The parachutelike membranes of Africa’s scaly-tailed flying squirrels differ from those of the flying squirrels in the family Sciuridae because they are attached to a cartilage rod at the elbow instead of the wrist.
A. because they are attached to a cartilage rod at the elbow instead of
B. because of being attached to a cartilage rod at the elbow rather than at
C. in their attachment to a cartilage rod at the elbow instead of being attached at
D. in that they are attached to a cartilage rod at the elbow rather than at
E. in their being attached to a cartilage rod at the elbow instead of

This is GMATPREP question. Pls can you help me identify the right answer and also what are the errors in the wrong answer choices?

It's D.

Saurabh Malpani

Mr Chunti.why don't you clearly post the Official Answer with your questions..... whats the OA for this question ?

Hi Ron, I am not sure how to split the two questions in to two thread. Pls can you help me do that. Also following are the
OA for first one is -->"E"
OA for second one -->"D"

On the second question I am not sure how I could have narrowed down the answer to option D as it say's "in that they are attached to a cartilage rod at the elbow rather than at" why this is best and what "they" is referring to and what criteria one should use to narrow down in scenarios where there is confusion in identifying clear antecedent of a pronouns like in this question?

well, you have a point. remember that you are looking for totally unambiguous pronouns whenever possible - but, in some cases, there aren't any correct answers with totally unambiguous pronouns. this happens to be one of those cases.

the correct idiomatic expression with 'differ' is 'differ in...', so a-b are out. (if you said 'differ because', you'd have to give the reason behind the genesis of the difference, not the nature of the difference itself.) that leaves c-d-e, which all contain the supposedly ambiguous pronoun - so you're stuck with it.

:(