[size=18]Yellow jackets number among the 900 or so species of the world’s social wasps, wasps living in a highly cooperative and organized society where they consist almost entirely of females—the queen and her sterile female workers.

A. wasps living in a highly cooperative and organized society where they consist almost entirely of
B. wasps that live in a highly cooperative and organized society consisting almost entirely of
C. which means they live in a highly cooperative and organized society, almost all
D. which means that their society is highly cooperative, organized, and it is almost entirely
E. living in a society that is highly cooperative, organized, and it consists of almost all


Answer is B, what's wrong with A?

They is not ambiguous since the only plural noun is WASPS[/size]

In A "they consist" is wrong. Wasps don't consist of... society does

I thought "wasps that" construction in choice B was wrong.
", wasps" is redefining the wasps mentioned in previous part, so we don't need another restrictive that clause.

Apperantly my understanding is wrong, Tutors could you please explain ", wasps that...' construction in B.

Thanks
Pathik

your analysis of choice a is 100% correct.

choice b features a rather strange-looking usage of a very common construction: the use of an appositive phrase (a noun phrase with no introductory words) to define a term, in this case 'social wasps'.

here's an example:
seamen distinguish flotsam, goods floating on seawater after a shipwreck from jetsam, goods thrown overboard by the crew of a ship.
you've probably seen this construction many times. it's weird-looking in this problem, though, because of the apparent repetition of 'wasps'.

but here's the story: the term being defined is 'social wasps'.
therefore, there's actually no redundancy: you need to think about 'wasps' and 'social wasps' as two completely different words. once you think about it that way, the sentence is just like the flotsam/jetsam example above, which should be noncontroversial.

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as long as we're on the topic of flotsam, jetsam, and other goods at sea, let's not forget 'lagan', which is goods that have sunk to the bottom. learn a new thing every day!