GPrep 1

The 32 species that make up the dolphin family are closely related to whales and in fact include the animal known as the killer whale, which can grow to be 30 feet long and is famous for its aggressive hunting pods.
(A) include the animal known as the killer whale,which can grow to be 30 feet long and is
(B) include the animal known as the killer whale,growing as big as 30 feet long and
(C) include the animal known as the killer whale,growing up to 30 feet long and being
(D) includes the animal known as the killer whale,which can grow as big as 30 feet long and is
(E) includes the animal known as the killer whale,which can grow to be 30 feet long and it is
This stumped me... Can some one explain this

OA : A

I thought ..grow to be... is unidiomatic

1. Subject verb agreement:

Taking clue from the not underlined portion, 32 species is plural hence we need include

Eliminate D and E

2. Growing is present participle and refers to action of previous clause and correct usage would have reasons for their growing in the previous clause.

..., growing.....

If we refer to action..."are closely related" and "include" .Ask the qtn. Does the killer whale grows due to close relation and inclusion. Infact there is no relation

Eliminate B and C

There are few errors such as

* usage of coordinating conjunction "and" in E..when "and" without a comma is used, it is implicit that subject is common and hence usage of pronoun "it" is redundant

* B and D..Usage of word Big. Meaning of sentence is talking about "length" and not "size" hence you need only long and not "big"

HTH

the previous poster has most of the right ideas. i may be reiterating a lot of what's in that post, but, perhaps, in clearer language.

SUBJECT-VERB AGREEMENT
you see "include" vs "includes". this is a singular/plural split, so you know that you should look for the subject of this verb.
looking back through the sentence, we see that "32 species" is the subject, and that a plural verb is thus required.
two ways to tell this:
(a) the desired verb is PARALLEL to "are closely related to whales". since these two verbs are connected by "and", they must have parallel grammar. since "are" is plural, we need another plural verb.
(b) "that make up the dolphin family" is a modifier and can therefore be excluded from our search for the subject. the only possible subject that's left, then, is "32 species".

this kills d/e.

--

REDUNDANCY

you don't say both "as big as..." and "long" in the same sentence. you can use only one of these words, both of which express the same idea (i.e., length or size).

this kills b/d.

--

-ING MODIFIER FOLLOWING COMMA

this type of modifier modifies the entire preceding clause.

this is illogical in the case of "growing up to 30 feet long", because the suggestion is that the 32 species of the dolphin family grow up to this long as a consequence of being closely related to whales, etc.

this is actually two problems. one, the modifier refers to the wrong agent/noun (the 32 species, rather than just the killer whale as intended), and, two, the "-ing" makes this modifier modify the entire clause rather than just a noun, a situation that makes no sense.

this kills b/c.

--

only (a) remains. there are other issues, too; for instance, the "and" at the end of (b) introduces false parallelism, "being" in (c) is problematic, and "it" in (e) violates parallelism. post back if you don't understand any of these.

_________________
Being well-dressed gives a feeling of inward tranquillity [that] religion is powerless to bestow.
C.F. Forbes

hi Ron,
Can you please explain a bit more on why and it results in parallelism error? I saw the same usage in another GMAT prep question, "and it" would like to know when "and it" can be used in a correct way.

The proliferation of so-called cybersquatters, people who register the Internet domain names of high-profile companies in hopes of reselling the rights to those names for a profit, led to the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, which was passed in 1999, and it allows companies to seek up to $100000 in damages against those who register domain names with the sole intent to sell

The 32 species that make up the dolphin family are closely related to whales and in fact includes the animal known as the killer whale, which can grow to be 30 feet long and it is famous for its aggressive hunting pods.

(Please ingnore the other errors as they have been already described)
Thanks,
Raj

well, since "it VERB..." is an independent clause, you can't use "and it VERB..." unless you have another independent clause with which it is put in parallel.
this is the problem with the second example you've cited: you've got a list of two things, of the form "X and Y". this requires parallelism.
the "X" part is "whichcan grow to be 30 feet long", but the "Y" part is "it is famous..."
those aren't parallel.

in the first instance, there are two issues.
first, the only thing with which the "it..." clause could be properly parallel is the entire opening clause. if that's the case, then you have a problematic situation, because the pronoun "it" seems to stand for "the proliferation of so-called cybersquatters" (to which it's parallel), and not the intended antecedent (to which it isn't parallel).
second, the use of "and" just isn't appropriate here, because we aren't talking about two separate things. since this clause is a further description of the law itself, it should be attached as a modifier that describes the law.

_________________
Being well-dressed gives a feeling of inward tranquillity [that] religion is powerless to bestow.
C.F. Forbes

"32 species" is certainly plural.

Questions:

1) Is species a collective noun
2) So if the sentence was worded as The dolphin species is closely related to whales and in fact includes the animal known as the killer whale, which can grow to be 30 feet long and is famous for ...."

Then that would be correct?

- Thanks, Sankalp

no, although it's one of those nouns for which the singular and plural have the same form.
1 species, 2 species, 3 species, etc.

so it's not a collective noun, but you can't determine singular or plural simply by looking at it -- you have to use the surrounding context to figure that out.
in this case, the word "species" is preceded by the number 32, so it is clearly plural.



that sentence would be grammatically correct, but it would no longer be true, since a killer whale is not the same species as a dolphin.
in fact, you can't even write "the dolphin species is...", since there is substantially more than 1 species of dolphin -- there are common dolphins, bottlenose dolphins, commerson's dolphins, and so on.

the point is that the dolphin family -- which contains not only all of the aforementioned dolphin species, but also several other kinds of marine animals -- also contains killer whales. that point is no longer conveyed in your version.

if, on the other hand, your question is simply whether your version is grammatically correct -- as i suspect it is -- then, yes, your version is grammatically correct.

_________________
Being well-dressed gives a feeling of inward tranquillity [that] religion is powerless to bestow.
C.F. Forbes

Hi,Ron,

Could you explain why being in (c) is problematic?

Thank you !

Hi Ron,

about the above mentioned rule of "ING MODIFIER", does it be strictly followed in GMAT? I just met another 2 SC problems which confused me on this.The answers for the following 2 question both choose the "comma ing" form though that modifier shouldn't modify the whole preceding clause but just a noun.


First One:

The principal feature of the redesigned checks is a series of printed instructions that the company hopes will help merchants confirm a check's authenticity, which includes reminders to watch the endorsement, compare signatures, and view the watermark while holding the check to the light.

which includes reminders to watch the endorsement, compare signatures, and view

which include reminders for watching the endorsement, to compare signatures and view

by including reminders for watching the endorsement, comparing signatures, and viewing

including reminders to watch the endorsement, comparing signatures and viewing

including reminders to watch the endorsement, compare signatures, and view

Second one:
Many financial experts believe that policy makers at the Federal Reserve, now viewing the economy as balanced between moderate growth and low inflation, are almost certain to leave interest rates unchanged for the foreseeable future.

Reserve, now viewing the economy as balanced between moderate growth and low inflation, are

Reserve, now viewing the economy to be balanced between that of moderate growth and low inflation and are

Reserve who, now viewing the economy as balanced between moderate growth and low inflation, are

Reserve, who now view the economy to be balanced between that of moderate growth and low inflation, will be

Reserve, which now views the economy to be balanced between moderate growth and low inflation, is


Thank you in advance!

ah, yes.

important:
"INCLUDING" is an EXCEPTION to the otherwise robust rules for comma+ing modifiers.

when you see "comma + including", you should think of "including" as a preposition, not as an -ing modifier. therefore, "including X" will become a prepositional phrase that describes the stuff preceding the comma.

thanks for pointing this out / calling it to our attention -- we'll be sure to include it in our revised unit on modifiers in the course.



the reasoning doesn't apply to this one; those rules are only for comma+ing modifiers THAT FOLLOW CLAUSES.

you can ignore "Many financial experts believe that" -- that's just a "warmup" that doesn't affect the structure or grammar of the following clause. (test this statement by sticking it in front of any sentence at all).
therefore, that's just a nonessential modifier modifying the noun "policy makers at the FR". there's no clause to modify, so the rules about modifying clauses don't apply.

good questions.

_________________
Being well-dressed gives a feeling of inward tranquillity [that] religion is powerless to bestow.
C.F. Forbes

Hi Ron.
Thanks a lot for all the explaination...just one doubt, can I consider "grow to be" as idiom here?

Thanks

well, sure -- in this sense that you can consider it a legitimate wording. (it HAS to be a legitimate wording, since it appears in a correct answer.)

--

note, however, that this is not the issue here -- the choices that say “as big as 30 feet long” are eliminated because they can be viewed as either
(1) redundant -- containing both “big” and “long”
or
(2) literally untrue -- if you write “as big as X”, then X must be the actual thing whose size is under consideration. for instance, “as big as a truck” makes sense, but “as big as the size of a truck” doesn't (since the size doesn't have a size).

same is true for "faster than the speed of...", "taller than the height of...", etc. -- all wrong, for either of these two reasons

_________________
Being well-dressed gives a feeling of inward tranquillity [that] religion is powerless to bestow.
C.F. Forbes

The principal feature of the redesigned checks is a series of printed instructions that the company hopes will help merchants confirm a check's authenticity, which includes reminders to watch the endorsement, compare signatures, and view the watermark while holding the check to the light.

which includes reminders to watch the endorsement, compare signatures, and view

which include reminders for watching the endorsement, to compare signatures and view

by including reminders for watching the endorsement, comparing signatures, and viewing

including reminders to watch the endorsement, comparing signatures and viewing

including reminders to watch the endorsement, compare signatures, and view

Hi Ron,sorry, I did not get your point. What does include describe here. I thought it was 'Principal feature'. If it is describing 'Principal Feature' it is working as any other comma+ing modifier by modifying the subject of the sentence preceding the comma. Do you mean comma+including modifies immediate word before the comma like 'which' and 'that'. Request your clarification.

first, before giving any more judgments on this -- what's the source of this problem? i don't think that this is a GMAT PREP problem, since i've never seen it cited as such on any other site.
if this problem is not official, then it doesn't really count as a data point; we need to find out how gmac (and not any other source) feels about this issue.

_________________
Being well-dressed gives a feeling of inward tranquillity [that] religion is powerless to bestow.
C.F. Forbes

Hi Ron, this quesion haven't got answered, plus, about the problem you mentioned about B, could you give detailed explanations all together? Thank you!



As OG says "'as big as'is an idiomatically incorrect expression of the comparison" I wanna confirm, if "as big as 30 feet" is completely wrong, or ,as you said, it's a purly redundancy which means we can say either"as big as 30 feet" or "to be 30 feet long",but cannot combine them together.

Could you help me understand what "incorrect expression of the comparison" is about?

Thank you very much~