The guidebook suggests that Pomeranian Geese greet visitors loudly and

Question

The guidebook suggests that Pomeranian  Geese greet visitors loudly and they therefore make good watch birds.

A. Geese greet visitors loudly and they therefore make good watch birds

B. Geese, who greet visitors loudly, therefore make good watch birds

C. Geese greet loud visitors and therefore make good watch birds

D. Geese greet visitors loudly and that they thus make good watch birds

E. Geese, greeting visitors loudly, make good watch birds

A is missing a "that" before "they therefore make", which is necessary to make it clear that the geese making good watch birds is something also suggested by the book rather than an independent statement. C changes the meaning of the sentence by moving "loud" to modify "visitors", not "greet". B and E are both attractive, but the former is awkward for its placement of "therefore", while the latter's use of the participle "greeting visitors loudly" distorts the general sense of the statement. D is the simplest way of communicating the necessary information here.

MBA20 · Answer

GMATNinja  can you help -- What is wrong with B and How is "they" in D not referring to visitors ?

BKK1194 · Answer

Hey  MBA20 , option B is wrong because of the comma. Try reading the sentence omitting in-between the commas, the sentence doesn't give any meaning thus B is wrong.

hiranmay · Answer

The guidebook suggests  that  Pomeranian Geese greet visitors loudly and they therefore make good watch birds.

A. Geese greet visitors loudly and they therefore make good watch birds --> "that" is missing after "and"

B. Geese , who greet visitors loudly,  therefore make good watch birds --> each sentence should be independent to convey the meaning properly

C. Geese greet loud visitors and therefore make good watch birds --> same as A

D. Geese greet visitors loudly and  that  they thus make good watch birds -->  correct

E. Geese,  greeting visitors loudly,  make good watch birds --> same as B

pa1deep91 · Answer

How is "they" in D not referring to visitors ?

firas92 · Answer

I believe "visitors" is not a subject here and in fact the object of the verb "greet".

Geese greet whom? - visitors

I guess this is the reason why "they" cannot refer to visitors.

Please correct me if I'm wrong

Posted from my mobile device

summerbummer · Answer

Why not C?

There doesn't seem to be any grammatical or meaning error in C. Confused between C & D.

GMATNinja · Answer

There's a meaning issue in (C): do the geese only greet  loud  visitors? What about quiet visitors, like the ones trying to sneak onto your property? Also, how do they greet those visitors? With a handshake? Does simply greeting visitors make the geese good watch birds?

The meaning makes more sense in (D). The geese LOUDLY greet visitors -- visitors  in general , not just the loud ones. In other words, the geese make a lot of noise when any visitor arrives, and that's something that would certainly make them good watch birds: if somebody comes to your property, the geese will let you know about it.

I hope that helps!

sumit99kr · Answer

B- who primarily refer to persons in general, hence it is incorrect.

D- they refer to watch birds, which can only be the Geese mentioned earlier and not the visitors.

Others please chip in your opinions.

Posted from my mobile device

shanks2020 · Answer

GMATNinja   KarishmaB   MartyTargetTestPrep

Why can't "that" be implied in option A(...and (that)they, therefore make good watch birds.)Hence, more concise.

kavitaverma · Answer

How is option A incorrect? 
I have read a rule where in comparisons if the subjects in both the sentences are same then 'that' can be omitted in the second clause. Here subject is same for both: Pomeranian Geese.

AndrewN · Answer

Hello,  shanks2020  and  kavitaverma . I suspect that this question would prove much more challenging for non-native speakers of English. The reason the original sentence is suboptimal is not because of a missing  that , but because of what is present in the extraneous  they . If you want to make the case that the subject  Pomeranian Geese  carries over, something that is certainly permissible in such a short  X and Y  construct, you then want to keep the elements X and Y parallel with the geese serving as the head of each clause. You can quickly spot the redundancy in the latter half of the sentence this way:

Pomeranian Geese greet vistors loudly  AND
    they  therefore make good watch birds

(A) would be fine if it read,  Pomeranian Geese  greet   visitors  loudly and therefore  make  good  watch birds .

The parallel verbs are marked, and the subject is, in fact, understood to carry over to the second element without  that .  That  is more of an issue when there are more words packed into element X, such that it might be confusing to a reader that element Y was triggering. We see this often in cases in which element X branches or itself has two parts connected by  and :

John said that he talked to Sally and Hwang and...

It would be appropriate to continue the sentence with another  that  to allow the reader to logically anticipate a consequence of what John said. An example:

that dinner reservations at 6.00pm would be fine.

Answer choice (D) is a safe and parallel option, not to mention a meaningful one (unlike (C), for instance, with its  loud visitors ). Consider:

The guidebook suggests  that   Pomeranian Geese   greet  visitors loudly and  that   they  thus  make  good watch birds.

There is nothing debatable. You could even argue that the objects  visitors  and  watch birds  at the end complete the parallelism.

Perhaps that clarifies a few matters. Good luck with your studies.

- Andrew

The guidebook suggests that Pomeranian Geese greet visitors loudly and

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The guidebook suggests that Pomeranian Geese greet visitors loudly and

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