At approximately 22 weeks, a fetus becomes fully covered by lanugo, or

The meaning is that at 22 weeks, a fine coat of soft hair called lanugo covers the body of the fetus, in order to insulate the body until fat globules develop to absorb the heat. This lanugo slowly disappears as the fetus matures and at birth, some of it might be still be seen in the newborn.

Apart from science, grammar wise, this is an example of how relative pronouns can play havoc with the intended meaning and how an adverbial comma +ing participle can truly reflect . The grammar clue is that all pronouns or compound subjects refer to wrinkles, with plural verbs, while the intended noun lanugo is singular


A) a fine, soft hair that insulates the body until fat deposits accumulate in the wrinkles of the skin, often remaining --- This is the best choice with the adverbial phrase straight away modifying the lanugo
B) fine, soft hair insulating the body until the accumulation of fat deposits in the wrinkles of the skin, and these often remain – in the second part’ these” refer to the wrinkles
C) fine, soft hair that insulates the body until the accumulation of fat deposits in the wrinkles of skin that often remain - that refers to wrinkles - wrong
D) a fine, soft hair, which insulates the body until fat deposits accumulate in the wrinkles of the skin, and which often remain – which refers to the wrinkles – wrong
E) fine, soft hair, which insulates the body until an accumulation of fat deposits in the wrinkles of the skin, which often remains which refers to the skin—wrong.
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OE from Magoosh:

The meaning of the original sentence, as determined by (A), is important here. There is a fine soft hair that insulates the body. Technically, we could have a “which insulates the body” referring back to the lanugo, since the lanugo is the fine, soft hair in question here.

Either is fine, so a good way to attack this question is by eliminating wrong answers. The best way to do so is by focusing on those that change the original meaning of the sentence. For instance, (C) shifts the focus from the lanugo remaining until birth to the wrinkles remaining until birth. (E) does the same thing by stating “….skin, which remain…”

(B) also changes the meaning of the original sentence because “these” is a plural pronoun pointing either to wrinkles of deposits.

Finally, the tricky one: answer (D). Notice, the “which remain”. Remain is consistent in number with a plural noun. However, it is the “hair that remains”.

Answer: (A)
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very hard and interesting

I read the original choice and understand nothing,
I see remaining is not clear
I look for the correction of remaining in other 4 choices.
I see D is best.

am I right?

B, C and E are all wrong because of 'accumulation of fat deposits' is wrong and in D the last underlined part ',which often remain' is modifying skin, where it should be modifying hair. Since hair is singular in this sentence 'remain' is wrong. Hence the correct option is A

a fine, soft hair is the definition of lanugo and not its plural form. So, it is justified there.

As per custom, a fine soft hair stands for a fine soft coating of hair; such implied usages are not uncommon in English.

For e. g.; it is a great will that saw Japan through after a thorough decimation in the WW2; which particular will are we referring to? It is the collective will of all the people put together, right?

Marilyn had a bewitching look in her eyes. Are we referring to any particular look of her or her general posture?

So, I feel there is no need to split hair on that point. Probably it is a trick to divert focus from other more relevant problems
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Can you please clarify if the information that follows OR defines laguno or is it independent ?
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IMO, the latter is explaining or describing the Lanugo, so it is not independent
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If so, then how do we justify the use of or between lanugo and the additional dependent info. ?

Is the usage of or correct to introduce an appositive describing the lanugo??

Please, explain, ... i am confused
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I would't like to question a non-underlined part, correct or incorrect. Because the instruction is to dissect the underlined portion only.
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Hi Daagh,

In this example that you mentioned I think we would rather use.. "it is great will" to show that it was the will of a whole lot of people rather than one person. For one person we would use.." it is a great will"

IMO "a" is usually used only with singular nouns. Can you provide a better example to convey your view point.. we can use "a" for collective nouns though.

Regards,
Dom

Dom

You are welcome to differ with me, if my stand does not convince you, but what the original author had in mind, you should explore with Magoosh, notwithstanding that my stand stays

Best wishes
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The meaning is that at 22 weeks, a fine coat of soft hair called lanugo covers the body of the fetus, in order to insulate the body until fat globules develop to absorb the heat. This lanugo slowly disappears as the fetus matures and at birth, some of it might be still seen in the newborn.

Apart from science, grammar wise, this is an example of how relative pronouns can play havoc with the intended meaning and what an adverbial comma +ing participle can truly reflect. The grammar clue is that the pronouns refer to either wrinkles or the skin, while the intended modified noun is lanugo.

A) a fine, soft hair that insulates the body until fat deposits accumulate in the wrinkles of the skin, often remaining --- This is the best choice with the adverbial phrase straight away modifying the lanugo and its coverage of the body.
B) fine, soft hair insulating the body until the accumulation of fat deposits in the wrinkles of the skin, and these often remain – in the second part’ these” refer to the wrinkles
C) fine, soft hair that insulates the body until the accumulation of fat deposits in the wrinkles of skin that often remain - that refers to wrinkles - wrong
D) a fine, soft hair, which insulates the body until fat deposits accumulate in the wrinkles of the skin, and which often remain – which refers to the wrinkles – wrong
E) fine, soft hair, which insulates the body until an accumulation of fat deposits in the wrinkles of the skin, which often remains --- which refers to the skin—wrong.
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A very good question.

A) a fine, soft hair that insulates the body until fat deposits accumulate in the wrinkles of the skin, often remaining
B) fine, soft hair insulating the body until the accumulation of fat deposits in the wrinkles of the skin, and these often remain - S-V agreement issue
C) fine, soft hair that insulates the body until the accumulation of fat deposits in the wrinkles of skin that often remain - S-V agreement issue and awkward construction
D) a fine, soft hair, which insulates the body until fat deposits accumulate in the wrinkles of the skin, and which often remain - S-V agreement issue
E) fine, soft hair, which insulates the body until an accumulation of fat deposits in the wrinkles of the skin, which often remains - Meaning issue. Original meaning - a fine, soft hair remains not skin

In A
Main Clause: At approximately 22 weeks, a fetus becomes fully covered by lanugo, or a fine, soft hair
Essential modifier modifying lanugo, or a fine, soft hair: that insulates the body until fat deposits accumulate in the wrinkles of the skin
Absolute phrase: often remaining until birth.

An essential modifier can come in between an absolute phrase to modify a noun - that is whats happening here.

Regards

mikemcgarry
hi, this question comes from Magoosh, but do you think it is one of gmat-like questions?
The meaning and the terms are difficult to understand without outside knowledge. Also, the structure is too complex; gmat questions rather have conventional patterns.



B,C, and E use the passive voice. "accumulation of fat deposits" -> out (some correct gmat questions still use the passive voice)
D is wrong b/c of verb agreement "and which remain" vs "which insulates"
A is left, "often remaining" modifies the whole clause of "a fetus becomes....by languo"

Dear chesstitans,

I'm happy to respond.

The only technical, non-ordinary word is "lanugo," and this word is defined in the sentence: that's a frequent GMAT SC tactic. Yes, this is a very sophisticated sentence, a very hard SC practice questions, written by my brilliant friend Chris Lele. Hard, yes, but not un-GMAT-like. This would be typical of some of the hardest questions in the GMAT SC question bank.

Because this is a very advanced practice question, it would be most appropriate for folks who are scoring in the highest percentiles in Verbal. If you verbal performance is in the lower percentiles, then in all likelihood, the CAT would not show you questions this hard on test day.

Does all this make sense?
Mike
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not just languo, but also "a hair", there are many "which / that", and it is hard to pinpoint the original meaning.

Dear Mike,

I hope you are well

I have a question regarding the participle 'remaining' in the OA.

What I know is that participle should refer to the nearest clause with its subject (or agent of the action). i.e: serves to express an action that is brought about by the nearest preceding action.

Fat deposits accumulate in the wrinkles of the skin, often remaining until birth. So here we are taking about 'fat will accumulate and and hence remain until birth'. Is that the intending meaning?

Thanks for your help

Dear chesstitans,

I'm happy to respond.

My friend, I probably have said this to you already, but the reason you are finding these more difficult SC practice questions hard to understand is that you have developed good intuition for the English language. You develop this intuition by cultivating a habit of reading. You see, asking questions is great, but so long as all you are doing is asking questions, you can only ask about those things that you recognize that you don't understand. All the aspect of English that you don't recognize that you don't understand are beyond your ability to formulate questions. Reading sophisticated material will put you in touch with much more of that side of the language. See:
How to Improve Your GMAT Verbal Score

I'm happy to answer your questions, but asking you own questions will only get you so far. To arrive at mastery, you have to push yourself to do what is really difficult and time-consuming.

Does this make sense?

Dear Mo2men,

I'm happy to help.

My friend, participles are shapeshifters. Participles can act as either noun-modifiers or verb-modifiers, and they can appear in a variety of ways and modifying in a variety of patterns. Any one-size-fits-all rule about participles is worse than useless.

Having said that, one more common pattern is the following:
[subject noun][main verb][predicate][comma][participle phrase]
When this pattern occurs, the participle may be a noun-modifier modifying the subject, or it may be a verb-modifier modifying the action of the clause.

In this case, I agree with what you state as the intended meaning. This is a very hard sentence, hard even for native speakers, so its a real challenge for non-native speakers!

Does all this make sense?
Mike
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