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The gyrfalcon, an Arctic bird of prey, has survived a close brush with 04 Oct 2018, 17:53
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Be sure to select an answer first to save it in the Error Log before revealing the correct answer (OA)!

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25% (medium)

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69% (01:11) correct 31% (01:30) wrong based on 1635 sessions

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The gyrfalcon, an Arctic bird of prey, has survived a close brush with extinction; its numbers are now five times greater than when the use of DDT was sharply restricted in the early 1970s.

(A) extinction; its numbers are now five times greater than
(B) extinction; its numbers are now five times more than
(C) extinction, their numbers now fivefold what they were
(D) extinction, now with fivefold the numbers they had
(E) extinction, now with numbers five times greater than

Note : It is different from this LINK 1 & LINK 2
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The gyrfalcon, an Arctic bird of prey, has survived a close brush with 04 Oct 2018, 22:22
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hazelnut
The gyrfalcon, an Arctic bird of prey, has survived a close brush with extinction; its numbers are now five times greater than when the use of DDT was sharply restricted in the early 1970s.

(A) extinction; its numbers are now five times greater than
(B) extinction; its numbers are now five times more than
(C) extinction, their numbers now fivefold what they were
(D) extinction, now with fivefold the numbers they had
(E) extinction, now with numbers five times greater than

Note : It is different from this LINK 1 & LINK 2
Show more
Process of elimination:
1) These are two independent clauses, hence we need a semi-colon to separate them. Eliminate C, D, and E.
2)When comparing numbers, we need to use "greater/less than". Eliminate B.

Correct answer: A

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The gyrfalcon, an Arctic bird of prey, has survived a close brush with 04 Oct 2018, 19:47
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hazelnut
The gyrfalcon, an Arctic bird of prey, has survived a close brush with extinction; its numbers are now five times greater than when the use of DDT was sharply restricted in the early 1970s.

(A) extinction; its numbers are now five times greater than
(B) extinction; its numbers are now five times more than
(C) extinction, their numbers now fivefold what they were
(D) extinction, now with fivefold the numbers they had
(E) extinction, now with numbers five times greater than

Note : It is different from this LINK 1 & LINK 2
Show more


The original is perfectly fine..
1) It uses its to refer back to gyrfalcon.
2) uses greater correctly to compare numbers
3) parallelism in comparison of now and another time starting with WHEN

A
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The gyrfalcon, an Arctic bird of prey, has survived a close brush with 29 Jul 2019, 06:01
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(A) extinction; its numbers are now five times greater than - correct
(B) extinction; its numbers are now five times more than - with nos. use greater than
(C) extinction, their numbers now fivefold what they were - gyrfalcon is singular
(D) extinction, now with fivefold the numbers they had - gyrfalcon is singular
(E) extinction, now with numbers five times greater than - now with nos. do what ? incomplete

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The gyrfalcon, an Arctic bird of prey, has survived a close brush with 26 Sep 2023, 00:22
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Hi Experts,
I hope you all are doing well.

I have a some confusions in option A & E.

1.
In option A, Is Ellipses also playing its role while making a comparison. [its numbers are now five times greater than (the numbers) when the use of DDT....]

2.
In option E, i thought its a case of an Absolute phrase, the phrase after the comma is modifying the preceding clause. Also i am confused for its comparison.

Thank you in advance!
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The gyrfalcon, an Arctic bird of prey, has survived a close brush with 28 Sep 2023, 12:32
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For A, that's basically right. I'd write it as "five times greater than (they were) when the use . . . "

For E, sure, you can read it as an absolute phrase modifying the previous clause. But what does it mean? The bird survived a brush with extinction, but THIS TIME it had higher numbers. In other words, it's implying that there was more than one brush with extinction, but this one involved a larger population than the last time. That's not what we want to say.

Keshav1404
Hi Experts,
I hope you all are doing well.

I have a some confusions in option A & E.

1.
In option A, Is Ellipses also playing its role while making a comparison. [its numbers are now five times greater than (the numbers) when the use of DDT....]

2.
In option E, i thought its a case of an Absolute phrase, the phrase after the comma is modifying the preceding clause. Also i am confused for its comparison.

Thank you in advance!
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The gyrfalcon, an Arctic bird of prey, has survived a close brush with 11 Dec 2023, 09:14
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GMATNinja MartyMurray KarishmaB

Could you please help me understand why E is wrong? Is the comparison valid? Is there just a meaning issue?
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The gyrfalcon, an Arctic bird of prey, has survived a close brush with 11 Dec 2023, 13:27
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SlowTortoise
Could you please help me understand why E is wrong? Is the comparison valid? Is there just a meaning issue?
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Here's the (E) version:

The gyrfalcon, an Arctic bird of prey, has survived a close brush with extinction, now with numbers five times greater than when the use of DDT was sharply restricted in the early 1970s.

We could debate whether the wording that expresses the comparison, "five times greater than when the use of DDT was sharply restricted," effectively conveys a logical meaning. At the same time, since the credited choice produces that wording as well, we can't eliminate (E) because of that wording.

We can, however, eliminate (E) because of a meaning issue. The following part doesn't make sense.

The gyrfalcon ... has survived a close brush with [b]extinction, now with numbers five times greater

"The gyrfalcon has survived ... now with numbers," doesn't effectively connect "has survived" with the part about having numbers fives times greater.

Notice that "has survived ... now" seems to try to say that an event that occurred in the past has characteristics that exist "now," or in the present. In other words, it doesn't convey that, in the past, the gyrfalcon survived and that, following that survival, it now exists in greater numbers. Rather, the wording mashes the two ideas together without a logical connection or transition.

Also, "The gyrfalcon has survived ... now with numbers," doesn't really effectively communicate any meaning. Has the bird survived with numbers? Since the bird would not have "survived ... with numbers," no logical meaning is conveyed.
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The gyrfalcon, an Arctic bird of prey, has survived a close brush with 12 Dec 2023, 03:35
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BillyZ
The gyrfalcon, an Arctic bird of prey, has survived a close brush with extinction; its numbers are now five times greater than when the use of DDT was sharply restricted in the early 1970s.

(A) extinction; its numbers are now five times greater than
(B) extinction; its numbers are now five times more than
(C) extinction, their numbers now fivefold what they were
(D) extinction, now with fivefold the numbers they had
(E) extinction, now with numbers five times greater than

Note : It is different from this LINK 1 & LINK 2
Show more


The sentence tells us that the gyrfalcon has survived a close brush with extinction. Its numbers now are five times greater than the numbers in early 1970’s.
We are using gyrfalcon as singular so a pronoun reference to it must be singular too.

C) extinction, their numbers now fivefold what they were
(D) extinction, now with fivefold the numbers they had

Options (C) and (D) use ‘their’ and ‘they’ to refer to the gyrfalcon so both these options are incorrect.

(A) extinction; its numbers are now five times greater than
(B) extinction; its numbers are now five times more than

Options (A) and (B) are very similar. (A) uses ‘greater than’ and (B) uses ‘more than.’ To compare the magnitude of numbers, we have learned that we use ‘greater than.’ Hence (B) is incorrect.

We can use ‘more’ with numbers in a different context. Say ‘I am unable to analyse the financials of this company. I need to know some more of its numbers.’

(A) extinction; its numbers are now five times greater than
(E) extinction, now with numbers five times greater than

Between (A) and (E) was a tough call. ( SlowTortoise )

Option (A) is clean and correct. When comparing something over two different time periods, we often give just the time period after the comparison.
For example, ‘Today she is happier than yesterday.’

Hence, (A) is perfectly acceptable. Further in (A), two independent clauses are correctly joined with a semi colon.

On the other hand, (E) is vague. We are not given exactly what the numbers are.
(A) tells us they are the bird’s numbers (its numbers - how many birds there are). But (E) just says ‘with numbers…’ (number of what?)

Also, the first clause says that the bird has survived the brush with extinction and uses present perfect to show that it has survived. To give a current fact with simple present, it does make more sense to use a new clause. Mind you, I wouldn’t outright reject option (E). Just that (A) is better and clearer and hence would prefer it.

Answer (A)
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