The most read magazine in America, National Geographic's total

You're thinking about who.

Whose is not restricted to living things, and can refer to inanimate objects as well. For example:

The question, whose difficulty level is not known...
The car whose tires need to be replaced...
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Hello, Pankaj0901. I do not think other Experts have chimed in earlier out of respect for Experts' Global, a company I also respect. Furthermore, I know how hard it is to write questions that mimic official questions. That said, I would like to respond to your query. For my part, I find nothing wrong with any of (C) through (E). Should the portion after the comma be a clause or a prepositional phrase? Nothing is wrong with either construct. Check out this official question, in which the sentence begins with a with phrase to refer to a company. (The sentence could just as easily have been written, The company, whose customers... and whose network...) Then, can total function either as an adjective or a verb? Yes, it can. (Source.) So basically, we are tasked with deciding among the following:

(C) whose circulation is [a number]
(D) whose circulation totals [a number]
(E) with circulation totaling [a number]

Now, you could make a case that the GMAT™ prefers a more direct expression—i.e. a clause with a noun and a simple verb—over a prepositional phrase in most contexts. That might place (E) in a slightly less preferred place in general, but that is about all we can say. The real difference between (C) and (D) is the choice of verb, and that is not a situation we can expect to see ourselves face on the real GMAT™. My advice? Take what you can from the question, but apply any knowledge gained to official questions that you might come across subsequently in the course of your preparation.

Thank you for thinking to ask. I hope my analysis proves helpful to you.

- Andrew
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Video Explanation provided by Experts Global

Between C, D and E

totals to some number
totaling to some number

Hence C is CORRECT

Answer is B

Redundancy: C,D,E has a redundant "is" (The redundant sentence is like: The most read magazine is America is National Geographic...)

Wrong comma: reading the meaning of A, one feels that the two clauses are not connected.

Did you typed the problem correctly ?
None of them is correct with "is America......" I think the correct one should have "in America......".

The most read magazine in America, National Geographic's total monthly circulation is around 8.5 million copies
A. America, National Geographic's total monthly circulation is - A Run-on sentence. Moreover, after first comma Noun (National Geographic) should be used instead of Possessive noun (National Geographic's). Hence Incorrect.
B. America, National Geographic, with total monthly circulation of - A Fragmented and a Run-on sentence. Hence Incorrect.
C. America is National Geographic, whose total monthly circulation is - It is incorrect to use WHOSE for Inanimate objects. Hence Incorrect
D. America is National Geographic, whose monthly circulation totals - It is incorrect to use WHOSE for Inanimate objects. Hence Incorrect
E. America is National Geographic, with monthly circulation totaling - CORRECT

Hi godot53,
Rectified the mistake in the question. Apologies for the confusion!

elegantm, Adityagmatclub, and blayel, Apologies for the confusion.
Please find corrected question:

the only difference in C and D is active and passive? can someone tell me which choice is better from the adjective+adverb+noun relationship and why?
??

Can somebody explain why it is C???

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Is it correct to use whose for an object? I may be wrong, but I based my response (E) on the fact that whose is not appropriate with nouns other than persons.

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VeritasKarishma GMATNinja
What is the usual difference between C and D??
I thought both were correct except the option C is much more clear, contains a simple structure, thus I selected C but that is for wrong reasons.

Could you Clarify?
Magoosh
egmat
carcass
bb
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how do you decide between C and D ? I mean what is exactly wrong with D ? With E, totalling does sound awkward so it can be eliminated. but what about C and D ?

AndrewN - Could you please explain options C and D? I find both of them correct. Why is D wrong is my question.

ERROR ANALYSIS -

1) Noun modifier modifies a noun - National Geographic
2) Specifically talking about total monthly circulation

ANSWER CHOICE ANALYSIS -

A) Geographic's is incorrect
B) Verb not present
C) CORRECT
D) Question talks about total monthly circulation however the choice talks about monthly circulation - changes the meaning
E) Same as D

WHOSE can work for Inanimate or non-living things.

Ex: The chair, whose one leg has broken, is lying in the lawn.

is option D] or E] a passive sentence. Please elaborate

No, it's not 'passive,' they are what is called 'intransitive.'

If you would like to ignore everything I'm about to write, that's fine. This sentence does not strike me as a particularly realistic SC sentence, and you don't need to really know the difference between 'intransitive' or 'transitive' verbs for the test (and, in fact, 'active' vs 'passive' isn't really tested either).

Transitive verbs have an OBJECT. "He kicked" feels incomplete-- "kicked what?" You would include an object: "He kicked the ball."

Intransitive verbs DON'T have an object. Either they just explain the 'state of the subject' (as in "He screamed") or they describe the subject (as in "She is tall").

So what we have in C and D are intransitive sentences: "The most read magazine is National Geographic..."
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