Young female ballet dancers and gymnasts sometimes fail to maintain

Dear Friends,

Here is a detailed explanation to this question-
Meaning is crucial to solving this problem:
Understanding the intended meaning is key to solving this question; the intended meaning of this sentence is that because young female ballet dancers and gymnasts desire to be as thin as possible, they sometimes fail to maintain good eating habits.

Concepts tested here: Meaning + Modifiers + Pronouns + Awkwardness/Redundancy

• In a “phrase + comma + noun” construction, the phrase must correctly modify the noun; this is one of the most frequently tested concepts on GMAT sentence correction.

A: This answer choice alters the meaning of the sentence through the phrase "good eating habits caused by the desire to be as thin as possible"; the construction of this phrase illogically implies that the good eating habits that the ballet dancers and gymnasts sometimes fail to maintain are causedd by the desire to be as thin as possible; the intended meaning is that because the ballet dancers and gymnasts desire to be as thin as possible, they sometimes fail to maintain good eating habits.

B: This answer choice alters the meaning of the sentence through the phrase “young female ballet dancers and gymnasts caused by desiring to be as thin as possible”; the construction of this phrase illogically implies that the ballet dancers and gymnasts were caused by the desire to be as thin as possible; the intended meaning is that the ballet dancers' and gymnasts' failure to maintain good eating habits was caused by their desire to be as thin as possible. Further, Option B uses the passive voice construction “fail to be maintained”, rendering it needlessly indirect.

C: This answer choice incorrectly uses “Because they desire to be as thin as possible” to modify “good eating habits”, incorrectly implying that the eating habits themselves desire to be as thin as possible; the intended meaning is that the ballet dancers and gymnasts desire to be as thin as possible; please remember, in a “phrase + comma + noun” construction, the phrase must correctly modify the noun.

D: Correct. This answer choice correctly uses “Because they desire to be as thin as possible” to modify “young female ballet dancers and gymnasts”, conveying the intended meaning- that because young female ballet dancers and gymnasts desire to be as thin as possible, they sometimes fail to maintain good eating habits - and avoiding the pronoun error seen in Option E. Further, Option D is free of any awkwardness or redundancy.

E: Trap. This answer choice suffers from pronoun ambiguity; it is unclear whether “they” refers to “ballet dancers and gymnasts” or “eating habits”.

Hence, D is the best answer choice.

To understand the concept of "Phrase Comma Subject" and "Subject Comma Phrase" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~1 minute):



All the best!
Experts' Global Team

I could not understand your logic. You are saying position of "that" in E is ambiguous. Whatever logic you applied to reach this conclusion is also applicable to option "D". More ever, a sentence starting with "because" is somewhat awkward and there was a way to more precise sentence as in option "E".
Please elaborate..

I know it can get confusing. Look closely. As I mentioned, in D, "that" is a part of the modifying clause. Infact, the sentence can also be written as "Young female ballet dancers and gymnasts, because they desire to be as thin as possible, sometimes fail to maintain good eating habits." Option E is indeed highly precise but with a very subtle error.
Hope this helps.

Again whatever I say is only my opinion.

My Pick is D.

'they' in D refers to young athletes , but 'they' in E can refer to 'eating habits ' also. this 'they' in E is ambiguous.

my 2 cents

"Desire to be as thin as possible" is the modifier here
In general it makes sense to put modifier as close to the subject it modifies as possible,
so D is doing a good ob by putting this closer to dancers and gymnasts than E, which is putting modifier closer to eating habits.

I agree with the original explanation

I looked through different english forums about the use of BECAUSE in the beginning of a sentence. and the consensus is - it is absolutely fine to start a sentence with BECAUSE.

There is a simple rule to keep in mind:

A sentence can begin with because, but you must include a second clause. For example, "Because I said so" is not a sentence. However, "Because it was raining, the baseball game was cancelled" is acceptable. A good rule to follow is that if you do not need a comma, it is probably a sentence fragment if you start with because.

IMO D.

A ) Original sentence- maintain good eating habits caused by the desire to be as thin as possible - conveys wrong meaning
B ) Awkward sentence
C ) "Because they desire to be as thin as possible" can not modify "good eating habits "
D ) "Because they desire to be as thin as possible" correctly modifies young female ballet dancers - no pronoun reference error - correct answer choice
E ) they - can refer to Young female ballet dancers or good eating habits - pronoun reference error.

Young female ballet dancers and gymnasts sometimes fail to maintain good eating habits caused by the desire to be as thin as possible.

D) Because they desire to be as thin as possible, young female ballet dancers and gymnasts sometimes fail to maintain good eating habits.
E) Young female dancers and gymnasts sometimes fail to maintain good eating habits because they desire to be as thin as possible.

Let me try with two contenders

( D ) doesnt create any confusion as far as Pronoun " They " is concerned, it can very easily be inferred that "THEY" refers to Young female.......

( E ) In this option, one may confuse that THEY refers to the eating habits and not the young female.....

The crux is to understand the construction of any sentence while evaluating the given answer choices rather than choose answer choice on the basis of implied meaning or the implied logical reasoning of the sentence.

hope this helps

How to choose between D and E ????

Young female ballet dancers and gymnasts sometimes fail to maintain good eating habits because they desire to be as thin as possible.

Answer choice E is wrong because "they" can refer to either "young female ballet dancers and gymnasts" or "good eating habits." It is ambiguous.

Because they desire to be as thin as possible, young female ballet dancers and gymnasts sometimes fail to maintain good eating habits.

Answer choice D above does not have the ambiguity problem because the first clause modifies "young female ballet dancers and gymnasts" so the "they" is known to refer to "young female ballet dancers and gymnasts"

Is it a possibility that we can eliminate E on the basis that in original it is mentioned ballet dancers whereas in E it says dancers...........
Just wondering............

mahakmalik

The problem with E is that the pronoun they is ambiguous. It could refer either to habits or to dancers and gymnasts.

The omission of the word ballet seems to be inadvertent; in a GMAT test, you would probably not find such omissions.

I don't really see a meaningful difference btw. D and E. Substitute "eating habits" for 'they' and the sentence clearly becomes absurd. It's pretty obvious that they refers back to ballet dancers and gymnasts.

Here's an example to illustrate my point: The Mavericks told the Celtics that they would win. This sentence is incorrect because we don't know whether 'they' refers to Mavericks or to Celtics, either of which would be sensible in this sentence. Now, if I used another example - The Mavericks practice fundamentals because they know that doing so is essential to win - it's pretty obvious that 'they' can only mean the Mavericks. 'Fundamentals know that doing so is essential to win' is an illogical meaning. The fact that 'they' is closer to 'fundamentals' and not to 'Mavericks' in this sentence doesn't create any confusion. I think the same logic applies to this SC question.

I agree with your point to an extent, but the writer of this problem eliminates answer E stating the same reason I mentioned earlier, that the pronoun is ambiguous. Moreover we have seen some examples from the official guide, in which although the antecedent for a pronoun is very clear from the context of meaning, the usage has not been allowed because of existence of another possible antecedent, even though that other antecedent would give rise to an absurd meaning to the sentence.

However there are examples that support your view as well... that an answer has been accepted although there are two antecedents of which only one is meaningful !!

Considering your point, I would say that we should eliminate an answer on the basis of pronoun ambiguity - when one of the antecedents give rise to an absurd meaning - only as a last resort. When we are stuck between two answers and none of them can be eliminated on the basis of grammar or more obvious meaning problem, we would use this ambiguity to eliminate one of them.

Young female ballet dancers and gymnasts sometimes fail to maintain good eating habits caused by the desire to be as thin as possible.

(A) Young female ballet dancers and gymnasts sometimes fail to maintain good eating habits caused by the desire to be as thin as possible.
(B) Good eating habits sometimes fail to be maintained by young female ballet dancers and gymnasts caused by desiring to be as thin as possible.
(C) Because they desire to be as thin as possible, good eating habits are sometimes not maintained by young female ballet dancers and gymnasts.
(D) Because they desire to be as thin as possible, young female ballet dancers and gymnasts sometimes fail to maintain good eating habits.
(E) Young female dancers and gymnasts sometimes fail to maintain good eating habits because they desire to be as thin as possible.

[b]In option E) the word ballet is absent and this changes the meaning. We always have to stick to the meaning, which the original sentence conveys [/b]

That seems to be a typo. It is very unlikely that one would intentionally incorporate such an error in the answer. The above discussion ignores the fact that "ballet" is missing from option E.

In that case, both D and E would be correct. The reason for eliminating E that the author of the question stated , that the pronoun "they" is ambiguous, may not be sufficient enough to eliminate the answer. Such pronoun usages have been accepted in some instances in GMAT.

okay, thanks. just one last question, between which two is the ambiguity in option E ? The good eating habits and young dancers & gymnasts ??

780 in GMAT...holly **** !! tumi to fatiye diyecho dada