jaituteja wrote:
DYNAMITE wrote:
Upon returning from an expedition to a remote region of Brazil, a group of researchers announced that they unexpectedly discovered several species of lizards that have limbs with no locomotive function, and they are much more rudimentary and purposeless than those of any similar type of lizard that previously was discovered in South America.
(A) and they are much more rudimentary and purposeless than those of any similar lizard type that previously was
(B) and that they were much more rudimentary and purposeless than any similar lizard type previously
(C) and the limbs are much more rudimentary and purposeless than any similar lizard types that previously were
(D) limbs that are much more rudimentary and purposeless than those of any similar lizard type previously
(E) limbs much more rudimentary and purposeless than any similar lizard types that previously were
I picked (A). A pronoun always refers to the closest noun as its antecedent and this is "the limbs" which is the correct comparison they are trying to draw. Knewton, however, claims that this is an ambiguous pronoun reference. It could refer to the researchers, limbs, or lizards. I mean sure all 3 are plural nouns in the sentence, but the latter part of the sentence draws a comparison to the limbs which would make the current structure perfectly correct!
Is it just a structural element of the GMAT that it likes to have the noun clarified?
Can someone help with option B??
in otpion B,, "they" could refer to researchers,limbs or lizards.
Now, it logically makes sense to connect they with lizards because the comparision is made with lizard.
So, B should be correct?
Can someone help>>!!!
THanks,
Jai
Hi Jai
Although your thought of comparison is correct, the parallelism problem makes B a wrong option.
When you see "and" <== parallel marker, you should find a parallel structure right away.
Let check parallel structure of option B:
.......a group of researchers
announced that they unexpectedly....................,
and that they.......................
Because of "THAT" ==> "they" seems to refer "researchers", not "lizards". That's why B is wrong.
Hope it's clear.