I don’t know why the GMAT thinks this is important, but there are a whole bunch of official SC questions that include words that could be either singular or plural: “
media” or “data” or “
deer” or
diabetes, just to name a few. The key is that the GMAT will always give you some hint about whether these nouns are singular or plural in the sentence.
With that in mind…
A. Though being tiny, blind, and translucent, a recently discovered species of catfish lessens their vulnerability with thickened bones and armor plates on their sides.
Hopefully, the two uses of “their” jump off the page at you. Logically,
“their” needs to refer back to a plural noun – in theory, “species of catfish.”
The trouble is, “species of catfish” is singular in this sentence. It’s pretty subtle, but the giveaway is the singular article “a”:
“a… species of catfish” implies that we’re only talking about one species. So “their” is wrong.Plus, the use of “being” is pretty goofy here. In general, it’s not cool to use “being” as a modifier – at the very least, it doesn’t seem to happen on the GMAT. And why would we say “though being tiny, blind, and translucent…” when we could just say “though tiny, blind, and translucent…”? The “being” serves no useful purpose.
So (A) is gone.
GMATNinjaThanks for the explanation.
Shouldn't it be the wise decision to think of the verb 'has'? The word 'has' surely indicates that “species of catfish” is singular. So, use of 'their' is definitely wrong. Am I missing anything?
Also, in correct choice B, what is the subject of the verb 'lessens'?