The Indian rhinoceros, unlike those in Africa

Question

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The Indian rhinoceros, unlike those in Africa, uses its incisors rather than its horns to protect itself.

A) The Indian rhinoceros, unlike those in Africa, uses its incisors rather than its horns to protect itself.

B) The rhinoceroses from India, unlike those in Africa, uses its incisors rather than its horns to protect itself.

C) The Indian rhinoceros, unlike the one in Africa, uses its incisors rather than its horns to protect itself.

D) Indian rhinoceroses, unlike those in Africa, use their incisors rather than their horns to protect themselves.

E) Rhinoceroses found in India, unlike those found in Africa, use their incisors rather than their horns to defend themselves.

generis · Answer

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kungfury42 · Answer

I think it should be E.

(A) No plural antecedent for those

(B) Pronoun-Noun disagreement between (plural) rhinoceroses and (singular) its

(CD) Both the sentences are nearly identical in nature and that is a clue. If we look carefully, "the one" in C refers back to "The Indian rhinoceros" and "those" in D refers back to "Indian rhinoceroses"

Putting these back, we get some illogical gibberish

C: The Indian rhinoceros, unlike the Indian rhinoceros in Africa...
D: Indian rhinoceroses, unlike the Indian rhinoceroses in Africa...

(E) Perfect!! Though this option might look like it is wasting some words but over here the plural pronoun those logically and correctly refers back to just rhinoceroses and that makes complete sense.

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gloomybison · Answer

A) The Indian rhinoceros, unlike those in Africa, uses its incisors rather than its horns to protect itself.
rhinoceros is singular so using "those" is wrong. Even if we don't know whether it is singular or not, we can see the discrepancy by the usage of "those" and "its"

B) The rhinoceroses from India, unlike those in Africa, uses its incisors rather than its horns to protect itself.
Same discrepancy

C) The Indian rhinoceros, unlike the one in Africa, uses its incisors rather than its horns to protect itself.
one seems like referring to "Indian rhinoceros", giving us an illogical meaning; Indian rhinoceros in Africa

D) Indian rhinoceroses, unlike those in Africa, use their incisors rather than their horns to protect themselves.
"those" seems to refer to "Indian rhinoceroses

E) Rhinoceroses found in India, unlike those found in Africa, use their incisors rather than their horns to defend themselves.
 Correct

Expert ı have a question;   
So here between D and E, "Indian rhinoceroses...those in Africa" VS "Rhinoceroses found in India...those found in Africa" 
here both "Indian" and "found in India" plays the role of a modifier, one is an adjective the other one is a participial modifier
So the question is when "that" or "those" refer to a something that has an adjective or a modifier or a preposition, is the adjective/modifier/preposition carried with the very noun?
As far as ı have seen, prepositions aren't really carried over but ı guess, adjectives are somehow carried over, though ı don't know why...

gandalfthegreat · Answer

I chose D, until i saw the "found" word in option E. Would love to hear why option D is incorrect?

PyjamaScientist · Answer

gloomybison  &  gandalfthegreat 
(E ) is superior to (D) on the basis of perfect parallelism. 
Correct idiomatic structure is: X unlike Y. Here, X and Y should be parallel. In (D), X is "Indian Rhinoceros"- a noun, and Y is "those in Africa"- a noun + prepositional phrase. Thus, X and Y are not parallel. Also, "Those" here should logically refer to "rhinoceros" only, but some can make a case of it being ambiguous and referring to "Indian Rhinoceros". (E) is without any such claims for ambiguity. Also, the structure in (E) is nice and parallel. X in (E) is "Rhinoceros found in India"- a noun + prepositional phrase and Y is "those found in Africa"-another noun + prepositional phrase. Here, X and Y both are parallel and that's what makes ( E ) preferred over (D).

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gandalfthegreat · Answer

Thanks! the change of word from "protect" to "defend" also contributed to Option E being the right answer or no? Doesn't defend change/alter the meaning of the word protect?

PyjamaScientist · Answer

Hi  gandalfthegreat ,
Well, in my opinion, "defend" and "protect" are synonyms. So, using either would be fine here. There's little distinction between the two as per Merriam Webster, but I still believe that both can be used almost interchangeably. The distinction between "defend" and "protect" as per MW is-
   DEFEND    is used for danger or an attack that is actual or threatening.  The soldiers defended the fort against enemy troops.  
  PROTECT    is used when some kind of shield can prevent possible attack or injury.  Protect your eyes with dark glasses.  But, I highly doubt that you need to memorize this minor distinction while answering SC questions in GMAT. Just knowing that these two words mean almost the same, i.e., "to defend" is enough.

P.S: Please tag me by using "@" + my "username" i.e., pyjamascientist (Eg. @_pyjamascientist, without the underscore between "at" and the "username"), so that I can be notified about the same. Posts without the tag almost never reach the person it is intended towards.

VIGHNESHKAMATH · Answer

This question can easily be tackled provided we use some logic. Most important, we cannot use Indian as an adjective for the Rhinoceros, because it would then illogically imply that the pronouns such as ''one'', ''those'' is referring to the Indian Rhinoceros/es. How can Indian Rhinos exist in Africa? The point here is to compare Rhinos of India with those of Africa. Thus, only two options that make logical sense are Option B and E. Option B clearly has a Noun-pronoun agreement error. Thus, Option E is the winner.

Alternatively, if the above logic doesn't strike at the exam time, we can simply use mechanical stuff to eliminate. The mechanical stuff is UNLIKE Comparison trigger. We can either compare Noun with Noun or compare prepositional phrase with prepositional phrase, both are acceptable usages. However, options A, C, and D flout the rule by contrasting noun phrase with the prepositional phrase.

The Indian rhinoceros, unlike those in Africa

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GMAT Sentence Correction (SC - EA only) Questions

The Indian rhinoceros, unlike those in Africa

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