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Cod and Haddock

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by neonite » Tue May 25, 2010 3:02 am
This has been discussed before but without any conclusive answer:

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 is A . My question is that isn't "their" here ambiguous since we can't be sure what its refering to. Could be Cod and Haddock OR Monkfish.
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by pradeepkaushal9518 » Tue May 25, 2010 3:17 am
here their refers to monkfish

depletion through overfishing means fishing of monkfish
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by grockit_andrea » Tue May 25, 2010 4:18 am
Every choice here contains a potentially ambiguous pronoun, but since that problem is present in every option, you just have to look for other ways to eliminate the choices. Remember that you're not looking for the PERFECT version of the sentence, just for the BEST one available to you.
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by neonite » Tue May 25, 2010 4:24 am
Thanks Andrea.
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by Shawshank » Tue May 25, 2010 4:28 am
grockit_andrea wrote:Every choice here contains a potentially ambiguous pronoun, but since that problem is present in every option, you just have to look for other ways to eliminate the choices. Remember that you're not looking for the PERFECT version of the sentence, just for the BEST one available to you.
hi Andrea...

Can you explain the process of elimination here..???
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by Mylogin » Tue May 25, 2010 9:15 am
I am stuck on a basic question here -

Monkfish is singular here so how "their" can refer to it?

I thought D solves this problem by using "its" instead of "their", can someone help?
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by adi_800 » Tue May 25, 2010 9:26 am
Mylogin wrote:I am stuck on a basic question here -

Monkfish is singular here so how "their" can refer to it?

I thought D solves this problem by using "its" instead of "their", can someone help?
Fish is always plural... Same as police..
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by SmarpanGamt » Tue May 25, 2010 9:32 am
Mylogin wrote:I am stuck on a basic question here -

Monkfish is singular here so how "their" can refer to it?

I thought D solves this problem by using "its" instead of "their", can someone help?
Wat is OA ?

In "D" Usage of unlike is not II.

IMO C
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by SmarpanGamt » Tue May 25, 2010 9:34 am
grockit_andrea wrote:Every choice here contains a potentially ambiguous pronoun, but since that problem is present in every option, you just have to look for other ways to eliminate the choices. Remember that you're not looking for the PERFECT version of the sentence, just for the BEST one available to you.
Thanks andrea !

OA?
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by grockit_andrea » Tue May 25, 2010 12:43 pm
neonite wrote:This has been discussed before but without any conclusive answer:

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 is A . My question is that isn't "their" here ambiguous since we can't be sure what its refering to. Could be Cod and Haddock OR Monkfish.
I actually think that this is a tricky one, because none of the choices is ideal. My process of elimination here revolved around parallelism, though. Choice B isn't parallel because it compares "the size of monkfish that can be caught" to "cod and haddock." There's a similar issue in choice A, but choice A says "as there are for cod and haddock," which is just enough to make it acceptable. So B can be eliminated on the parallelism issue, and also for the placement of the modifier "a circumstance..." because it's right next to "cod and haddock," and appears to be modifying those fish instead of the monkfish.
The problem with choice C is fairly subtle. I think it's tough to determine here if the singular or plural pronoun is necessarily the correct choice, but the placement of the phrase "but not for monkfish" is a little confusing: although it's not logical, one could argue that it sounds like the monkfish are catching the cod and haddock without any legal limits.
D has the dreaded "being," and again has a parallelism issue similar to the one in B. Finally, E has a parallelism issue that's easier to see, because it compares a verb ("catching cod and haddock") to a noun ("legal size limits").
Like I said, I think this is a hard one, and A isn't what I would consider a "good" sentence; it's just the "least bad" sentence here.
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by SmarpanGamt » Wed May 26, 2010 8:25 pm
grockit_andrea wrote:
neonite wrote:This has been discussed before but without any conclusive answer:

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 is A . My question is that isn't "their" here ambiguous since we can't be sure what its refering to. Could be Cod and Haddock OR Monkfish.
I actually think that this is a tricky one, because none of the choices is ideal. My process of elimination here revolved around parallelism, though. Choice B isn't parallel because it compares "the size of monkfish that can be caught" to "cod and haddock." There's a similar issue in choice A, but choice A says "as there are for cod and haddock," which is just enough to make it acceptable. So B can be eliminated on the parallelism issue, and also for the placement of the modifier "a circumstance..." because it's right next to "cod and haddock," and appears to be modifying those fish instead of the monkfish.
The problem with choice C is fairly subtle. I think it's tough to determine here if the singular or plural pronoun is necessarily the correct choice, but the placement of the phrase "but not for monkfish" is a little confusing: although it's not logical, one could argue that it sounds like the monkfish are catching the cod and haddock without any legal limits.
D has the dreaded "being," and again has a parallelism issue similar to the one in B. Finally, E has a parallelism issue that's easier to see, because it compares a verb ("catching cod and haddock") to a noun ("legal size limits").
Like I said, I think this is a hard one, and A isn't what I would consider a "good" sentence; it's just the "least bad" sentence here.
Thanks Andrea..beautiful explaination...a problem of parallelism and modifiers
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by neha.patni » Thu May 27, 2010 5:26 am
neonite wrote:This has been discussed before but without any conclusive answer:

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 is A . My question is that isn't "their" here ambiguous since we can't be sure what its refering to. Could be Cod and Haddock OR Monkfish.
IMO A

All the other answers are wrong because of the following reasons:

A. Correct. Their can be ambiguous but as GMAT asks for the best answer choice, A is the best
B. cod and haddock wrongly interpreted as circumstance
C. mockfish wrongly interpreted as circumstance
D. legal size limits compared to cod and haddock
E. catching compared to cod and haddock
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