Undercover police detectives have observed large concentrations of gan

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION


THE PROMPT
• Meaning?
Observations by police of large concentrations of gang members in an area are consistent with the growth of crime in that area.

• Things to know
→ how the word which may be used

→ possessive poison is not an issue in this question and regardless, is not ironclad rule

→ I really want you to understand what a reduced relative clause is.
I don't care about the jargon. I do care about whether you understand these things, because GMAC uses them frequently.

→ the correct idiom is consistent with, not consistent to

THE OPTIONS
• which has no antecedent
→ which must refer to an actual noun that precedes it.
→ the verb after which is singular and the only possible antecedent is plural
-- which could refer to large concentrations of gang members in the west end of the Meadowvale district but the verb following which would have to be plural.
-- which cannot refer to "police detectives have observed XYZ."
Those words are not a noun.
→ Which could modify observations, for example, but the actual word observations does not exist in this sentence.

• consistent to is not idiomatic. The idiom is consistent with.
ELIMINATE A

• compared to the growth of crime in A, D, and E, in this option, THE crime's growth is weird.
→ The word "the" makes growth of "the" crime too specific; it seems as though we are reading about a certain kind of crime.
Watch:
Correct, crime is a general noun: The committee delivered a report on crime in Kansas.
Probably wrong, crime is a specific noun: The committee delivered a report on the crime in Kansas.
→ In English, the article "the" can distort the meaning of a noun. We often do not use "the" in front of "general" nouns such as
crime, people, states (in the U.S.), cities, pollution, women, men, children, teenagers, industry

• On the GMAT, inanimate nouns do not usually take the possessive form with an apostrophe-S
Careful, though. What I just wrote is a guideline that works most of the time. Not always.

• I see no other errors.
KEEP, but look for a better answer


• "ITS growth of crime" is weird. The phrasing is not exactly wrong, but it's weird. And awkward.

• the correct idiom is consistent with, not consistent to

• the possessive pronoun its can refer to the non-possessive noun the west end
→ Correct: The small business could not afford to keep its employees.
→ Correct: The New Zealand rugby team is known for its ferocious haka dance.

→ some of you are referring to "possessive poison," which is not an issue in this sentence, though I can understand how you might think it were an issue

-- "possessive poison" means that a possessive noun allegedly may not be referred to by a non-possessive pronoun
-- I wrote a post about this subject and used quite a few official examples to demonstrate that this "rule" is by no means ironclad.
-- You can read that post if you click here.

ELIMINATE C

• I see no errors

• in this option, the growth of crime is better than crime's growth in option B. Eliminate (B).

• findings consistent is short for findings that are consistent.
→ we are dealing with a reduced relative clause (see Notes)
→ we are also dealing with a summative modifier
• findings is a good way to summarize what the previous clause is talking about.
→ The "findings" phrase (which summarizes the idea in the preceding clause) is called a summative modifier.
Summative modifiers rename and elaborate on another part of the sentence. Summative modifiers are appositives.

KEEP

• the growth of the crime not only distorts meaning but also makes no sense.
→ Now we are really tied to a specific crime. The growth of which crime? Thievery? Assault? Drug dealing?
ELIMINATE E

The answer is D.

Notes

The phrase findings consistent comes from a reduced relative clause, namely, findings that are consistent.

Reduced relative clauses are very common in good writing and on the GMAT.
Let's break down "reduced relative clause":
→ Reduced means shortened.
→ The "relative" part refers to a relative pronoun such as that, who, or which.
→ These relative pronouns are followed by clauses -- by groups of words that contain a subject and verb.

In order to shorten the relative clause findings that are consistent and change it into the summative modifier findings consistent:
1) remove the relative pronoun (that);
2) remove the TO BE verb, are
3) do not move the word consistent, which should follow findings.

Original: Undercover police detectives have observed large concentrations of gang members in the west end . . ., findings that are consistent with the growth of crime in the area.

Reduced clause: Undercover police detectives have observed large concentrations of gang members in the west end . . . , findings consistent with the growth of crime in the area.

Findings is a summative modifier of Undercover detectives have observed large concentrations of gang members in the west end . . .
Findings is a "new" word that describes (summarizes) the idea in the previous clause.

You can read a short and very good overview about reduced relative clauses HERE.

COMMENTS

Chandan5793 , welcome to SC Butler.

I like the dialogue on the thread.
I also like the answers, even if there were a couple of reasoning errors here and there.
Kudos to all who explained, even if the explanation wobbled occasionally. This question is challenging. Nicely done.
Stay safe, all.