A group of paleontologists recently announced that a site in Utah has yielded fossils of some of the biggest armored dinosaurs ever found, and that they were at least 25 million years older than any similar dinosaur type previously found in North America.

A) Same
B) and they are at least 25 million years older than those of any similar dinosaur type that previously was
C) and the fossils are at least 25 million years older than any similar dinosaur types that previously were
D) fossils that are at least 25 million years older than those of any similar dinosaur type previously
E) fossils at least 25 million years older than similar dinosaur types previously

I put C. Why is D correct?

Howdy. In the future, please provide an exact citation for the source of a problem (book/website, problem number, etc.) so we can categorize the threads.

In this question, two "splits" provide insight into the grammatical issues under consideration. First, the original sentence and answer choice B use the ambiguous pronoun "they," which can refer either to fossils (correctly) or to paleontologists or dinosaurs (incorrectly). Once choices A and B are eliminated, the remaining choices test parallel structure by focusing on similar comparison terms. Answer choices C and E incorrectly compare fossils to dinosaur types; however, the sentence must compare fossils to fossils rather than fossils to dinosaurs. Answer choice D, the credited answer, corrects this comparison by including the pronoun those to explicitly refer to fossils.

Hope that makes sense!
-dan

Great explanation. Thanks!

Dan was nice enough to answer this without a source but, in future, please cite the source. Officially, we don't answer test questions unless / until the source is cited. Thanks!

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Stacey Koprince
Instructor
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ManhattanGMAT

If it still matters (I'd searched your forums, and found this answer - excellent by the way, thank you v much!), this was from the GMATPrep Practice Test 2.

I'd gotten it too, and had thought the answer was D as well...

thank you Dan!

Thanks!

Hii tutors....sorry for restarting the thread.

Just wanted know whether D is creating a run on sentence or it is just the best answer of the lot!!

Humm, it is somethink called appositives, a phrase or clause describing a noun in apposition separated by comma,

Short Example: Tendulkar, the cricketer

@nagendra: okies..thanks mate

nah, it's fine. it uses an "appositive".

i posted extensively about appositives here:
post10963.html#p10963

Sorry to pop up the old posts, however, I have below questions:

Q1: I understand the below rules from Ron's previous post about 'appositive':

* "COMMA + ABSTRACT NOUN" can be used to refer back to the WHOLE IDEA of the preceding clause
* "COMMA + CONCRETE NOUN" is normally used to refer to the preceding noun (much like "which").

In this questions, I think 'fossils' is Concrete Noun and therefore back to the preceding noun, which is 'dinosaur'. How can it be logically correct?

Q2: I understand below rules from Ron's previous post about 'comparison'. If you have 'that of/those of', then there must be:

* another OF construction, or
* a POSSESSIVE construction

I can understand to have logical comparison, you need 'those of' before 'dinosaur' to be logically comparable to 'fossils'. However, from the above rule, there is neither 'OF construction' nor 'a POSESSIVE construction' to be comparable with 'those of...'. How is it correct?

Thx for the reply.

Regarding - DBERNST's suggestion....

You mentioned in your post that -
First, the original sentence and answer choice B use the ambiguous pronoun "they," which can refer either to fossils (correctly) or to paleontologists or dinosaurs (incorrectly).

A group of paleontologists recently announced that a site in Utah has yielded fossils of some of the biggest armored dinosaurs ever found, and that they were at least 25 million years older than (those of) any similar dinosaur type previously found in North America.

"that" modifies "a group of paleontologists"
When "that" reappears again in the sentence, this time "and that they" - can we say that "they" refers to paleontologists (correctly) and to fossils and dinosaurs (incorrectly)...????

Nope.

In "A group of paleontologists recently announced that a site in Utah has yielded fossils...." the word "that" is a subordinating conjunction, rather than a pronoun. It introduces the subordinate clause "a site in Utah has yielded fossils."

There's more to "that" than that, but all the really interesting stuff is completely irrelevant to the GMAT. Google "complementizer" or "complementiser" if you're just idly curious.

alvin8139 - you are correct - this is an example of APPOSITIVE using embedded CONCRETE noun


We ate dinner in the revolving restaurant, the one in the tower. (appositive)


A group of paleontologists recently announced that a site in Utah has yielded fossils of some of the biggest armored dinosaurs ever found, fossils that are at least 25 million years older than those of any similar dinosaur type found in North America. (appositive)


A South American bird that forages for winged termites and other small insects while swinging upside down from the foliage of tall trees, the graveteiro belongs to the ovenbird family, a group of New World tropical birds that includes more than 230 species and is represented in virtually every kind of habitat. (Comma + APPOSITIVE/concrete noun)

nice presentation.