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655-705 Level|   Comparisons|   Pronouns|         
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To meet the rapidly rising market demand for fish and seafood, supplie 19 Sep 2017, 14:47
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imawolf
Hi mikemcgarry, GMATNinja, GMATNinjaTwo,

Sorry for bumping up this old thread, but I still don't quite understand how I could figure out what the "they" in choice D refers to - suppliers or fish? Also, are there any rules on figuring out the correct pronoun antecedent?
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Dear imawolf,

I'm happy to respond. :-)

The first thing I will say is that the pronoun-antecedent relationship is quite sophisticated. It cannot be summarized by simple mechanical rules. It can be influenced by word placement, grammar, logic, and rhetoric.

Here's the OA version, (D):
To meet the rapidly rising market demand for fish and seafood, suppliers are growing fish twice as fast as they grow naturally, cutting their feed allotment by nearly half and raising them on special diets.

Here, on aspect is word placement. What's the closest noun to "they"? The closest noun is "fish." That's one connection. Second is the connection to the repeated word "growing . . . grow." This is a very odd verb, because when we say "suppliers are growing fish," it's actually the "fish" that are doing the "growing." The verb "to grow" is odd in this way: when we say, "The farmer is growing corn," really, it's the "corn" that's "growing," and the farmer merely creates the conditions in which the corn can grow. Thus, at the first appearance of this word, the fish are doing the "growing," so when "they grow" appears again, the logical connection is to the "fish." That cements the connection.

Does all this make sense?
Mike :-)
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To meet the rapidly rising market demand for fish and seafood, suppliers are growing fish twice as fast as their natural growth rate, cutting their feed allotment by nearly half and raising them on special diets.
This sentence has word usage error. The sentence states that farmers are growing fish twice as fast as their natural growth rate. Or in other words, that the growth rate is twice as fast as natural growth rate. The use of adjective “fast” with growth rate is incorrect. Lets consider a similar construction: Change rate to speed. Both show change of measure per unit time. Now to describe speed we say:

Speed is more – Correct
Speed is higher – Correct
Speed is fast – Incorrect.
Car is driving fast. – Correct
Thus, on similar lines:

Growth rate is fast. – Incorrect
Growth rate is high. – Correct
Fish can grow faster – Correct
This choice should not be eliminated because of apparent pronoun error. It is important to clarify this aspect since if we eliminate an incorrect answer choice for incorrect reason, we may end up marking incorrect choice as the correct answer. We will apply the pronoun framework discussed here and see if this question has pronoun error.

The pronouns in question are two occurrences of “their”. The pronoun “them” is in non-underlined portion of the sentence. So there will not be any error related to this pronoun. However, we may consider this pronoun as well in our analysis for the sake of complete analysis of the sentence in terms of pronouns.

Choice A: Idiom Error as explained above.

Choice B: Parallelism Error: The sentence has a list as shown in the meaning analysis. This list is not parallel in this choice. The list per this choice is:

their feed allotment cut…
raising them…
Choice C: Meaning Error – This choice changes the intended meaning of the sentence and in fact while doing so renders the sentence illogical. Remember that the original sentence states that suppliers are growing fish faster than the fish grows naturally. Thus, two different rates of growth are being compared.

Rate at which suppliers grow the fish
Rate at which fish grow naturally.
Now choice C states “suppliers are growing fish twice as fast as growing them naturally”. Now the two rates being compared are as follows:

Rate at which suppliers grow the fish
Rate at which someone grows the fish naturally. – This part changes the intended meaning of the sentence – fish grow on their own – and makes the sentence illogical – one cannot grow fish and say that this is natural growth.
Choice D: No Errors

Choice E: Parallelism Error: As discussed in Choice B.

Thus, Choice D is the correct answer.
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To meet the rapidly rising market demand for fish and seafood, supplie 23 Jun 2019, 13:21
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mbunny
To meet the rapidly rising market demand for fish and seafood, suppliers are growing fish twice as fast as their natural growth rate, cutting their feed allotment by nearly half and raising them on special diets.


(A) their natural growth rate, cutting their feed allotment

(B) their natural growth rate, their feed allotment cut

(C) growing them naturally, cutting their feed allotment

(D) they grow naturally, cutting their feed allotment

(E) they grow naturally, with their feed allotment

Similar Question : [as fast as] LINK

Show Spoiler
The first and second choices illogically state that the suppliers are not only growing the fish but are also growing the natural growth rate of the fish.

The third choice elliptically states that suppliers are growing fish twice as fast as growing them naturally grows them, but when something grows naturally, it is illogical to say anything grows them. The appropriate contrast is between the rate at which the suppliers are growing the fish and the rate at which the fish grow when allowed to grow naturally on their own.

The fourth and fifth options both express that contrast appropriately. Of these two options, however, only the fourth uses a present participle (cutting) that is parallel to the other verbs in the sentence (growing and raising), and therefore the fourth choice is best.

To meet the rapidly rising market demand for fish and seafood, suppliers are growing fish twice as fast as they grow naturally, cutting their feed allotment by nearly half and raising them on special diets.

LINK In the 1980's the rate of increase of the minority population of the United States was nearly twice what it was in the 1970's.

An this case, you have a problem of redundancy:
A RATE can't be FAST.
* The rate can be high;
* The increase itself can be fast.

Similarly,
A height can't be tall (a person can be tall, or a height can be greater than...)
A bank account can't be rich (a person can be rich, or a bank account can contain a large amount of money)
etc.
Show more

Would you please shed some light on "COMMA + WITH modifier". Here, how the meaning changes in answer (E)? generis

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To meet the rapidly rising market demand for fish and seafood, supplie 27 Jun 2019, 23:12
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RashedVai
mbunny
To meet the rapidly rising market demand for fish and seafood, suppliers are growing fish twice as fast as their natural growth rate, cutting their feed allotment by nearly half and raising them on special diets.


(A) their natural growth rate, cutting their feed allotment

(B) their natural growth rate, their feed allotment cut

(C) growing them naturally, cutting their feed allotment

(D) they grow naturally, cutting their feed allotment

(E) they grow naturally, with their feed allotment

Similar Question : [as fast as] LINK

Show Spoiler
The first and second choices illogically state that the suppliers are not only growing the fish but are also growing the natural growth rate of the fish.

The third choice elliptically states that suppliers are growing fish twice as fast as growing them naturally grows them, but when something grows naturally, it is illogical to say anything grows them. The appropriate contrast is between the rate at which the suppliers are growing the fish and the rate at which the fish grow when allowed to grow naturally on their own.

The fourth and fifth options both express that contrast appropriately. Of these two options, however, only the fourth uses a present participle (cutting) that is parallel to the other verbs in the sentence (growing and raising), and therefore the fourth choice is best.

To meet the rapidly rising market demand for fish and seafood, suppliers are growing fish twice as fast as they grow naturally, cutting their feed allotment by nearly half and raising them on special diets.

LINK In the 1980's the rate of increase of the minority population of the United States was nearly twice what it was in the 1970's.

An this case, you have a problem of redundancy:
A RATE can't be FAST.
* The rate can be high;
* The increase itself can be fast.

Similarly,
A height can't be tall (a person can be tall, or a height can be greater than...)
A bank account can't be rich (a person can be rich, or a bank account can contain a large amount of money)
etc.

Would you please shed some light on "COMMA + WITH modifier". Here, how the meaning changes in answer (E)? generis
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RashedVai , sure. (I think this sentence is weird. How to you make fish grow faster by cutting the amount of food they eat?)

When I first read (E), I thought that I had missed something.
Wrong.
The sentence is missing something. A verb. Actually, a verbal.

• their feed allotment by nearly half
can't be "with" anything because the phrase is not a thing. It has no meaning.

their feed allotment by nearly half
does not mean anything.

by nearly half is a phrase that we use after a verb or verbal.

Barring other issues such as parallelism, these alternatives would be okay:
with the feed allotment CUT by nearly half . . .
with the feed allotment DECREASED by nearly half . . .

So the meaning of the sentence changes with E because the phrase "their feed allotment by half" is nonsensical.

I wrote some other examples, all of which sound bizarre to me. I added corrections to most of them.
If the phrase I have highlighted in red does not strike as odd or nonsensical, maybe one of the examples will do so.

Nonsensical: her piece of chocolate layer cake by nearly half
-- her piece of chocolate layer cake increased by half
Nonsensical: his lemon ice cream scoop by nearly a third
-- his lemon ice cream scoop reduced by nearly a third
Nonsensical: their wine by nearly half
Nonsensical: our quota of cherries by nearly half
Nonsensical: my part of the bed by nearly half

• The non-underlined portion that contains raising requires a parallel verbal
-- "and" is a parallelism marker
-- what does AND join? Two things that the supplier does to make fish grow quickly
-- the non-underlined portion at the end contains raising, a present participle (verbING)
-- whatever is on the right hand side of AND must also be on the left side of AND.
The items must be parallel.

To meet the rapidly rising market demand for fish and seafood, suppliers are growing fish twice as fast as they grow naturally, with their feed allotment by nearly half and raising them on special diets.

We need "cutting."
. . . suppliers are growing fish twice as fast as they grow naturally, cutting their feed allotment by half and raising them on special diets.

I hope that helps. :)
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To meet the rapidly rising market demand for fish and seafood, supplie 31 Mar 2020, 01:49
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I chose (C), eventually (D) came out as the correct answer. I chose (C) because of the parallelism with "growing" and" "cutting", whereas (D) uses "growing" and "they" to make it parallel. Where I'm wrong?
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lakshya14
I chose (C), eventually (D) came out as the correct answer. I chose (C) because of the parallelism with "growing" and" "cutting", whereas (D) uses "growing" and "they" to make it parallel. Where I'm wrong?
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Hi Lakshya, meaning is supreme.

growing them naturally is incorrect. No one can grow anyone naturally; the very fact that growth is natural, implies that they grow on their own.
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To meet the rapidly rising market demand for fish and seafood, supplie 08 Oct 2020, 03:20
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OFFICIAL GMAT EXPLANATION

QUESTION

To meet the rapidly rising market demand for fish and seafood, suppliers are growing fish twice as fast as their natural growth rate, cutting their feed allotment by nearly half and raising them on special diets.

Which of the following represents the most grammatically correct way to express the underlined portion of the sentence above?

(A) their natural growth rate, cutting their feed allotment

(B) their natural growth rate, their feed allotment cut

(C) growing them naturally, cutting their feed allotment

(D) they grow naturally, cutting their feed allotment

(E) they grow naturally, with their feed allotment cut
___________________________________________________________________________________

OFFICIAL ANSWER

The first and second choices illogically state that the suppliers are not only growing the fish but are also growing the natural growth rate of the fish.

The third choice elliptically states that suppliers are growing fish twice as fast as growing them naturally grows them, but when something grows naturally, it is illogical to say anything grows them. The appropriate contrast is between the rate at which the suppliers are growing the fish and the rate at which the fish grow when allowed to grow naturally on their own.

The fourth and fifth options both express that contrast appropriately. Of these two options, however, only the fourth uses a present participle (cutting) that is parallel to the other verbs in the sentence (growing and raising), and therefore the fourth choice is best.

ANSWER: (D)
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Hi GMATGuruNY - in this case I was able to eliminate A/B and C because of the lack of parallelism within the comparison. Specifically

- suppliers are growing fish is a clause.

Hence I need to compare this is to another clause and not compare the clause to a noun or to a modifier.

So suppliers are growing fish has to be compared to a clause

Option A) their natural growth rate = Noun
Option B) their natural growth rate = Noun
Option C) growing them naturally = Gerund
Option D) they grow naturally = Clause
Option E) they grow naturally = Clause
Only option D and Option E are comparing clauses to clauses

Hence eliminate A / B / C.

Fair strategy ?
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jabhatta2
Hi GMATGuruNY - in this case I was able to eliminate A/B and C because of the lack of parallelism within the comparison. Specifically

- suppliers are growing fish is a clause.

Hence I need to compare this is to another clause and not compare the clause to a noun or to a modifier.

So suppliers are growing fish has to be compared to a clause

Option A) their natural growth rate = Noun
Option B) their natural growth rate = Noun
Option C) growing them naturally = Gerund
Option D) they grow naturally = Clause
Option E) they grow naturally = Clause
Only option D and Option E are comparing clauses to clauses

Hence eliminate A / B / C.

Fair strategy ?
Show more

You are correct that a clause cannot be compared to a noun and that the comparisons in A, B and C are illogical.
But be careful:
When one clause is compared to another, the verb in the second clause is often omitted.
SC111 in the OG16:
Wild animals have less total fat than livestock.
Here, only a noun appears in the blue portion, but a complete clause is implied, as follows:
Wild animals have less total fat than livestock [have total fat].
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To meet the rapidly rising market demand for fish and seafood, suppliers are growing fish twice as fast as their natural growth rate, cutting their feed allotment by nearly half and raising them on special diets.

(A) their natural growth rate, cutting their feed allotment -> "their" can't refer back to fish. Pronoun error. Incorrect.

(B) their natural growth rate, their feed allotment cut -> Same as A.

(C) growing them naturally, cutting their feed allotment -> growing is incorrect. we need someone before growing.

(D) they grow naturally, cutting their feed allotment -> It is better. They refers fish, it makes sense too. Let's keep it.

(E) they grow naturally, with their feed allotment -> Parallelism error, "with their" is not parallel to "cutting". Incorrect.

So, I think D. :)
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mbunny
To meet the rapidly rising market demand for fish and seafood, suppliers are growing fish twice as fast as their natural growth rate, cutting their feed allotment by nearly half and raising them on special diets.


(A) their natural growth rate, cutting their feed allotment

(B) their natural growth rate, their feed allotment cut

(C) growing them naturally, cutting their feed allotment

(D) they grow naturally, cutting their feed allotment

(E) they grow naturally, with their feed allotment

Similar Question : [as fast as] LINK

Show Spoiler
The first and second choices illogically state that the suppliers are not only growing the fish but are also growing the natural growth rate of the fish.

The third choice elliptically states that suppliers are growing fish twice as fast as growing them naturally grows them, but when something grows naturally, it is illogical to say anything grows them. The appropriate contrast is between the rate at which the suppliers are growing the fish and the rate at which the fish grow when allowed to grow naturally on their own.

The fourth and fifth options both express that contrast appropriately. Of these two options, however, only the fourth uses a present participle (cutting) that is parallel to the other verbs in the sentence (growing and raising), and therefore the fourth choice is best.

To meet the rapidly rising market demand for fish and seafood, suppliers are growing fish twice as fast as they grow naturally, cutting their feed allotment by nearly half and raising them on special diets.

LINK In the 1980's the rate of increase of the minority population of the United States was nearly twice what it was in the 1970's.

An this case, you have a problem of redundancy:
A RATE can't be FAST.
* The rate can be high;
* The increase itself can be fast.

Similarly,
A height can't be tall (a person can be tall, or a height can be greater than...)
A bank account can't be rich (a person can be rich, or a bank account can contain a large amount of money)
etc.
Show more

Hello! In this question I couldnt eliminate option A. "Suppliers are growing fish twice as fast as their natural growth rate" seems correct to me. its like suppliers are growing at twice the natural growth rate. I couldnt't find any flaw. please help AndrewN GMATNinja DmitryFarber
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To meet the rapidly rising market demand for fish and seafood, supplie 26 May 2021, 05:59
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pk6969
mbunny
To meet the rapidly rising market demand for fish and seafood, suppliers are growing fish twice as fast as their natural growth rate, cutting their feed allotment by nearly half and raising them on special diets.


(A) their natural growth rate, cutting their feed allotment

(B) their natural growth rate, their feed allotment cut

(C) growing them naturally, cutting their feed allotment

(D) they grow naturally, cutting their feed allotment

(E) they grow naturally, with their feed allotment

Similar Question : [as fast as] LINK

Hello! In this question I couldnt eliminate option A. "Suppliers are growing fish twice as fast as their natural growth rate" seems correct to me. its like suppliers are growing at twice the natural growth rate. I couldnt't find any flaw. please help AndrewN GMATNinja DmitryFarber
Show more
You have to keep in mind, pk6969, that a comparison on the GMAT™ is very tightly governed: like must be compared with like. The comparative twice as fast as should have parallel elements on either side, as in, The Porsche is twice as fast as the Honda, in which two makes of auto are compared, or, in a more complex example, The Porsche hits a top speed that is twice as fast as that of the Honda, in which the comparison is between speed and speed (by way of that of).

In the original sentence above, fish are growing twice as fast at fish farms as the rate at which fish grow in their natural habitat, and that comparison is skewed. Of course, a fish and a rate are not the same. This understanding helps us eliminate both (A) and (B).

Believe it or not, the same consideration can help us eliminate (C). Sure, you can make the point that growing and growing are parallel elements: They could not be any more similar. So why is (C) incorrect? Because a supplier cannot grow fish naturally. Either a supplier grows fish and tampers with nature, or fish grow naturally, independent of the supplier. It cannot work both ways. Thus, (C) is out.

Finally, between (D) and (E), even if I add cut to the end of the latter (as I believe the answer choice would appear), we can turn to parallelism to separate the correct answer from another runner up. Notice and raising in the non-underlined portion at the end of the sentence. A parallel action would adopt the -ing form of the verb, and only (D) qualifies.

I hope you can appreciate why the original sentence does not work. Thank you for thinking to ask.

- Andrew
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Hello IanStewart
I have some doubt in A. One of the experts posted ""Right now, this says "suppliers are growing fish twice as fast as their natural growth rate". That's a verb "are growing" compared to a noun "their natural growth rate". You can't do that.""
Is this true? I think I have seen some sentences which don't conform to these rules.
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pk6969

Is this true? I think I have seen some sentences which don't conform to these rules.
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The comparison in A is wrong, as I imagine many posts have explained above (I haven't read the thread). If you've seen examples that seem to violate a comparison rule articulated in an earlier post, perhaps you could post examples, and if another expert has posted a "rule" that you don't think is correct, it might make sense to ask that expert to clarify.
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IanStewart
pk6969

Is this true? I think I have seen some sentences which don't conform to these rules.

The comparison in A is wrong, as I imagine many posts have explained above (I haven't read the thread). If you've seen examples that seem to violate a comparison rule articulated in an earlier post, perhaps you could post examples, and if another expert has posted a "rule" that you don't think is correct, it might make sense to ask that expert to clarify.
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Hi I am sorry I wasn't clear in my doubt. I know the comparison is wrong. But the reason is whether it doesn't make sense (rate can't be fast, it can be high) or we have a verb on one side and noun on other. For eg. he is running as fast as cheetah.(here we have he noun on one side and verb on other). Also, I did tag the expert in posts sometime earlier but she is not that active on this forum. Thanks.
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. But the reason is whether it doesn't make sense (rate can't be fast, it can be high) or we have a verb on one side and noun on other. For eg. he is running as fast as cheetah.(here we have he noun on one side and verb on other). Also, I did tag the expert in posts sometime earlier but she is not that active on this forum. Thanks.
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In the comparison "he runs as fast as a cheetah", which is correct, the complete comparison is "he runs as fast as a cheetah (runs)". That's fine because you're comparing the person and the cheetah (you don't have a verb on one side and a noun on the other). But if you map that onto the comparison in answer A, you get "suppliers are growing fish twice as fast as their natural growth rate (is growing fish)", which clearly makes no sense; a growth rate does not grow fish.
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. But the reason is whether it doesn't make sense (rate can't be fast, it can be high) or we have a verb on one side and noun on other. For eg. he is running as fast as cheetah.(here we have he noun on one side and verb on other). Also, I did tag the expert in posts sometime earlier but she is not that active on this forum. Thanks.

In the comparison "he runs as fast as a cheetah", which is correct, the complete comparison is "he runs as fast as a cheetah (runs)". That's fine because you're comparing the person and the cheetah (you don't have a verb on one side and a noun on the other). But if you map that onto the comparison in answer A, you get "suppliers are growing fish twice as fast as their natural growth rate (is growing fish)", which clearly makes no sense; a growth rate does not grow fish.
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Hi IanStewart - regarding the comparison in A and in B, dont we say this however ?

i. I am walking twice as fast as normal [clause vs adjective]
ii. I am walking twice as fast as the average [clause vs noun]

Are i) and ii) wrong because the right hand side are not clauses ?

Other sentences
iii. I am walking twice as fast as IS normal [clause vs verb]
iv. I am walking twice as fast as IS required [clause vs verb]
v. I use butter as much as IS recommended [clause vs verb]

Are we really saying (iii) | (iv) and (v) are wrong because the Right Hand side are verbs and not clauses ?

On (iii) | (iv) and (v) specifically, this structure is quite common among native speakers
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To meet the rapidly rising market demand for fish and seafood, supplie 10 Oct 2021, 11:07
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Hi avigutman – I keep reading that C is wrong because “Suppliers cannot grow fish naturally" . I don’t see why not though

Analogy to option C
Sam and Jay buy their tomatoes
<< as opposed to >>
Growing tomatoes naturally

Growing tomatoes naturally == seems like a legitimate comparison and growing tomatoes naturally means not putting any fertilizers on them | not putting any artificial ingredients on them....
Growing fish naturally seemed okay too == fish are not given any special care | no special diets | no special water conditions ....]
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To meet the rapidly rising market demand for fish and seafood, supplie 10 Oct 2021, 12:04
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Hi avigutman – I keep reading that C is wrong because “Suppliers cannot grow fish naturally" . I don’t see why not though

Analogy to option C
Sam and Jay buy their tomatoes
<< as opposed to >>
Growing tomatoes naturally

Growing tomatoes naturally == seems like a legitimate comparison and growing tomatoes naturally means not putting any fertilizers on them | not putting any artificial ingredients on them....
Growing fish naturally seemed okay too == fish are not given any special care | no special diets | no special water conditions ....]
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Agreed, jabhatta2. Since I'm not a fish growing expert, I can't confidently say that growing fish naturally isn't a thing.
What do you think about this sentence [edited for a more analogous sentence]:

Athletes are running twice as fast as running barefoot.
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To meet the rapidly rising market demand for fish and seafood, supplie 11 Oct 2021, 06:18
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jabhatta2
Hi avigutman – I keep reading that C is wrong because “Suppliers cannot grow fish naturally" . I don’t see why not though

Analogy to option C
Sam and Jay buy their tomatoes
<< as opposed to >>
Growing tomatoes naturally

Growing tomatoes naturally == seems like a legitimate comparison and growing tomatoes naturally means not putting any fertilizers on them | not putting any artificial ingredients on them....
Growing fish naturally seemed okay too == fish are not given any special care | no special diets | no special water conditions ....]

Agreed, jabhatta2. Since I'm not a fish growing expert, I can't confidently say that growing fish naturally isn't a thing.
What do you think about this sentence [edited for a more analogous sentence]:

Athletes are running twice as fast as running barefoot.
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Hello, jabhatta2 and avigutman. (Avi, I do not think we have crossed paths directly before. I respect your views and enjoy reading your posts.) As one of those people who did write earlier that suppliers cannot grow fish naturally, I feel obliged to point out that scrutinizing an iteration of a sentence in a vacuum is not the way the SC task works. I can only speak for myself, but I did not look at (C), say, Suppliers can't grow fish like that! and remove it from consideration. Rather, I looked at the four other answer choices around (C) and reasoned that the comparison, and, by extension, the sentence, made more sense with (D) or (E).

Quote:
To meet the rapidly rising market demand for fish and seafood, suppliers are growing fish twice as fast as their natural growth rate, cutting their feed allotment by nearly half and raising them on special diets.

(C) growing them naturally, cutting their feed allotment

(D) they grow naturally, cutting their feed allotment

(E) they grow naturally, with their feed allotment
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That is, when I have a sentence that says, suppliers are growing fish twice as fast as they [fish] grow naturally, what can I gain by seeking to justify, suppliers are growing fish twice as fast as growing them naturally, in terms of meaning? If the former provides a perfectly reasonable interpretation of what the sentence can convey, why bend over backwards to work with an interpretation that may or may not be tenable? Granted, the underlined portion of any sentence can be negotiated, but the meaning conveyed by (C) is convoluted at best. I do not think someone needs to be a "fish growing expert" to make the call that (C) is substandard next to (D) or (E) in terms of expressed meaning (irrespective of the comparison problem). Can fish grow naturally? Yes. Can suppliers grow fish naturally? Maybe, maybe not, but within this sentence and its latter two iterations, I would argue no. Avi has posted an on-point sentence at the end of his edited post. The comparison is skewed, certainly, but we could also look at the sentence and instantly tell that it is "off," and we could either think of ways to improve it, or, if it were in an SC question, we could look to other answer choices to see if they could lift the burden from our troubled minds.

One final point: I do not know any Expert who claims that his or her words are unassailable. Different Experts (or members in general) may approach the same problem in different ways, not to mention that the same person may change his or her views over time. Sometimes disagreements may arise. If anything, such occurrences ought to enhance the community, since we are all here to learn and help one another, not to prove who is right or wrong.

- Andrew
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