Sentence Correction

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.

my answer is A

b,e & d) faulty comparison using unlike
c) wordy, awkward

Two questions on A -

1. What is their referring to monkfish or cod or haddock
2. Subject verb agreement between monkfish and their

For me A is wrong because it uses their. The sentence clearly means that the monkfish is being depleted and NOT C & H because there are limits on them.

MF is singular and their is wrong. A/B/E wrong for same reason

D is wrong because it compares C & H with legal limits and not MF

C does not look good either because which seems to refer to MF

Can which refer to the whole modifier "There are legal limits on the size of cod and haddock that can be caught". AFAIK, which can refer to a noun/thing.

If which can refer to the whole modifier C is my pick.

Whats the OA?

whats wrong with E?

netigen,
A is correct

monkfish is a collective noun and in this conext it is used as plural

https://dictionary.reference.com/browse/monkfish

Thier is referring to monkfish because it is the nearest noun. The grammar definition of pronoun usage says 'pronoun referes to nearest reasonable noun'

Whew! So we are supposed to know when the Q says monkfish, monkfish is actually NOT a type of fish but refers to all species of fish with particular traits

chidcguy,

I understand your pain.

I don't think such question will ever appear on GMAT because to answer this question you need to know plularity of the noun. I haven't seen any question like this is OGs

This question is actually an ex GMAT question.

Ex gmat question

whts the OA.. IMO its C.

OA is A

I gave the gmat prep today and got this question wrong..
was confused with ''its'' and 'their' too...

I guess the catch is, if monkfish would have preceeded by a ''the'', making it ''the monkfish'', then I guess we would have ''its'' as the noun.,....
any idea
??

well i picked A by POE. Didn't even go as far as searching 'their' in the original sentence ..C is wrong because of which after comma. it can only refer to preceding noun 'monkfish', and that makes this choice wrong.

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.
Correct

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.
Wrong comparison....unlike XYZ compared to what....

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.
But not is not a correct idiom for comparing in GMAT...GMAT uses rather than, instead of and unlike....Also which is wrongly modifying monkfish....sentence want to say that having no limits is the reason.....

D. Unlike cod and haddock, there are no legal size limits on catching monkfish, which contributes to its depletion by being overfished.
Wrong comparison...unlike XYZ...to what ?

E. Unlike catching cod and haddock, there are no legal size limits on catching monkfish, contributing to their depletion because they are overfished.
Wrong comparison...unlike XYZ...to what ?