Although the bite of brown recluse spiders are rarely fatal, they caus

Question

Although the bite of  brown recluse spiders are rarely fatal, they cause chronic flesh wounds, posing the greatest danger to the infant and elderly, who are particularly vulnerable to its  poison.

(A) brown recluse spiders are rarely fatal, they cause chronic flesh wounds, posing the greatest danger to the infant and elderly, who are particularly vulnerable to its

(B) brown recluse spiders are rarely fatal, they cause chronic flesh wounds and pose the greatest danger to the infant and elderly, who are particularly vulnerable to their

(C) the brown recluse spider is rarely fatal, it causes chronic flesh wounds, posing the greatest danger to the infant and elderly, who are particularly vulnerable to their

(D) the brown recluse spider is rarely fatal, it causes chronic flesh wounds and poses the greatest danger to infants and the elderly, who are particularly vulnerable to its

(E) the brown recluse spider is rarely fatal, they cause chronic flesh wounds, posing the greatest danger to the infant and elderly, who are particularly vulnerable to its

Wayxi · Answer

1. Bite is the subject, so subject-verb agreement, verb must be singular.
 Eliminate A,B which uses "are"

2. Bite is singular, pronoun must be parallel. 
 Eliminate E, which uses "they"

3. Sentence isn't listing items, so there shouldn't be a comma. Also posing the greatest danger isn't modifying chronic flesh wounds.

So D.

tanvirkhan77 · Answer

Its D
"the brown recluse spider is rarely fatal, it (refers to bite, singular) causes chronic flesh wounds, posing the greatest danger to the infant and elderly, who (refers to children and elderly) are particularly vulnerable to their (refers to spider, singular)

C is wrong because "spider" and their at the end does not match.

EducationAisle · Answer

Just wanted to bring this out that there is nothing wrong with the logical meaning of choice C  per se .  posing the greatest danger to the infant and elderly  is a Participial phrase and is modifying the entire clause  it causes chronic flesh wounds . There is nothing wrong with this sense and is perhaps even the preferred sense, since the original sentence is also in this form.

The issue with C is presence of  their .  their  could possibly refer to  the infant ,  the elderly  or  flesh wounds , but in any of these cases, the meaning is non-sensical.

umeshpatil · Answer

Although the bite of  brown recluse spiders are rarely fatal, they cause chronic flesh wounds, posing the greatest danger to the infant and elderly, who are particularly vulnerable to its  poison.
(A) brown recluse spiders are rarely fatal, they cause chronic flesh wounds, posing the greatest danger to the infant and elderly, who are particularly vulnerable to its
(B) brown recluse spiders are rarely fatal, they cause chronic flesh wounds and pose the greatest danger to the infant and elderly, who are particularly vulnerable to their
(C) the brown recluse spider is rarely fatal, it causes chronic flesh wounds, posing the greatest danger to the infant and elderly, who are particularly vulnerable to their
(D) the brown recluse spider is rarely fatal, it causes chronic flesh wounds and poses the greatest danger to infants and the elderly, who are particularly vulnerable to its
(E) the brown recluse spider is rarely fatal, they cause chronic flesh wounds, posing the greatest danger to the infant and elderly, who are particularly vulnerable to its

The bite  is the subject of first part of sentence, so...
1>  is  should be verb to agree with singular subject  the bite  
2> next sentence should start with singular pronoun  it . 
Now, Options A, B and E are eliminated.

C is incorrect because ' their ' is plural pronoun, whereas sentence talks about singular spider.
Hence Option D is correct choice.

About your doubt:
--> In the second sentence, pronoun should talk about the subject in first sentence. See difference between two lines. 
   the bite  of the brown recluse spider is rarely fatal,  it causes ...  
  The brown recluse spiders  bite anywhere on the skin,  they cause ...

shreygupta3192 · Answer

b/w c and d

if we look at the words in the end..

in c..it says "their" poison
in d..it says "its" poison

n poison should be of the br solders and not of the bite.
"its poison" means posion of the bite but not of the brs..which should be the other way round

kindly help me on this.
so why not c

EducationAisle · Answer

With C, the sentence would be:

Although the bite of the brown recluse spider is rarely fatal, it causes chronic flesh wounds, posing the greatest danger to the infant and elderly, who are particularly vulnerable to their poison.

their , a plural pronoun, cannot refer to either  spider  or  bite , both of which are  singular .

Although the bite of brown recluse spiders are rarely fatal, they caus

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GMAT Sentence Correction (SC - EA only) Questions

Although the bite of brown recluse spiders are rarely fatal, they caus

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