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Ground-breaking work of Barbara McClintock

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Ground-breaking work of Barbara McClintock

by kvitkod » Mon Apr 25, 2011 9:25 am
As a result of the ground-breaking work of Barbara McClintock, many scientists now believe that all of the information encoded in 50,000 to 100,000 of the different genes found in a human cell are contained in merely three percent of the cell's DNA.
(A) 50,000 to 100,000 of the different genes found in a human cell are contained in merely
(B) 50,000 to 100,000 of the human cell's different genes are contained in a mere
(C) the 50,000 to 100,000 different genes found in human cells are contained in merely
(D) 50,000 to 100,000 of human cell's different genes is contained in merely
(E) the 50,000 to 100,000 different genes found in a human cell is contained in a mere

OA E. [spoiler]This sentence has been posted and discussed several times. The reasons for choice E are mere/merely and is/are.[/spoiler]
Could smb explain, what does THE/no THE at the beginning of the choices mean? When do we use THE before the figures?

Whether the phrase "all of XXX" (eg "all of the information") has always single, rather than plural meaning?

Thank you in advance,
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by atulmangal » Mon Apr 25, 2011 10:08 am
kvitkod wrote:As a result of the ground-breaking work of Barbara McClintock, many scientists now believe that all of the information encoded in 50,000 to 100,000 of the different genes found in a human cell are contained in merely three percent of the cell's DNA.
(A) 50,000 to 100,000 of the different genes found in a human cell are contained in merely
(B) 50,000 to 100,000 of the human cell's different genes are contained in a mere
(C) the 50,000 to 100,000 different genes found in human cells are contained in merely
(D) 50,000 to 100,000 of human cell's different genes is contained in merely
(E) the 50,000 to 100,000 different genes found in a human cell is contained in a mere

OA E. [spoiler]This sentence has been posted and discussed several times. The reasons for choice E are mere/merely and is/are.[/spoiler]
Could smb explain, what does THE/no THE at the beginning of the choices mean? When do we use THE before the figures?

Whether the phrase "all of XXX" (eg "all of the information") has always single, rather than plural meaning?

Thank you in advance,
THE i believe is placed before NOUNS..in terms of parts of speech...THE is a DEFINITE ARTICLE...

In this question if u don't place THE...as in OP D

U get something encoded in " 50,000 to 100,000"---> makes no sense

while in Op E

information encoded in "the 50,000 to 100,000 different genes"...makes sense and as i told THE placed before NOUN and here NOUN is Genes...so information encoded in genes makes sense..

another question:

"all of XXX" ---> sing/plural verb

it depends on XXX...if XXX is plural, verb is plural and vice versa..

All of the boys are...
All of the information is...

these special pronouns are called SANAM pronouns...see that in Manhattan guide...in case of these pronouns...the VERB is influenced by the Object of preposition followed by that pronoun..

as u see above...All of the boys are...All of the information is..

object of preposition is boys/information

Hope this help
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by Brian@VeritasPrep » Mon Apr 25, 2011 12:00 pm
Great reply, Atul - really impressive!

I'd just add this to the initial question about the word "the" at the start of the correct answer. If you look at it logically, without the word "the", the sentence basically says:

...the information encoded in some of the genes is contained...

Because we don't know whether that 50,000 to 100,000 is all or just some of the cells. And that's an awkward setup - is 50-100,000 a limited number of genes? In that case, this is a fairly small discovery. Is it most of the genes but not all? Then what do we know about the rest?

Logically, "the" makes sense because it makes for a perfectly clear meaning: "all of the information in all of the many genes found in a human cell" - that's ground-breaking research!
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by atulmangal » Mon Apr 25, 2011 7:42 pm
@Brian

Thanks for your Post and your post added more clarity regarding the use of THE

Thanks and Best Regards
Atul
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by champmag » Tue Apr 26, 2011 1:35 am
Adding to the explination given by Atul and David

The key to elimination in this question is the word 'information'.

Information is a singular term so eliminate A,B,C which use the plural verb 'are' for information.

Between D and E, D is awkward ----'human cell's different genes' and the use of adverb 'merely' is incorrect.

Merely is an adverb and cannot be used to define 'three percent of cell's DNA' which is a noun phrase.

Thus the correct answer is E.
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by mundasingh123 » Tue Apr 26, 2011 5:22 am
Brian@VeritasPrep wrote:Great reply, Atul - really impressive!

I'd just add this to the initial question about the word "the" at the start of the correct answer. If you look at it logically, without the word "the", the sentence basically says:

...the information encoded in some of the genes is contained...

Because we don't know whether that 50,000 to 100,000 is all or just some of the cells. And that's an awkward setup - is 50-100,000 a limited number of genes? In that case, this is a fairly small discovery. Is it most of the genes but not all? Then what do we know about the rest?

Logically, "the" makes sense because it makes for a perfectly clear meaning: "all of the information in all of the many genes found in a human cell" - that's ground-breaking research!
That Means E changes the Meaning of the original sentence. I thought D has the error that a possessive noun is attributed to an inanimate object .That is Human cell is an inanimate object so human cell's is wrong.
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