There are over 110 million dogs and cats in the United States, which i

Please explain how A is correct.
Is it exception to "touch rule"?

Which doesn't modify US.

How can A be the answer. Which is used for words which precede it (before the comma). Here, A makes the sentence look like which is used for United States, making no sense.

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Quite confused between A and E.

"Which" modifies the noun it follows so :
United States, which is more than the population of any Western European country. - How can this be correct ?
Is there an exception which I am not aware of ..

Whereas Option E -
"more than in any Western European country by population" - it correctly modifies the meaning of the words written before the comma.

Please assist ..

Agreed sourabh292. In option A, which is intended to modify the figure 110 million. This is quite rare and non-standard from a GMAT perspective. However, A would still be the best among the given choices.

Let's look at option E


Notice that E completely changes the meaning of the original sentence. Original sentence is comparing 110 million with population of any Western European country.

On the other hand, by introducing in, option E is comparing population of dogs and cats in the United States, with (population of dogs and cats) in any Western European country. That's a clear deviation from the intended meaning.

Hi can someone please explain why A is the right answer choice and E isn't

I hate the exception to touch rule questions. How in the world could ,which not modify the preceding noun, United States

EMPOWERgmatVerbal EMPOWERgmatRichC : Would you like to comment on the correctness of this question. I have been seeing a similar touch rule violation on many unofficial questions these days

Hi saukrit, you have to be prepared for touch rule violation on official questions as well (though, as I mentioned in my post above, it is pretty rare).

So, sometimes, it will just boil down to choosing the best, among the given choices.

An officially correct answer:

Gusty westerly winds will continue to usher a seasonably cool air mass into the region while a broad area of high pressure builds, which will bring fair and dry weather for several days.

The usage of participial phrase (bringing fair and dry weather for several days) would have been an ideal usage here, but test-makers had other ideas:).

Hello!

While there has been some great discussion about this issue, let's add our two cents!

Let's first figure out logically what the modifier and antecedent should be:

There are over 110 million dogs and cats in the United States, which is more than the population of any Western European country.

Modifier = which is more than the population of any Western European country
Antecedent = 110 million dogs and cats

So what part of speech is "in the United States" then??

The problem we're dealing with here is tricky. The phrase "in the United States" is NOT the noun you're looking for - it's a prepositional phrase that has been placed between the noun and the "which" phrase. In most cases, it can muddle or mislead readers and you should not do this. However, in cases like this one, the reader can easily tell that the "which" phrase is referring to the number (110 million) and not the country.

Here are a couple examples of other sentences that do this without being confusing or misleading:

Horace made a donation to the new animal shelter in San Francisco, which was in desperate need of funds to get started.

Modifier = which was in desperate need of funds to get started
Antecedent = animal shelter
Prepositional Phrase stuck between them = in San Francisco

People starting leaving during the first act of the film, which was before all of the cool stuff really started happening.

Modifier = which was before all of the cools tuff really started happening
Antecedent = the first act
Prepositional Phrase stuck between them = of the film

Remember that the GMAT isn't asking you to find a perfect answer - they want you to find the best answer. In this case, option A isn't perfect - but it has far fewer (and less problematic) mistakes than the other options.

I hope this helps!