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arachnids

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arachnids

by Ankitaverma » Mon Dec 09, 2013 11:25 am
Unlike other arachnids, which have their nerve cells evenly distributed along their bodies, the scorpion's nerve cells are clustered in its head, like a mammal's.

(A) bodies, the scorpion's nerve cells are clustered in its head, like a mammal's
(B) bodies, the scorpion's head has a cluster of nerve cells, as a mammal does
(C) body, the scorpion has a cluster of nerve cells in its head, as a mammal does
(D) body, nerve cells are clustered in the scorpion's head, like a mammal's
(E) body, a cluster of nerve cells is in the scorpion's head, like a mammal's

Q/A-c why not a
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by Patrick_GMATFix » Mon Dec 09, 2013 4:44 pm
This tests modifier errors. First, to make sense of the sentence, ignore everything from "which have" to "their bodies". The original sentence becomes:
Unlike other arachnids, the scorpion's nerve cells are clustered in its head, like a mammal's.
"Unlike x, y" is a direct comparison in which x and y must be comparable. In this case, answer (A) is incorrect because it compares the scorpion's cells to other arachnids. A better answer would compare the scorpion itself to other arachnids.

We can use this realization to get rid of B (compares "the scorpion's head" to "other arachnids"), D (same as A), and E (compares "a cluster of cells" to "other arachnids".

answer C is correct because it correctly compares the scorpion itself to other arachnids.

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