Hello Everyone!
This is a great example of a comparison question! Let's take a closer look at it to determine how to best tackle this type of question. Before we dive in, let's take a quick look at the original question and highlight any major differences between each option in
orange:
Unlike
the nests of leaf cutters and most other ants, situated underground or in pieces of wood, raider ants make a portable nest by entwining their long legs to form "curtains" of ants that hang from logs or boulders, providing protection for the queen and the colony larvae and pupae.
(A)
the nests of leaf cutters and most other ants,
(B)
the nests of leaf cutters and most other ants,
which are (C) leaf cutters and most other ants,
whose nests are (D) leaf cutters and most other ants
in having nests (E)
those of leaf cutters and most other ants
with nestsAfter a quick glance over the options, a couple major differences jump out:
1. What they're comparing: the nests of ants / the ants themselves / those of the ants
2. Where the "nests" are located in each optionSince we know this sentence is comparing two items, we MUST first check that the two items being compared are parallel! After reading over the rest of the sentence, we can see that we're comparing "raider ants" to something that's underlined. Let's see which options use parallel structure, and which options fall short:
(A)
the nests of leaf cutters and most other ants, -->
WRONG(It's comparing nests to raider ants, which aren't parallel in type.)(B)
the nests of leaf cutters and most other ants, which are -->
WRONG(It's also comparing nests to ants, which aren't parallel in type.)(C)
leaf cutters and most other ants, whose nests are -->
OK(It's comparing ants to ants, which is parallel!)(D)
leaf cutters and most other ants in having nests -->
OK(It's comparing ants to ants, which is parallel!) (E)
those of leaf cutters and most other ants with nests -->
WRONG(This is comparing ants to "those of" ants, which is not parallel. It is also unclear what "those of" is even referring to.)We can eliminate options A, B, and E because they haven't created a parallel comparison based on the types of ants.
Let's take a closer look at options C and D to determine which is the best choice. To do this, I've added the options to the rest of the sentence:
(C) Unlike leaf cutters and most other ants, whose nests are situated underground or in pieces of wood, raider ants make a portable nest by entwining their long legs to form "curtains" of ants that hang from logs or boulders, providing protection for the queen and the colony larvae and pupae.
This is
CORRECT because it uses the correct comma placement to indicate that the phrase highlighted in green is a non-essential phrase! It's not necessary to know where leaf cutters and other ants make their nests. It's only important to know that they
DON'T do what raider ants do, and this sentence makes that clear with or without that extra information.
(D) Unlike leaf cutters and most other ants in having nests situated underground or in pieces of wood, raider ants make a portable nest by entwining their long legs to form "curtains" of ants that hang from logs or boulders, providing protection for the queen and the colony larvae and pupae.
This options is
INCORRECT because it doesn't use the correct comma placement to show that the phrase "in having nests situated underground or in pieces of wood" is a non-essential phrase. It's missing a comma before "in" for this to work. It's also incorrect because "in having" sounds awkward and isn't necessary - just say "having" to convey the same meaning.
There you go - option C is the correct choice!Don't study for the GMAT. Train for it.
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