12 Days of Christmas GMAT Competition - Day 5: Scientific studies on

Question

12 Days of Christmas GMAT Competition with Lots of Fun

Scientific studies on bioelectric effects primarily focus on the  following: nerve or muscle tissue, electric organs in certain fish, the effects of damaged tissue, and such organs as the heart, ear, stomach, and brain.

(A) following: nerve or muscle tissue, electric organs in certain fish, the effects of damaged tissue, and such organs as the heart, ear, stomach, and brain.

(B) following; nerve or muscle tissue, electric organs in certain fish, the effects of damaged tissue, and such organs as the heart, ear, stomach, and brain.

(C) following; nerve or muscle tissue; electric organs in certain fish; the effects of damaged tissue; and such organs as the heart, ear, stomach, and brain.

(D) following: nerve or muscle tissue; electric organs in certain fish; the effects of damaged tissue; and such organs as the heart, ear, stomach, and brain.

(E) following: nerve or muscle tissue, electric organs in certain fish, the effects of damaged tissue, and organs including the heart, ear, stomach, and brain.

KarishmaB · Accepted Answer

A semi colon is used to join two independent clauses which do not have a co-ordinating conjunction but it has other uses too. It is used to separate the elements of a list in which the elements are complex (the elements themselves may have some commas in them).

Elements in parallel: 
- nerve or muscle tissue
- electric organs in certain fish 
- the effects of damaged tissue 
- such organs as the heart, ear, stomach, and brain.

If we separate them with a comma, the commas after heart, ear etc create confusion as to which elements are in parallel. 
That is why we use semi colons to separate these elements.

JoshAtDreamScore · Answer

Solution:

This question tests punctuation, which is rare in GMAT but has started appearing in official gmat questions over the last few years.
You can use a colon to begin a list of items or to elaborate on a sentence.
A semicolon can be used to separate independent clauses, or to separate groups of items in a list.

A: A is grammatically ok. You will find this sort of punctuation in many places outside of GMAT. However, this not the clearest way to punctuate this list. Leave A as a maybe in case there is no better option.
BC: Use a colon to offset the list of items, not a semicolon. The semicolon is only used to separate independent clauses or to separate groups of items in a list.
C: C uses the later semicolons correctly however.
D: Correct
E: Similar to A, use semicolons to separate the groups of items, since the list's group items themselves contain commas

mainbhiankit · Answer

I think the only tussle here would be between options A and D. Options B and C incorrectly use the semi-colon after following. Option E uses 'including'. And between options A and D, I think D is the correct usage, given the fact that one of the elements of the list contains a sub-list. Hence,  D is the answer.

Vubar · Answer

Scanning the sentence, we see the underlined portion deals with a list (and a sub-list). This question is likely going to deal with punctuation or parallelism.

Scanning the answer choices, we see that the text is almost identical between answer choices; the differences largely being in punctuation. There are 3 key splits: the use of ":" after following, the use of commas or semicolons after each item in the main list, and the use of the idiom "such organs as" versus "organs including".

We introduce lists with a colon, and we will use semicolons if any of the items in the list contain commas themselves. Our sentence has commas in the final item, so we will use semicolons.

We go to the answer choices:
A: A uses only commas, which is incorrect. We eliminate A.
B: B uses a semicolon to introduce the list. We eliminate B.
C: C uses a semicolon to introduce the list. We eliminate C.
D: D seems to appropriately use the colon, semicolons, and commas. We keep D and check E.
E: E uses only commas instead of semicolons. We eliminate E.

The correct answer is D.

Kinshook · Answer

Scientific studies on bioelectric effects primarily focus on the  following: 
nerve or muscle tissue, 
electric organs in certain fish, 
the effects of damaged tissue, 
and such organs as the heart, ear, stomach, and brain.

Colon should be used after following, B & C are incorrect.
Semicolons should be used to list items which include internal commas etc., A is incorrect
E changes the meaning of the original sentence.
D remains and is the correct answer

Semi-colons (;) should be used to list items containing internal commas. Incorrect

Colon (:) should be used after following. 
Semi-colons (;) should be used to list items containing internal commas.
Incorrect

Colon (:) should be used after following. 
Incorrect

Colon should be used after following,
Semicolons should be used to list items which include internal commas etc.,
Correct

Use of  organs including  changes the meaning of the original sentence in which  organs such as  was used.
Incorrect

IMO D

behlmanmeet · Answer

Scientific studies on bioelectric effects primarily focus on the following: nerve or muscle tissue, electric organs in certain fish, the effects of damaged tissue, and such organs as the heart, ear, stomach, and brain.

Solution:
 Really tricky one but I went more with removing certainties and then checking the unusual ones because similar ones or that had little difference could not be both correct. So, B and C had this ";" directly after following which I think is absolutely wrong. We cannot just cut the sentence after mentioning we are presenting something like the following. Now A and E, I could not find any big difference like they are very similar, so i went with D.

(A) following: nerve or muscle tissue, electric organs in certain fish, the effects of damaged tissue, and such organs as the heart, ear, stomach, and brain.:  I eliminated this because there are too many commas and it becomes confusing to know the parallel list.

(B) following; nerve or muscle tissue, electric organs in certain fish, the effects of damaged tissue, and such organs as the heart, ear, stomach, and brain.:  can't abruptly end with ";" after following

(C) following; nerve or muscle tissue; electric organs in certain fish; the effects of damaged tissue; and such organs as the heart, ear, stomach, and brain.:  can't abruptly end with ";" after following

(D) following: nerve or muscle tissue; electric organs in certain fish; the effects of damaged tissue; and such organs as the heart, ear, stomach, and brain.:  the process of elimination

(E) following: nerve or muscle tissue, electric organs in certain fish, the effects of damaged tissue, and organs including the heart, ear, stomach, and brain.:  I eliminated this because there are too many commas and it becomes confusing to know the parallel list.

Bunuel · Answer

Dreamscore Official Explanation

AE: Use semicolons since the list's items contain commas

BC: Use a colon to offset the list of items

D: Correct

sam12rawat · Answer

Hello experts  Bunuel   GMATNinja   KarishmaB  , could you please help me understand why D is correct? I cant see the official explanation. Since semicolons are used to separate independent clauses I don't understand how the elements in the list after colon are independent clauses. Thank you.

VerbalBot · Answer

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12 Days of Christmas GMAT Competition - Day 5: Scientific studies on

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