Researchers blamed the low rate of growth in the harbor's toad populat

Question

Researchers blamed the low rate of growth in the harbor's toad population on lake toxicity as well as on the weather,  hotter and more humid than average in the Ohio region, which slowed  metabolism and reproductive activity.

(A) hotter and more humid than average in the Ohio region, which slowed
(B) which was hotter and more humid than average in the Ohio region, slowing
(C) since it was hotter and more humid than average in the Ohio region, which slowed
(D) being hotter and more humid than averages in the Ohio region, which slowing
(E) having been hotter and more humid than was average in the Ohio region, and slowed

Zatarra · Answer

Which can only modify a noun,here "which" has to modify the clause "that the weather being hotter & more humid than average" is responsible for the slowing down

maryann · Answer

Researchers blamed the low rate of growth in the harbor's toad population on lake toxicity as well as on the weather, 
hotter and more humid than average in the Ohio region, which slowed metabolism and reproductive activity.

(A) hotter and more humid than average in the Ohio region, which slowed
(B) which was hotter and more humid than average in the Ohio region, slowing
(C) since it was hotter and more humid than average in the Ohio region, which slowed
(D) being hotter and more humid than averages in the Ohio region, which slowing
(E) having been hotter and more humid than was average in the Ohio region, and slowed

problem: modification error.

'Which' must immediately follow the noun it is modifing/describing. here, it is not the ohio region that is causing the slow metabolism but rather, it is the whether.

on that note, A C, and D, are out.

Also in d, 'being' not always correct on the gmat. 
in E, 'having been' is not relevant here.

Correct answer is B

almostfamous · Answer

A is incorrect because the relative pronoun "which" attempts to modify the entire sentence preceding it.

On the GMAT, "which" can only modify a noun not a whole sentence. For example:

"It rained yesterday, which forced the school to cancel the sports event." is ungrammatical on the GMAT, because the relative pronoun "which" does not have a noun that it would modify.

A correct version could be:
"It rained yesterday, forcing the school to cancel the sports event."

Hope this helps!

daagh · Answer

“Researchers blamed the low rate of growth in the harbor's toad population on lake toxicity as well as on the  weather slowing  metabolism and reproductive activity."

Is this sentence grammatically right? Let us see. 
What is slowing metabolism and reproductive activity? Is it weather alone or lake toxicity as well? If you want to mean that both are responsible, then you have to necessarily put a comma after  'weather',  so that the present participle  ‘slowing ’ modifies the entire noun idea before it. Otherwise, ‘slowing’ will be simply modifying weather alone and hence structurally and stylistically and semantically wrong. You can’t skip the comma before ‘ slowing’

VerbalBot · Answer

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Researchers blamed the low rate of growth in the harbor's toad populat

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Researchers blamed the low rate of growth in the harbor's toad populat

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