With respect to most species of animals, they are evenly divided in

With respect to most species of animals, they are evenly divided in right- or left-handedness, unlike humans.

(A) With respect to most species of animals, they are evenly divided in right- or left-handedness, unlike humans. --- 'With respect to' should modify right or left-handedness and not most other species. Out.

(B) With respect to right- or left-handedness, most species of animals are evenly divided, unlike in humans. --- 'Unlike in humans' is not parallel with 'most species '

(C) Unlike humans, most species of animals are evenly divided with respect to right- or left-handedness. --- Straightforward comparison

(D) unlike in humans, most species of animals with respect to right- or left-handedness are evenly divided. -- same as in B

(E) Unlike humans, with respect to right- or left-handedness, in most species of animals, it is evenly divided. --- 'unlike humans' is not parallel with 'in most species'

_________________

With respect to most species of animals, they are evenly divided in right- or left-handedness, unlike humans.

(A) With respect to most species of animals, they are evenly divided in right- or left-handedness, unlike humans. --> "unlike humans" should modify "most species"

(B) With respect to right- or left-handedness, most species of animals are evenly divided, unlike in humans. --> same as A

(C) Unlike humans, most species of animals are evenly divided with respect to right- or left-handedness. --> correct

(D) Unlike in humans, most species of animals with respect to right- or left-handedness are evenly divided.

(E) Unlike humans, with respect to right- or left-handedness, in most species of animals it is evenly divided.

I went for answer choice C as the sentence offered the clearest, most concise version in my opinion.

Following reasons led me to elimate the other choices:

A - Weird way of phrasing
B - The species are evenly divided... the "in" humans part killed it for me
D - Again unlike "in" humans compares to most species of animals
E - Unlike humans, with respect to... this sentence would need to state the subject which is compared to humans
_________________

+1 for C

Who are being compared here?
Humans and most species of animals.

What is being compared here?
Right- or left-handedness

A - Wrong comparison
B - Wrong comparison
C - This correctly answers the two questions above
D - in humans is compared with most species of animals. Wrong comparison
E - After Unlike humans, most species of animals is expected for the right comparison. Hence this is wrong

Posted from my mobile device
_________________

It sounds like you want the comparison to be: "Unlike [species of] humans, most species of animals..." But humans ARE a species (homo sapiens), and it's perfectly fine to compare one particular species to most other species.

Regardless of the taxonomy, the comparison is logical: humans can be left or right-handed and apparently so can most species of animals. So it's reasonable to compare humans to most species in terms of how evenly divided they are in their "handedness" (left-handed vs right-handed).
_________________

Comparison should be clear. in A they is awkward and modifier error is exist in the sentence.

B is wrong comparison and not parallel same with D and E.

Correct answer is C.

Both 'like' and 'unlike' are prepositions themselves. One must agree that they may not take another preposition after them.
Raxit- Your surmise that in some instances 'like' or 'unlike' is correct with another preposition is interesting. Some authentic references could help.
_________________

sjun

You know people who use right hand and those who use left hand naturally. In the case of most animals, the ratio between these two types is 50:50. However, the ratio between the number of human beings who are right handed and those who are left handed is not even or fifty-fifty. (probably more right handed people than left handed people) Please note that this ratio is with reference to the division between right and left-handedness only. Therefore, the modifier with respect o should be placed close to the handedness rather than beside any other factor.
_________________

Hello, ramlala. Your proposed sentences are grammatically sound, even if I think the second one could be rewritten to be more streamlined:

Unlike humans, most species of animals are evenly divided with respect to right- or left-handedness.

But of course, now we have landed on the exact phrasing of (C). You might wonder why such phrasing would be preferable to that of D-2. The first is that it is easier to follow a sentence without phrases or clauses interrupting the main clause. The prepositional (with) phrase in D-2 forces us to put the sentence on hold until we get that last bit. By contrast, (C) follows a simple subject-verb-object framework. A smaller consideration is that the GMAT™ prefers right-branching sentences in general, in which the main clause is expressed earlier and is then followed by modifiers or any additional information. If the sentence means to stress handedness, then the prepositional phrase ought to come first; if the comparison is more important, it should start with unlike and launch straight into comparing humans and other animals.

I hope that helps. Thank you for thinking to ask.

- Andrew
_________________

First, a public service announcement: try to make your posts/questions easier for us to follow! This is one big mess, and it's hard to tell what you're even asking here. Take some time to neatly organize/format/proofread your posts, and you'll improve your odds of actually getting a useful response from an expert.


It sounds like you're asking whether "with respect to most species of animals" in (A) modifies the subject or the clause? In this case, I'd say it modifies the clause. We aren't trying to say, "they ARE with respect to most species of animals" -- in other words, we aren't trying to describe "they". Instead, we're trying to say, "they are evenly divided with respect to..." In other words, we're trying to modify the action of the subject, not the subject itself.

Just keep in mind that it’s important not to treat all opening modifiers equally, as explained in this post.


Generally speaking, it's certainly okay for two modifiers to modify the same entity. And I wouldn't drive yourself crazy trying to figure out EXACTLY what modifies what on the GMAT. Here, have an example:

"Tim is very happy in his new role."

Obviously "very" modifies "happy," but does the prepositional phrase ("in his new role") modify "is" or "is very happy" or "Tim is very happy"? More importantly: does it matter? The meaning is the same regardless of how you break it down. And since the GMAT is never going to ask you to formally diagram a sentence, you only need to worry about differences that affect the meaning.

Similarly, in (C), does the prepositional phrase ("with respect to...") modify "are" or "are evenly divided" or "most species of animals are evenly divided"? I'm not really sure, and, since it doesn't affect the meaning, I don't really care.

I hope that helps!
_________________

Answer C. Correct usage of Unlike X & Y, comparison.

Thanks,
GyM
_________________

C

Unlike noun1, noun2 (continue the phrase)

With respect to most species of animals, they are evenly divided in right- or left-handedness, unlike humans.

(A) With respect to most species of animals, they are evenly divided in right- or left-handedness, unlike humans.

(B) With respect to right- or left-handedness, most species of animals are evenly divided, unlike in humans.

(C) Unlike humans, most species of animals are evenly divided with respect to right- or left-handedness.

(D) Unlike in humans, most species of animals with respect to right- or left-handedness are evenly divided.

(E) Unlike humans, with respect to right- or left-handedness, in most species of animals it is evenly divided.

Concept tested : Modifiers

Ans : C

Posted from my mobile device
_________________

The modifier ordering is a problem here and comparison between meaning items is another issue.
C is correct as it places modifier correctly and comparison is in between meaningful items

Also with respect to right or left handedness is incorrectly placed


Straight C, Proper Comparison and modifier issue is also resolved

Hi Bunuel,

Will option 2 be correct if it were - With respect to right- or left-handedness, most species of animals are evenly divided, unlike humans.
I changed the 'unlike in humans'.

Lightning quick tip of the day:

In Sentence Correction, the CORRECT option will NEVER place "in" (or any other preposition) after the words "like" or "unlike". "Like"/"Unlike" are ONLY followed by nouns (i.e., the names of people, animals, places, things, or ideas).

Example from OG Verbal Review Q 189:

With respect to most species of animals, they are evenly divided in right- or left-handedness, unlike humans.
(A) With respect to most species of animals, they are evenly divided in right- or left-handedness, unlike humans.
(B) With respect to right- or left-handedness, most species of animals are evenly divided, unlike in humans.
(C) Unlike humans, most species of animals are evenly divided with respect to right- or lefthandedness.
(D) Unlike in humans, most species of animals with respect to right- or left-handedness are evenly divided.
(E) Unlike humans, with respect to right- or lefthandedness, in most species of animals it is evenly divided.

The incorrectly used words are highlighted in red.

Concept: Like/Unlike X, Y:

Like her sister, she is an engineer.
Unlike humans, most species of animals…

X and Y must both ALWAYS be nouns (the names of people, animals, places, things, or ideas.

Pro tip: even if you can solve a practice question easily, ALWAYS ensure that you identify ALL the errors in the wrong options and, more importantly, ensure that you KNOW why they're incorrect! If in doubt, ask a reliable expert.

Merging topics.

Please follow our rules when posting: https://gmatclub.com/forum/rules-to-pos ... 08733.html Thank you.
_________________