At the turn of the twenties century, forest covering as much

Question

At the turn of the twenties century, forest  covering as much as 90 percent of Thailand and accommodating as many as 300,000 elephants, a third of them  domesticated and performing various essential tasks.

(A) covering as much as 90 percent of Thailand and accommodating as many as 300,000 elephants, a third of them

(B) covering as much as 90 percent of Thailand accommodated as much as 300,000 elephants, a third of them

(C) covered as much as 90 percent of Thailand and accommodated as much as 300,000 elephants, a third

(D) covered as much as 90 percent of Thailand and accommodated as many as 300,000 elephants, a third of them

(E) covered as much as 90 percent of Thailand and accommodating as many as 300,000 elephants, with a third of them

sayantanc2k · Accepted Answer

Yes, such usage is correct. This kind of modifiers are called subgroup modifier. Following are some examples of usage of subgroup modifiers (examples from Manhattan SC guide):

Right: This model explains all known subatomic particles, SOME OF WHICH WERE only recently discovered.
Right: This model explains all known subatomic particles, SOME OF THEM only recently discovered.
Right: This model explains all known subatomic particles, SOME only recently discovered.
Wrong: This model explains all known subatomic particles, OF WHICH SOME WERE only recently discovered.
Wrong: This model explains all known subatomic particles, SOME OF THEM WHICH WERE only recently discovered.
Wrong: This model explains all known subatomic particles, SOME OF WHICH only recently discovered.

Instead of "some", "a third" is used in the above example corresponding to the second right example above.

bewakoof · Answer

E???

we need as many as for elephants.. it was toss up between D and E.. E sounded more parallel.. dont know??

AlHindi · Answer

At the turn of the twenties century, forest covering as much as 90 percent of Thailand and accomodating as many as 300,000 elephants, a third of them domesticated and performing various essential tasks. 

A) same 

B) covering as much as 90 percent of Thailand accomodated as much as 300,000 elephants, a third of them 

C) covered as much as 90 percent of Thailand and accomodated as much as 300,000 elephants, a third 

D) covered as much as 90 percent of Thailand and accomodated as many as 300,000 elephants, a third of them 

E) covered as much as 90 percent of Thailand and accomodating as many as 300,000 elephants, with a third of them


D it is.

Because Forest covered something and accomodated something.(It has to be past tense as it is talking about turn of century).
C is wrong because we need "third of them ".

** The sentence still would be wrong grammatically!!!!!
The noun phrase has problem of ||ism no matter what you do.
So best bet is D, as verbs(actions performed by subject) must be in past tense.

Professor · Answer

subject (forest) verb (coverd and accomodated) agreement, so D is correct.

At the turn of the twenties century, forest   covered   as much as 90 percent of Thailand and   accomodated   as many as 300,000 elephants, a third of them domesticated and performing various essential tasks.

b14kumar · Answer

Let's take E.
At the turn of the twenties century, forest   covered   as much as 90 percent of Thailand and   accomodating   as many as 300,000 elephants, with a third of them domesticated and performing various essential tasks

Here 'covered' and 'accomodating' are not in the same tense.
We need past tense of 'accomodate' because we are talking about things happened 'at the turn of the twenties century'.
Moreover, 'with' is not required.

Regards,
Brajesh

flower · Answer

covered as much as 90 percent of Thailand and  accomodating  as many as 300,000 elephants, with a third of them


Accomodating here is wrong.IT shud refer to an event tat occured in the past

HIMALAYA · Answer

D is best.

A) S-V problem.
B) wrong use of "as much as" to quantify 300,000 elephants.
C) incomplete phrase: "a third" what?
  D) correct use of S-V and modifying phrase.  
E) "and accomodating" is incorrect and it should be verb not participles. "with a third of them" also sounds awakward.

Paul · Answer

As a rule of thumb, ending a sentence with a prepositional phrase is usually a breach of grammatical etiquette although beginning a sentence with one would be described as making use of an introductory modifier. Not only is "with" not needed but also ends the sentence in an awkward way as above mentioned. Hence, D is best.

GMATT73 · Answer

covered....accommodated.... ---->past tense parallelism

"many" elephants----> countable noun

(D) for done.

By the way, original sentence is slightly flawed.
At the turn of the  twentieth  century....

TGC · Answer

Meaning & Structure:
Forest covered.... and accommodated.......elephants, a third of them past participle and present participle.

At the turn of the twenties century, forest  covering as much as 90 percent of Thailand and accomodating as many as 300,000 elephants, a third of them  domesticated and performing various essential tasks.

A) same
 Covering should be covered .

B) covering as much as 90 percent of Thailand accomodated as much as 300,000 elephants, a third of them
 Covering should be covered .

C) covered as much as 90 percent of Thailand and accomodated as much as 300,000 elephants, a third
 them is missing.

D) covered as much as 90 percent of Thailand and accomodated as many as 300,000 elephants, a third of them
Correct. Covered || accommodated and 'a third of them' refers back to elephants.

E) covered as much as 90 percent of Thailand and accomodating as many as 300,000 elephants, with a third of them
 Forest......., with a third of them.... AWKWARD

282552 · Answer

Just Curious
Would Option B would have been right if "as much as" was replaced with "as Many as".
Here is my interpretation of B :
Working as -ing Modifier for Forest --  covering as many as 90 percent of Thailand  
Working as verb for Forest -  accomodated as many as 300,000 elephants, 
new independent clause : ,  and a third of them were

Please correct my understanding if I am thinking in wrong direction.

Thanks

AryamaDuttaSaikia · Answer

282552

Yes , you are right.

Covering - Modifier, Accomodated - Verb , a third of them were domesticated and performing - Independent clause.

Hope this helps.

vishwaprakash · Answer

Much should be use for uncountable and Many should be for Countable.

We say How many elephants do you have, not How much elephant.

So all option Which address number of elephant with "Much" is incorrect ?

So option B and C is wrong

Lets Do POE for rest,
A) covering as much as 90 percent of Thailand and accomodating as many as 300,000 elephants, a third of them
Covering and Accommodating - Modifier and hence we dont have verb in whole sentence.

B) covering as much as 90 percent of Thailand accomodated as much as 300,000 elephants, a third of them
Much is used to represent quantifiable noun Elephant

C) covered as much as 90 percent of Thailand and accomodated as much as 300,000 elephants, a third
Much is used to represent quantifiable noun Elephant

D) covered as much as 90 percent of Thailand and accomodated as many as 300,000 elephants, a third of them
Covered and accommodated - Verb for subject "forest" and both are in parellel

E) covered as much as 90 percent of Thailand and accomodating as many as 300,000 elephants, with a third of them
Accommodating - is modifier and does not have anything in parellel.
"With a third of them " - adverbial modifier phrase - Modifying verb "Covered and Accommodated (though we dont have accommodated verb it is wrongly mentioned as Accommodating ) Answer question related to verb such as How forest covered.
So it look like, How forest covered - it covered with a third of them ... truly illogical meaning

playpeace · Answer

Well, I dont think it will be a correct sentence.

Though I agree to the 'Covering as modifier' and 'Accommodated as Verb' part explained by Aryama, I think 'a third of them were domesticated and performing' would   modify the forests and not the elephants even we modify the 'as much as' in the option B.

mmelendez · Answer

Remember the hierarchy in sentence correction problems

1- read the whole sentence understanding meaning, logic and context
2- scan vertically for mistakes and do a quick comparison in answer choices differences in grammar. Start with common pyramid mistakes such as Subject verb agreement, lack of verbs, pronouns and fishy modifiers. 
3- start eliminating answer choices by group as those containing the same error in original shall be cross off
4-look for new "splits" in remaining answer choice without and see which ones have other errors
5- eliminate answer choices that are not direct, concise or make the sentences wordier

in this relatively easy sentence, there were some things to stand. Lack of verb and improper use of modifier or quantifier such as much vs as many.

remember that many questions that are "hard" simply make hide these concepts in a more subtly way.

happy studying you all

khitindra · Answer

Question: At the turn of the twenties century, forest covering as much as 90 percent of Thailand and accomodating as many as 300,000 elephants,  a third of them domesticated and performing various essential tasks

In the above sentence, "A third of them domesticated and performing various essential tasks" is written correctly? If yes please provide an explanation.

Thanks in advance!

thangvietname · Answer

it is more logic, in the context of this sentence, that "covered" should be parallel to " accomodate" . if we let "covering" modify "forest" it seem that this covering dose not change over time. use our common sense of this world to find the intended and illogic meaning.

hard one

hard one

sairam595 · Answer

options B & C were wrongly posted.

B.covering as much as 90 percent of Thailand accommodated as much as 300,000 elephants, and a third of them were 
C.covered as much as 90 percent of Thailand and accommodated as much as 300,000 elephants, with a third

moderators, please correct them

nahid78 · Answer

a third of them  domesticated  and  performing  various essential tasks.
Are they parallel? If, how? please explain.

At the turn of the twenties century, forest covering as much

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GMAT Sentence Correction (SC - EA only) Questions

At the turn of the twenties century, forest covering as much

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