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Narwhals

by LulaBrazilia » Wed Feb 12, 2014 4:26 pm
Narwhals can be called whales of the ice: in icy channels, ponds, and ice-shielded bays they seek sanctuary from killer whales, their chief predator, and their annual migrations following the seasonal rhythm of advancing and retreating ice.

(A) their annual migrations following

(B) their annual migrations which follow

(C) their annual migrations follow

(D) whose annual migrations following

(E) whose annual migrations follow
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by Bill@VeritasPrep » Wed Feb 12, 2014 4:43 pm
After the colon, we have two clauses:

1. they seek sanctuary...
2. their migrations *verb*

The second one must be parallel to the first, so we need an answer that matches "seek".

Following in A and D is incorrect.

B and E place the verb we need (follow) into a relative clause, but we need to pair with "their migrations"

C works: "they seek sanctuary from killer whales..., and their annual migrations follow..."
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by Patrick_GMATFix » Wed Feb 12, 2014 4:48 pm
Notice that the underlined part starts with "and", so what follows is the end f a parallel structure. we must accurately complete "they seek sanctuary and...their migrations follow". The full solution below is taken from the GMATFix App.

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by parveen110 » Thu Feb 13, 2014 10:20 pm
Hi Patrick,

Your explanations are very helpful. I get to learn a lot from your videos. Thanks!

Could you please elaborate(if possible, with examples) why did you strike out choices containing whose and which again? I didn't quite understand it. Thanks.
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by Patrick_GMATFix » Fri Feb 14, 2014 1:26 am
Parveen thank you for your kind words. I still have a few licenses to the GMATFix App to give away and it looks like you are eligible; if you find my videos helpful, you will have access to tons of helpful material within the App. See my post here for more info.

Ok let's get back to the question at hand. Focusing on the sentence core, let's examine choices that use "whose" and "which"

B) [Narwhals] seek sanctuary from whales, and their migrations which follow the rythm

This is a sentence fragment; we would expect a verb after migrations to make the 2nd part match the first ("they seek sanctuary"). Pronoun "which" interferes with the parallel structure (compare to C).

D) [Narwhals] seek sanctuary from whales, and whose migrations following the rythm

E) [Narwhals] seek sanctuary from whales, and whose migrations follow the rythm

As D & E are written, "they seek...and whose migrations follow(ing)" is not a parallel construct. In both of these choices, the 2nd part is far from being parallel to the first. For "and whose" to be right, we would expect the first part of the construct to also be introduced with a relative pronoun as in the example below:

eg: Narwhals, which can be called whales of the ice, and whose migrations follow a rythm, seek sanctuary from killer whales.

By contrast, consider the right answer's parallel construct:

C) [Narwhals] seek sanctuary from whales, and their annual migrations follow the rythm.

Hope that helped,
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by aflaam » Mon Feb 15, 2016 8:43 pm
sorry to dig this old one,
Also D and E incorrect because their and whose (two different pronouns) have same antecedent ?
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by MartyMurray » Tue Feb 16, 2016 5:23 am
aflaam wrote:sorry to dig this old one,
Also D and E incorrect because their and whose (two different pronouns) have same antecedent ?
Look again at D and E. Given the most logical way of reading the sentences created using those choices, the pronouns have two different logical antecedents.

their refers to Narwhals, while whose seems to refer to killer whales.

In any case, a sentence in which their and whose refer to the same antecedent could be correctly constructed. Here's an example.

Narwhals, whose natural habitat is shrinking as the earth warms, seek sanctuary from their chief predators, killer whales.
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by conquistador » Wed Oct 19, 2016 5:52 am
LulaBrazilia wrote:Narwhals can be called whales of the ice: in icy channels, ponds, and ice-shielded bays they seek sanctuary from killer whales, their chief predator, and their annual migrations following the seasonal rhythm of advancing and retreating ice.

(A) their annual migrations following

(B) their annual migrations which follow

(C) their annual migrations follow

(D) whose annual migrations following

(E) whose annual migrations follow
I got confused by this inverted structure of the sentence.

In icy channels, ponds, and ice-shielded bays
  • they seek sanctuary from killer whales and
their annual migrations follow the seasonal rhythm of advancing and retreating ice.

It looks like half of the sentence is inverted and half is in simple form.
I believe it would have been better if it would look as below

they seek sanctuary from killer whales, their chief predator, in icy channels, ponds, and ice-shielded bays and their annual migrations follow the seasonal rhythm of advancing and retreating ice.
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