Sentence Correction

The first detailed study of magpie attacks in Australia indicates that by the time they had reached adulthood, 98 percent of men and 75 percent of women born in country have been attacked by the birds.


a) by the time they had reached adulthood, 98 percent of men and 75 percent of women born in country have been attacked by the birds.

b) by the time they reach adulthood, 98 percent of men and 75 percent of women, who were born in the country, had been attacked by birds.

c) by the time they reach adulthood, 98 percent of men and 75 percent of the women born in the country had been attacked by the birds.

d) 98 percent of the men and 75 percent of the women that were born in the country were attacked by the birds by the time they reach adulthood.

e) 98 percent of men and 75 percent of women who were born in the country, by the time they reached adulthood had been attacked by birds

[email protected] wrote:Hi abhasjha,

This SC is "quirky" - it doesn't quite follow the common patterns that the GMAT uses for pronoun and verb rules.

1) Noun-Noun "match": The early part of the sentence refers to magpie attacks (a "magpie" is a type of bird); the sentence goes on to describe how a high percentage of people born in the country are attacked by this SPECIFIC type of bird. Some answers use the phrase "the birds", while some use "birds." We need a specific reference to the magpie, so we need "THE birds." Eliminate B and E.

2) Verbs: Since the study references information that was collected in the past about events that happened FURTHER in the past, the verb "had" is required (specifically "had been attacked"). Eliminate A and D.

Final Answer: C

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich

(c)- "by the time they reach.." simple present tense then there is "had been" ..

whoa..this is incompatible

sukkhi wrote:

[email protected] wrote:Hi abhasjha,

This SC is "quirky" - it doesn't quite follow the common patterns that the GMAT uses for pronoun and verb rules.

1) Noun-Noun "match": The early part of the sentence refers to magpie attacks (a "magpie" is a type of bird); the sentence goes on to describe how a high percentage of people born in the country are attacked by this SPECIFIC type of bird. Some answers use the phrase "the birds", while some use "birds." We need a specific reference to the magpie, so we need "THE birds." Eliminate B and E.

2) Verbs: Since the study references information that was collected in the past about events that happened FURTHER in the past, the verb "had" is required (specifically "had been attacked"). Eliminate A and D.

Final Answer: C

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich

(c)- "by the time they reach.." simple present tense then there is "had been" ..

whoa..this is incompatible

You are perfectly right. The only answer choice that fixes the temporal issue would be (E), but it is extremely awkward. I believe that there has been a typing issue with the answer and indeed had (C) been like this "by the time they reached adulthood, 98 percent of men and 75 percent of women born in the country had been attacked by the birds." it would have been correct.

The most reasonable assumption is that the guy who posted the question typed it wrong and Rich misread it. Please guys make sure that the questions you are posting do not in the first place contain errors. There are people who just look at the answer and do not read the explanations. Each question teaches or reinforces some concepts and If they read this one they may end up thinking that the correlation between present and past perfect is okay.

hope it helps
-TathastuGMAT