two actions in the past; the helping verb "had" is used with the action in the "greater past", and the simple past tense is used with the action that took place most recently. Additionally, Option D incorrectly uses the simple present tense verb "reach" to refer to the later of two actions that concluded in the past - the men and women born in Australia being attacked by magpies and the men and women reaching adulthood; remember, past perfect tense (marked by the use of helping verb "had") is used when a sentence contains two actions in the past; the helping verb "had" is used with the action in the "greater past", and the simple past tense is used with the action that took place most recently; the simple present tense is used to indicate actions taking place in the current time frame, indicate habitual actions, state universal truths, and convey information that is permanent in nature.

E: This answer choice uses the needlessly wordy phrase "who were born in the country", leading to awkwardness and redundancy.

Hence, C is the best answer choice.

To understand the concept of "Simple Tenses" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~1 minute):



To understand the concept of "Past Perfect Tense" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~2 minutes):



To understand the concept of "Present Perfect Tense" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~2 minutes):



All the best!
Experts' Global Team

There is a typo in option C because it uses present simple and should use past simple.


The first detailed study of magpie attacks in Australia indicates that by the time they had reached adulthood, 98 percent of men and 75 percent of women born in the country have been attacked by the birds.

a.) by the time they had reached adulthood, 98 percent of men and 75 percent of women born in the country have been attacked by the birds.
b.) by the time they reach adulthood, 98 percent of men and 75 percent of women, who were born in the country, had been attacked by the birds
c.) by the time they reached adulthood, 98 percent of men and 75 percent of women born in the country had been attacked by the birds
d.) 98 percent of men and 75 percent of women that were born in the country were attacked by the birds by the time they reach adulthood
e.) 98 percent of men and 75 percent of women who were born in the country, by the time they reached adulthood had been attacked by the birds

Some people have said that the pronoun they is not ambiguous only in E, I'd like to read the reasoning because for me if you want to argue that they is ambiguous is ambiguous in all the answer choices.

the sentence is testing verb tense


A) they had reached adulthood .... have been attacked --> incorrect you use the past perfect with the simple past
B) they reach adulthood .... had been attacked ---> incorrect again
C) they reached adulthood .... had been attacked ---> correct. Explains the sequence of events.
D) were attacked ... by the time they reach ---> past simple and present simple, this doesn't make any sense.
E) by the time they reached adulthood had been attacked by the birds
the problem with this option is that does not set off commas "by the time they reached adulthood", so you have an awkward construction

The first detailed study of magpie attacks in Australia indicates that by the time they had reached adulthood, 98 percent of men and 75 percent of women born in country have been attacked by the birds.

"By The time" phrase calls for the use of had in the connecting sentence.
eg
By the time X happened, Y had happened.: Notice past tense in 1st part of sentence and past perfect in 2nd part of sentence.


a) by the time they had reached adulthood, 98 percent of men and 75 percent of women born in country have been attacked by the birds. - Wrong use of had

b) by the time they reach adulthood, 98 percent of men and 75 percent of women, who were born in the country, had been attacked by birds. - Who refers to women only, not to men and women.

c) by the time they reach adulthood, 98 percent of men and 75 percent of the women born in the country had been attacked by the birds. Correct Usage

d) 98 percent of the men and 75 percent of the women that were born in the country were attacked by the birds by the time they reach adulthood. - Wrong verb tense and that refers to women only.

e) 98 percent of men and 75 percent of women who were born in the country, by the time they reached adulthood had been attacked by birds - Who refers to Women only.

Hey hellosanthosh2k2 ,

My friend, I think you are missing the Modifier + comma rule. It says, Whenever you have a modifier followed by a comma, the modifier must refer to the subject of the independent clause.

So, since the modifier has "they", it must refer to the subject of the independent clause after comma (98 percent of men and 75 percent of the women).



Hey Johnnywantover700 ,

E is a blunder here. I will show you how.

Look at the tenses. E says

Some % of men and women had been attached by birds. Now, look at the tense of "who were born in the country".

Now, I hope you know the rules of past perfect tense. Let me know if you don't.

So, considering those rules, What the sentence implies is that they were first attacked and then they were born. This is illogical.

Ideally, we should not use "who were" and make the sequencing of getting attacked and reaching adulthood in order. But this is what E is not doing.

Does that make sense?

a) by the time they had reached adulthood, 98 percent of men and 75 percent of women born in country have been attacked by the birds
BORN IN COUNTRY should be BORN IN THE COUNTRY
b) by the time they reach adulthood, 98 percent of men and 75 percent of women, who were born in the country, had been attacked by birds.
ATTACKED BY BIRDS means birds in general.should be BY THE BIRDS
c) by the time they reach adulthood, 98 percent of men and 75 percent of the women born in the country had been attacked by the birds.
CORRECT
d) 98 percent of the men and 75 percent of the women that were born in the country were attacked by the birds by the time they reach adulthood.
AMBIGUOUS "THEY"
e) 98 percent of men and 75 percent of women who were born in the country, by the time they reached adulthood had been attacked by birds
ATTACKED BY BIRDS should be ATTACKED BY THE BIRDS

mikemcgarry

My only problem with option C is the pronoun "they". Though it logically refers to men and women, it comes before the noun, in which case, is n't it having ambuiguity in referrent, as "they" could point to magpie attacks.

Please help

Thanks

Sorry for the typo..... should be "such embedding of independent clause....". Following is a simple example:

John, who is known for his whimsical decisions, has become the operation manager.

The dependent clause "who is known for his whimsical decisions" is embedded within the main clause.

Nonetheless it is possible to embed even main clause within another using "-.......-". Following is an example from OG13:

Although heirloom tomatoes, grown from seeds saved during the previous year, appear less appetizing than most of their round and red supermarket cousins - they are often green and striped, or have plenty of bumps and bruises—heirlooms are more flavorful and thus in increasing demand.

Hi ChrisL1988, relative pronouns relating to plural nouns is not considered as incorrect, but considered as is incorrect (the correct idiom is just considered, not considered as )

Coming back to the original question, all relative pronouns can relate to either singular or plural nouns.

There are numerous official examples available. For example:

In theory, international civil servants at the United Nations are prohibited from continuing to draw salaries from their own governments; in practice, however, some governments merely substitute living allowances for the paychecks of their employees who have been assigned to the United Nations.

Notice that who is relating to plural nouns employees.

p.s. Our book EducationAisle Sentence Correction Nirvana discusses Relative pronouns, their application and examples in significant detail. Have attached the corresponding section of the book, for your reference.

(C) and (E) are disturbingly similar, and neither of those options have any clear-cut "errors", unfortunately. So all we can do is compare the differences between those two options, and see if we can spot enough meaning issues to prefer one over the other.

Here they are again:


Difference #1: placement of "by the time they reached adulthood"

In (C), this modifier appears at the beginning of the "that" clause, making it pretty clear that it modifies the entire ensuing clause ("98 percent of men and 75 percent of women born in the country had been attacked by the birds").

In (E), things are a little fuzzier. First of all, why is there no comma after "adulthood"? The omission of a second comma makes it look as though "had been attacked by the birds" is part of the "by the time they..." modifier. Sure, the reader can figure out the intended meaning, but a second comma would make things a bit more clear. That gives us one tiny vote against (E).

More significantly, a reader might mistakenly think that the "by the time they..." modifier describes the preceding "who" clause ("who were born in the country"). Again, the reader can figure out the logical meaning, but that meaning is more clearly expressed in (C).

Does that make (E) absolutely WRONG? Maybe, maybe not -- but in terms of this particular difference, (C) is a little better.

Difference #2: "born in the country" vs "who were born in the country"

Both options are probably acceptable. But if so, why go with the wordier one? "Wordiness" is rarely a reliable decision point, but in this case it might give us a very tiny vote in favor of (C). Like, really tiny -- but it's one of the few differences between the two options, so it's worth mentioning.

And that's all we have to work with! Based mainly on the first difference discussed above, (C) is a slightly better option.

Remember, GMAT SC is not about finding four WRONG sentences (with definitive errors) and one RIGHT sentence (with no definitive errors). Instead, it's about choosing the BEST option out the five available.

In this case, (C) wins -- but admittedly not by much.

I hope that helps!

Yes, I do agree with you in that they are incomplete constructions, since the first does not have a verb and the second does not have a subject.

Nonetheless in my opinion a comma after "by the time they reached adulthood" does not really change much: we would still have two incomplete constructions as without a comma.

A comma is generally used after a long introductory prepositional phrase, but not used after a short one. Some grammarians suggest that less than 5 words is categorized as a short phrase and more as a long:

By the time I reached the accident site, the vehicle was towed way.
By afternoon I finished my work.

Per the above rule there should be a comma after "by the time they reached adulthood". However the 2 incomplete constructions remain incomplete and does not depend on the presence of the comma.

Whatsoever, even with the comma after "by the time they reached adulthood", I would consider the whole sentence as one construction (one subject - one verb) with a misplaced prepositional phrase.

Not really - The past participle "born" (or the verb "were born") is not a part of the sequence. The sequence is between "time" (in "by the time") and "had been attacked". Compare with the following:

By 2010 the company had grown by 100%... the sequential relation is between "2010" and "had grown". You may add a modifier (e.g. "established in 2005") to "the company", but that modifier does not play a role in the tense of "had grown".)

Similarly, the core sequence here is:
..by the time they reached adulthood, 98 percent of men and 75 percent of the women (born in the country) had been attacked by the birds...

The modifier within bracket does not play a role in the tense of "had been attacked".

Hello gmatclub members,

during quizzing some official guide questions I stumbled across a question including relative pronouns.
Is it considered as incorrect to use e.g. "who" or "that" after a plural noun (e.g. "woman and men")?

The question was following:
The first detailed study of magpie attacks in Australia indicates that by the time they had reached adulthood, 98 percent of men and 75 percent of women born in country have been attacked by the birds.

a) by the time they had reached adulthood, 98 percent of men and 75 percent of women born in country have been attacked by the birds.
b) by the time they reach adulthood, 98 percent of men and 75 percent of women, who were born in the country, had been attacked by birds.
c) by the time they reached adulthood, 98 percent of men and 75 percent of the women born in the country had been attacked by the birds.
d) 98 percent of the men and 75 percent of the women that were born in the country were attacked by the birds by the time they reach adulthood.
e) 98 percent of men and 75 percent of women who were born in the country, by the time they reached adulthood had been attacked by birds

There were some comments about this issue, but as there are other flaws in the incorrect answers, I'm not sure whether this initially questioned issue is commonly valid. I did also some research on websites dealing with English grammar. There are always examples with nouns that resemble a single person - but of course this doesn't clear the issue, if it is invalid to use it with plural nouns.

I want to understand why "they" in the answer choices is not referring to magpie and hence wrong. How is its antecedent men and women which too is a compound subject?

The meaning expressed dictates that "they" must refer to "men and women" rather than to "magpie attacks."

"They" appears in the context of "by the time they reached adulthood." Since magpie attacks would not reach adulthood, "they" clearly does not refer to "magpie attacks."

Therefore "they" must refer to the other possible referent, "men and women."

The writer of this Sentence Correction question has neglected to put a comma before the non-essential modifier "by the time they reached adulthood."

The comma that follows "by the time they reached adulthood" is not meant to separate what follows the sentence from the rest of the sentence but, rather, is meant to separate "by the time they reached adulthood" from what follows "by the time they reached adulthood."

Of course, had the writer included a comma before "by the time they reached adulthood," the comma use would make more sense.

I suspect that very few of you care, but... well, it turns out that the vicious Australian magpies featured in this question are a real thing. In fact, one attacked at least 40 residents of a Sydney suburb, and is blamed for one resident's heart attack.

"Same magpie - swooped three times and hit right side of head and scratched my face," one user wrote. "He started by coming in at eyeball level - straight on," another reported. "I have never known a more aggressive magpie."

More on Australia's crazy magpies here: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-49563667.

dcummins and generis, I think you two might appreciate this story.

Hello jabhatta2,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, in the first sentence the use of the simple present tense seems to suggest that killing 10 chickens by the time you reach your 20s is a statement of universal fact; in other words, it is true for everyone that they kill 10 chickens by the time the reach their 20s.

The second and third sentences incorrectly use the present perfect ("have killed") and simple past ("killed") tense verbs, respectively, to refer to an action that will end by a particular time in the future; please remember, the future perfect tense (marked by the use of “will have”) is used for referring to an action that will end by a particular point in time in future.

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