Alpacas' fleece is worth surprisingly little compared to their market value ; a top breeding specimen bringing upwards of $100000 even if five pounds of fleece fetches only $80 to $240.

A] Alpacas' fleece is worth surprisingly little compared to their market value ; a top breeding specimen bringing upwards of $100000 even if five pounds of fleece fetches
--> the second part after semicolon should be standalone. Here its not. Also fetches should agree with plural five pounds.

B] Alpacas' fleece is worth surprisingly little in comparison with its market value ; a top breeding specimen bringing upwards of $100000 while five pounds of fleece fetches
--> same error as A

C] The fleece of the alpaca is worth surprisingly little compared to its market value, while a top breeding specimen can bring upwards $100000 even though five pounds of fleece fetch
-->
this whole sentence can be counted as two standalones joined by comma, we need a connector to connect two full sentences.
usage of "even though" and "while" is ambiguous. Also "ITS" is ambiguous either FLEECE or ALPACA

D] The fleece of alpaca is worth surprisingly little compared to the animal's market value; a top breeding specimen can bring upwards of $100000 while five pounds of fleece fetch
--> CORRECT

E] The worth of the alpaca's fleece is surprisingly little compared to the animal's market value; a top breeding specimen can bring upwards of $100000 even though five pounds of fleece fetches
--> FETCHES should match plural five pounds.

D is only correct one.

Hope this clarifies...!!

Good one. killer has nailed it.

Whenever semi colon is used the two clauses need to be independent. In B the usage of its referring to Alpaca's fleece is right but whenever you find a better option replacing a possessive pronoun with actual noun prefer that option as in D. I narrowed to D to E immediately when I saw the usage of animal's in those options.

sam2304 wrote:Good one. killer has nailed it.

Whenever semi colon is used the two clauses need to be independent. In B the usage of its referring to Alpaca's fleece is right but whenever you find a better option replacing a possessive pronoun with actual noun prefer that option as in D. I narrowed to D to E immediately when I saw the usage of animal's in those options.

The pronoun is fine in B in terms of agreement, but the sentence is not talking about the market value of the fleece. It's talking about the value of the alpaca itself. That's why D is the better option.

Yes, got it... Basically this sentence tests pronoun agreement, subject-verb agreement and meaning in the sentence.

It also uses the idiom 'compared to'. 'Compared to' is used when comparing things between two unlike things.

In the option C, the alpaca's fleece' worth is compared to its own market value which is comparing the two things which are similar or like.

So either 'Compared with' should be used or the rest of the sentence should be modified.

That is what is happening in the option D. In Option D, the sentence compares the worth of the animal with the animal itself. And so unlike things being compared and so we have the option D as the correct answer...


Anyways thank you killer 1387 for the explanation...