paper test 14 - 2

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paper test 14 - 2

by hopefully » Thu Jul 19, 2007 9:26 pm
Found throughout Central and South America, sloths hang from trees by long rubbery limbs and sleep fifteen hours a day, moving infrequently enough that two species of algae grow on its coat and between its toes.
(A) sloths hang from trees by long rubbery limbs and sleep fifteen hours a day, moving infrequently enough
(B) sloths hang from trees by long rubbery limbs, they sleep fifteen hours a day, and with such infrequent movements
(C) sloths use their long rubbery limbs to hang from trees, sleep fifteen hours a day, and move so infrequently
(D) the sloth hangs from trees by its long rubbery limbs, sleeping fifteen hours a day and moving so infrequently
(E) the sloth hangs from trees by its long rubbery limbs, sleeps fifteen hours a day, and it moves infrequently enough

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by jay2007 » Thu Jul 19, 2007 9:42 pm
Key: Parallelism

Answer: C

a - "moving" violates parallelism
b - "they sleep" violates parallelism
d - the sloth hangs ..., moving, sleeping - again violates parallelism
e - the sloth hangs, moves and it sleeps - again violates parallelism

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by winnerhere » Sat Jul 21, 2007 5:10 am
i think its E

C mentiones as though it uses its limbs to do all those things

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by ashishrs » Sat Jul 21, 2007 9:16 am
i think it's E...

key to answer i guess is "its coat and between its"

hence it has to be sloth and not sloths

what is the OA ?

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Re: paper test 14 - 2

by jayhawk2001 » Sun Jul 22, 2007 6:50 am
hopefully wrote:Found throughout Central and South America, sloths hang from trees by long rubbery limbs and sleep fifteen hours a day, moving infrequently enough that two species of algae grow on its coat and between its toes.
(A) sloths hang from trees by long rubbery limbs and sleep fifteen hours a day, moving infrequently enough
(B) sloths hang from trees by long rubbery limbs, they sleep fifteen hours a day, and with such infrequent movements
(C) sloths use their long rubbery limbs to hang from trees, sleep fifteen hours a day, and move so infrequently
(D) the sloth hangs from trees by its long rubbery limbs, sleeping fifteen hours a day and moving so infrequently
(E) the sloth hangs from trees by its long rubbery limbs, sleeps fifteen hours a day, and it moves infrequently enough
Using 2/3 rule, you can eliminate A, B and C for incorrectly using "sloths".
The non underlined part of the sentence says "its coat ... its toes" - you
need a singular subject here.

E looks parallel but uses an additional "it" which breaks the parallelism.
Also "infrequently enough" in E is awkward.

D looks good.

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by ashishrs » Sun Jul 22, 2007 9:43 am
E has singular noun sloth...

i'm not very much sure if D follows parallelism...hangs...sleeping...moving

Please correct me if i'm missing something
Last edited by ashishrs on Tue Jul 24, 2007 8:40 am, edited 1 time in total.

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by hopefully » Sun Jul 22, 2007 9:28 pm
OA id D

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by aimgmat » Thu Aug 23, 2007 6:38 am
Hi Jayhawk2001

What is the 2/3 rule ? How did u eliminate "slots" ?

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by erdnah » Thu Aug 23, 2007 7:13 am
aimgmat wrote:How did u eliminate "slots" ?
"... that two species of algae grow on its coat and between its toes" tells us that it must be "the sloth" (singular)

afaik means 2/3 split to find a difference between the answer choices and eliminate 2 or 3 of them?!

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My bet is on E

by Treeram » Thu Aug 23, 2007 9:52 pm
2/3 rule.. A,b,c eliminated

I am not convinced on D,

'it' , should be there , otherwise the sentence becomes a run-on sentence. When you have an independent clause , the object needs to be present.
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by BTGmoderatorRO » Thu Nov 09, 2017 8:34 am
Option A.
THis option is incorrect because of the use of 'sloth'
Sloth is a herbivorous, arboreal South American mammal.
It is wrong to pluralize it with the addiction of 's'
Option B.
THis option is also incorrect and suffers the same fate as option A.
The use of 'sloths' is inappropriate,which makes the option looks awkward
also it should be 'sleeps fifteen hours a day' and not 'sleep fifteen hours a day',this is because it happens everyday and it is a present continuous tense ..

Option C.
The option contains error of both option A and Option B.
apart from the two mistakes in the above option,Option C contains another grammatical error. 'sleep fifteen hours a day'. It is suppose to be 'sleeps fifteen hours a day'

Option D.
'sleeping'???? This is a present participle tense which means an ongoing action.At the moment of reporting that speech the sloths might not be sleeping,thus it is improper to use 'sleeping' also 'moving so infrequently' does not gives a good proper analysis and justification to the sentence.

Option E.
THIS IS THE CORRECT ANSWER!!!!!
First of all the use of 'the sloth' gave it a singular meaning because of the article 'the'.
'hangs from trees' singular verb
'sleeps fifteen hours a day' singular verb
'and it moves infrequently enough' singular verb.
We can see that this is the most suitable option that gives the best answer to the question,and it is also error free and grammatically correct.

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by ErikaPrepScholar » Mon Nov 13, 2017 5:48 am
Hey folks,

There's a lot of confusion about parallelism here, so we'll go through each answer choice one at a time:

A. "sloths" is plural, whereas "its" is singular. "Its" is not underlined and will not change, so we need the singular "sloth" to match it in the underlined portion. Eliminate.
B. "sloths" - eliminate.
C. "sloths" - eliminate.
D. This is where most of the confusion is happening. A key thing to recognize is that we don't have a list of three items here here - we have a modifier. Our sentence has one key verb: "the sloth hangs". Then we see a comma separating off the rest of the sentence, which starts with an "-ing" verb. When part of a sentence is set off with a comma (especially when it starts with an "-ing" verb), it's usually going to be a modifier - something that describes the part of the sentence before it. So "sleeping ... and moving ..." all describes the main part of the sentence. Note that we have parallelism within the modifier itself: "sleeping" and "moving". So this answer choice has nothing wrong with it.
E. This answer choice creates a list of three items, but the list isn't parallel: "the sloth, hangs, sleeps, and it moves". Eliminate.

Modifiers are tricky and tested a lot on the GMAT, so learn how to recognize them! One thing that can help: GMAT writers tend to use the Oxford comma. This means that when they write a list, they'll write "A, B, and C" rather than "A, B and C". In D, we see that there is no second comma, which means that we probably don't have a list - we have a modifier instead.
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