HOT Competition 28 Aug/8AM: In the mid-1980’s, since bats were overwhe

Question

In the mid-1980’s,  since bats were overwhelmed by noxious gases, and routinely falling from the sky above Vegas freeways, this prompted police officials to devise a plan that reduced  emissions.

A. since bats were overwhelmed by noxious gases, and routinely falling from the sky above Vegas freeways, this prompted police officials to devise a plan that reduced

B. since bats that had been overwhelmed by noxious gases were routinely falling from the sky above Vegas freeways, it prompted police officials to devise a plan that would reduce

C. bats had been overwhelmed by noxious gases and routinely fell from the sky above Vegas freeways, prompting police officials to devise a plan that reduced

D. bats overwhelmed by noxious gases and routinely falling from the sky above Vegas freeways were prompting police officials to devise a plan to reduce

E. bats overwhelmed by pollution routinely fell from the sky above Vegas freeways, prompting officials to devise a plan to reduce

Bunuel · Accepted Answer

CRACK Verbal Explanation:

A. comma before "and" when it joins two phrases is incorrect. "this" cannot refer to an entire clause. "devise a plan that reduced emissions" - incorrect. Reduced is in the future of "devise". Hence, we need "future in the past" - "would".

B. ‘It' has no antecedent. Usage of past continuous "were routinely falling" is not required.

C. Use of past perfect form 'had been' is not correct. We are referring to a specific time in the past - "in the mid 1980s". Causality of ‘overwhelmed by gas’ and 'routinely fell' is not expressed. "devise a plan that reduced emissions'' - incorrect. Reduced is in the future of "devise". Hence, we need "future in the past" - "would".

D. Suggests two categories of bats that prompted the officials' responses - 1. Overwhelmed by gases 2. routinely falling from the sky. Use of past continuous 'were prompting' is not preferred. The sentence basically reads "bats were prompting officials?"

E. CORRECT ANSWER.  Expresses casualty correctly. The participial modifier 'prompting' correctly modifies the entire preceding clause.

bidskamikaze · Answer

In the mid-1980’s,  since bats were overwhelmed by noxious gases, and routinely falling from the sky above Vegas freeways, this prompted police officials to devise a plan that reduced  emissions.

A. since bats were overwhelmed by noxious gases, and routinely falling from the sky above Vegas freeways, this prompted police officials to devise a plan that reduced
-  The use of "since" after comma requires "police officials" to come after freeways,

B. since bats that had been overwhelmed by noxious gases were routinely falling from the sky above Vegas freeways, it prompted police officials to devise a plan that would reduce
-  pronoun "it" doesn't have any antecedent IMO.

C. bats had been overwhelmed by noxious gases and routinely fell from the sky above Vegas freeways, prompting police officials to devise a plan that reduced
-  Parallelism issue.

D. bats overwhelmed by noxious gases and routinely falling from the sky above Vegas freeways were prompting police officials to devise a plan to reduce
-  Bats were not prompting anyone.

E. bats overwhelmed by pollution routinely fell from the sky above Vegas freeways, prompting officials to devise a plan to reduce
-  Correct

Answer E

Saupayan · Answer

and routinely falling from the sky : is not a clause. it's not parallel to "since bats were overwhelmed by noxious gases". Also, it leaves the meaning incomplete.

What is "it" ? No logical noun antecedent.

I find the use of "had been" questionable. It implies that the action over overwhelming was done to the bats (by another agent, probably intentionally) prior to something else that happened in the past. While, that something else can be "fell", the other aspect of the meaning (the agent carrying out the action of overwhelming the bats) is not clear. We can hold on to it for now, but we will see in a minute why E is better.

Here, overwhelmed by and routinely falling are used as modifiers, and grammatically correct. But "were prompting" suggests that the bats themselves were prompting, where the intended meaning is the prompt was actually the result of the bats falling. In other words, bats did not intentionally prompt the officers, but the wording of this option suggests they did. So, D is out

This is the correct answer. "overwhelmed by pollution" is used as modifier, without requiring an agent to intentionally carry out the action. This corrects the issue in C. Moreover, prompting officials is used as a , ing modifier to show the result of the bats falling (thereby correcting the issue with D).

MayankSingh · Answer

IMO E

In the mid-1980’s,  since bats were overwhelmed by noxious gases, and routinely falling from the sky above Vegas freeways, this prompted police officials to devise a plan that reduced  emissions.

A.   since  bats were overwhelmed by noxious gases, and routinely falling from the sky above Vegas freeways,  this   prompted  police officials to devise a plan  that reduced  -    Incorrect   
 # Pronoun this must be followed by a noun
# Since X, Y - Since and prompted are redundant together 
# Purpose/Intention - Use of "to" required i.e devise a plan to

B.  since bats that  had been  overwhelmed by noxious gases were routinely falling from the sky above Vegas freeways,  it  prompted police officials to devise a plan that would reduce  -   Incorrect   
 # There is no noun antecedent for pronoun it.
# Use of past perfect "that had been ..." is incorrect. There is no need for any sequencing in the sentence as both action were occurring simultaneously.
# "Reduced" doesn't make sense (completed action in past), because the plan was yet to be implemented.
# Since X, Y - Since and prompted are redundant together

C.  bats  had been  overwhelmed by noxious gases and routinely fell from the sky above Vegas freeways, prompting police officials to devise a plan that  reduced  -    Incorrect   
 # Use of past perfect "that had been ..." is incorrect. There is no need for any sequencing in the sentence as both action were occurring simultaneously.
# "Reduced" doesn't make sense (completed action in past), because the plan was yet to be implemented.
 
D.  bats  overwhelmed by noxious gases and routinely falling from the sky above Vegas freeways   were prompting  police officials to devise a plan to reduce  -   Incorrect   
 # Meaning distort: Birds were not prompting the officials to devise a plan.

E.  bats  overwhelmed by pollution  routinely fell from the sky above Vegas freeways,  prompting  officials to devise a plan to reduce  -   Correct   
 #"-ing" modifier describes a consequence of action performed in previous clause. Here it totally make sense to say that the action performed by the birds prompted officials to devise a plan

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JonShukhrat · Answer

KOMP:
Identifying the sensible intended meaning is a faster way of dealing with this problem. We know that something bad happened to bats and this incident prompted officials to take certain steps. Note that bats themselves didn’t prompted officials, an illogical meaning, but the fact that bats fell from the sky did. With this in mind, let’s analyze the answer choices:

A.  since bats  were  overwhelmed by noxious gases, and routinely falling from the sky above Vegas freeways,  this  prompted police officials to devise a plan that reduced emissions.

1. “since bats were overwhelmed… and since bats were routinely falling” – this part seems fairly parallel, nothing wrong. 
2. such constructions as “since blah blah, this blah blah” and “because blah blah, this blah blah” are stylistically not quite good. No correct answer to an official problem uses such a structure. 
We could get away simply with “since something happened, police were prompted to do something (“this” omitted)” or “something happened, and this event prompted police to do something (“since” omitted)”. Simply said, “since” and “this” are semantically redundant. 
3. if there is a better choice, we’d better avoid using “this” as a standalone pronoun. 
4. the sentence gives an overall information about bats that existed in the mid 1980s. This period isn’t a point moment. So, the Past continuous tense "bats were... routinely falling" makes no sense.

B.  since bats that  had been  overwhelmed by noxious gases were routinely falling from the sky above Vegas freeways,  it  prompted police officials to devise a plan that would reduce

1. “that had been overwhelmed” makes no sense because as written, this choice illogically implies that bats were impaired by gasses sometime before they fell. A reader may conclude that these two are two different incidents, and the first is not the cause of the first. It’s sound to say that bats fell at the moment they are overwhelmed by gasses. 
Moreover, “in the mid 1982s, bats had been overwhelmed” illogically suggests that the bats were adversely affected by gasses before the mid 1980s, but started to fell in the mid 1980’”. That’s an absurd meaning. 
2. “it prompted” – here “it” tries to refer to the entire preceding clause, but “it” cannot do so. 
3. the usage of “event and event” suggests that two actions are unrelated. In other words, “bats had been overwhelmed by noxious gases and routinely fell” suggests that bats fell not because they were overwhelmed. These two actions are unrelated. The correct choice E rectifies this issue.

C.  bats  had been overwhelmed  by noxious gases and routinely fell from the sky above Vegas freeways, prompting police officials to devise a plan that reduced

1. “that had been overwhelmed” makes no sense because as written, this choice illogically implies that bats were impaired by gasses sometime before they fell. A reader may conclude that these two are two different incidents, and the first is not the cause of the first. It’s sound to say that bats fell at the moment they are overwhelmed by gasses. 
2. the usage of “event and event” suggests that two actions are unrelated. In other words, “bats had been overwhelmed by noxious gases and routinely fell” suggests that bats fell not because they were overwhelmed. These two actions are unrelated. The correct choice E rectifies this issue.

D.  bats overwhelmed by noxious gases and routinely falling from the sky above Vegas freeways  were prompting  police officials to devise a plan to reduce

1. the entire phrase “overwhelmed by noxious gases and routinely falling from the sky above Vegas freeways” is simply a noun modifier describing “bats”. Without this modifier, the sentence reads as “bats were prompting officials”. This meaning is illogical because how the hack bats can prompt the officials?
2. the sentence gives an overall information about bats that existed in the mid 1980s. This period isn’t a point moment. So, the Past continuous tense makes no sense.

E.  bats overwhelmed by pollution routinely fell from the sky above Vegas freeways, prompting officials to devise a plan to reduce

Bingo, the correct choice. E amends all goofs of the previous answers. “comma + prompting” correctly shows that not bats, but the entire action transpiring in the preceding clause prompted officials to take steps.

Hence   E

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Superman249 · Answer

IMO E

Lets analyse Options

Option A :-  Incorrect

since bats were overwhelmed by noxious gases, and routinely falling from the sky above Vegas freeways,

this  prompted police officials to devise a plan that   reduced  .

Errors : -

1)   Tense error   :-  reduced is in simple past tense  , this is incorrect usage , because Plan by themself can not reduce anything, while implementation of plan can reduce.

2)  " this "  must be  followed by a noun , however there is no noun following "this".

Option B :  Incorrect -

since bats   that had been overwhelmed   by noxious gases were routinely falling from the sky above Vegas freeways,   it   prompted police officials to devise a plan that would reduce

Errors:-

1)   Tense Error  :- Wrong usage of Past perfect tense " had been overcome" , as there is no need of sequencing the situation.

2) "It" is referring to "were routinely falling" which is wrong.

Option C:-  Incorrect

bats   had been overwhelmed   by noxious gases and routinely fell from the sky above Vegas freeways, prompting police officials to devise a plan that   reduced

Errors:-

1)  Tense error   :-  reduced is in simple past tense  , this is incorrect usage .

2)    Tense Error  :- Wrong usage of Past perfect tense " had been overcome" , as there is no need of sequencing the situation

Option D:-  Incorrect

bats overwhelmed by noxious gases   and   routinely falling from the sky above Vegas freeways   were prompting   police officials to devise a plan to reduce

Errors

1) Meaning Error:-  were prompting  - is wrong since birds dint prompt the officials

We are left with Option E which is Correct

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SohGMAT2020 · Answer

CrackVerbal   GMATNinja

In option E "bats overwhelmed by noxious gases" is changed to "bats overwhelmed by pollution": Is this change not altering the intended meaning of the sentence ( Since all the other options had "bats overwhelmed by noxious gases",I thought option E was changing the meaning. Can you please clarify whether my reasoning was wrong?

pardhu1212 · Answer

In option "E", although sentence is grammatically and structurally correct, there is no mention of "noxious gases". This word has been replaced by "pollution". There is a loss/change of information. How can this option be correct?

JonShukhrat · Answer

Hi SohamGMAT2020 and pardhu1212

Here are the links to the posts of GMATNinja, MartyMurray, and RonPurewal, all 800 scorers. All three state that there is no such a thing as “an original meaning”.

Official explanations of older OG problems used “change in the original meaning” as a reason for eliminating choices. Basing on these OE’s, most experts accepted it as a valid reason. This is how a myth about “change in the original meaning” was born.

However, later, officially correct answers to new OG problems proved that we cannot cross out choices on this ground.
Once again, there is no such a thing as “original meaning”. We had better think in terms of “intended meaning”. As soon as you discern what the sentence intends to say, you choose the answer choice that delivers this meaning in the most effective way. That’s all.

If the original meaning is flawed or illogical in some way, then the correct choice actually MUST change it.

https://gmatclub.com/forum/while-indust ... l#p1902380

https://gmatclub.com/forum/about-5-mill ... l#p2253051

https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/foru ... ml#p112347

Bambi2021 · Answer

Police officials dont devise plans to reduce emissions. A, B, C, D gone.

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jrk23 · Answer

Still have a doubt, since the sentence start with mid 1980---- why "E" is correct. as in "E" present "fell" verb is used instead of past.

Please explain

VerbalBot · Answer

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HOT Competition 28 Aug/8AM: In the mid-1980’s, since bats were overwhe

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HOT Competition 28 Aug/8AM: In the mid-1980’s, since bats were overwhe

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