There are no legal limits, as there are for cod and haddock, on the size of monkfish that can be caught, a circumstance that contributes to their depletion through overfishing.

(A) There are no legal limits, as there are for cod and haddock, on the size of monkfish that can be caught, a circumstance that contributes to their depletion through overfishing.
(B) There are no legal limits on the size of monkfish that can be caught, unlike cod or haddock, a circumstance that contributes to depleting them because they are being overfished.
(C) There are legal limits on the size of cod and haddock that can be caught, but not for monkfish, which contributes to its depletion through overfishing.
(D) Unlike cod and haddock, there are no legal size limits on catching monkfish, which contributes to its depletion by being overfished.
(E) Unlike catching cod and haddock, there are no legal size limits on catching monkfish, contributing to their depletion because they are overfished.
OA:A
a circumstance that contributes to their depletion through overfishing in the question,How can this be correct?Monkfish is a plural/singular?Is E not more parallel and an opt option.Please emphasize.

Monkfish, like fish, can be either singular or plural.

What elements do you understand to be contrasted in E? It seems to me that unlike contrasts catching cod and haddock with the entire clause there are no legal size limits on catching monkfish.

Like/unlike can only compare/contrast nouns. Catching cod and haddock could be a gerund (a type of noun),but there are no legal size limits on catching monkfish is by no means a noun.

None of the answers seems to be correct. Kindly help find where I’m wrong.

Analysis:
(A) There are no legal limits, as there are for cod and haddock, on the size of monkfish that can be caught, a circumstance that contributes to their depletion through overfishing.-
i) “as” introduces a clause not a phrase “as there are for cod and haddock”.
ii) “their” refers to “legal limits”. It may seem to refer to “monkfish” but in the preceding sentence the subject is “size of monkfish” not the “monkfish”

(B) There are no legal limits on the size of monkfish that can be caught, unlike cod or haddock, a circumstance that contributes to depleting them because they are being overfished.
i) “cod or haddock” is being compared to “legal limits”,
ii) “them” refers to “legal limits” or “cod or haddock”. It may seem to refer to “monkfish” but in the preceding sentence the subject is “size of monkfish” not the “monkfish”
iii) “being” is incorrect.

(C) There are legal limits on the size of cod and haddock that can be caught, but not for monkfish, which contributes to its depletion through overfishing.
i) “which” refers to “monkfish”

(D) Unlike cod and haddock, there are no legal size limits on catching monkfish, which contributes to its depletion by being overfished.
i) “cod and haddock” are compared to “legal size limits”

(E) Unlike catching cod and haddock, there are no legal size limits on catching monkfish, contributing to their depletion because they are overfished.
i) “catching cod and haddock” is compared to “legal size limits on catching monkfish”

I agree with the previous post. There does not seem to be a correct answer...There is not even a "best" answer as there is supposed to be in the verbal section. I picked E and still believe that is probably the best of all these wrong answers.

(i)
introducing a clause is exactly what "as" is supposed to do in comparisons. why did you think this was an error?
in comparisons, "as" should be followed by a clause; "like" should be followed by a noun (or noun plus modifiers, if there are any of those).

(ii)
there are lots and lots and lots of officially correct problems with ambiguous pronouns; this is just one of them.
for a discussion of that particular topic, see here:
post40400.html#p40400

choice (a) is just fine. it's not the prettiest sentence in the world, but it's certainly not incorrect.

Yes, excellent answer, as usual.

Hi,

Apologies for bringing this question again. I understand that its slightly un-GMAT like. I am confused by the comparison made in A..There are no legal limits, as there are for cod and haddock, on the size of monkfish that can be caught

Isn't this comparing "No legal limits for cod and haddock with legal limits on the size of monkfish". I have read all the forum threads which spot other reasons why A is the best choice, but technically, this comparison is baffling me.

Help please

what exactly is baffling you?
the sentence is stating a contrast: condition X is true for cod and haddock, but false for monkfish.

here's another example, similarly constructed:
[i]There is no snow in Los Angeles, as there is in more northern locations.

Ron,

would this be correct?

There are legal limits on the size of cod and haddock, but none on the size of monkfish that can be caught, contributing to their depletion.

I suspect its incorrect, since "that can be caught" is only stated in the 2nd part of the two supposedly parallel structures..How would you correct it if that's the issue? (w avoiding repetition of course:
There are legal limits on the size of cod and haddock that can be caught, but none on the size of monkfish that can be caught, contributing to their depletion.

Thanks

Hi Ron,

Its not a mandatory rule that as compares only clauses.
As is generally used to compare clause and it means 'In capacity of',i have and example in OG11(pearl and genes question)where as is used to compare phrase which is acting a modifier.

Parthian, I would simply add a comma before "that" to fix the parallelism problem. I don't like how that final phrase ends up looking, though..

Arnab, you are wrong about the OG11 question. The correct answer uses "like" to compare two nouns. There is no indication that "as" is correctly used to do anything in that problem..

_________________
Tim Sanders
Manhattan GMAT Instructor