Monkfish

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theCodeToGMAT: Legendary Member; Posts: 1556; Joined: Tue Aug 14, 2012 11:18 pmFollowed by: 34 members; Thanked: 448 times; GMAT Score:650

by theCodeToGMAT » Sat Oct 05, 2013 4:56 am

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.

[spoiler]OA: Is Monkfish Plural???[/spoiler]

R A H U L

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Source: Beat The GMAT — Sentence Correction | Sat Oct 05, 2013 4:56 am

rakeshd347: Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts; Posts: 391; Joined: Sat Mar 02, 2013 5:13 amFollowed by: 4 members; Thanked: 50 times

by rakeshd347 » Sat Oct 05, 2013 5:17 am

theCodeToGMAT wrote: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.

[spoiler]OA: Is Monkfish Plural???[/spoiler]

I think A should be the correct answer.
Monkfish is collective noun and monkfish is 2-3 different breed of fishes. So it is plural noun. However, If you use "the" before monkfish then it will become singular.

B D and E has wrong comparison.
C is out because which refers to monkfish...and sound like monkfish contributes to their own depletion...illogical.

A is the only answer which is logical, correct and uses the plural their for monkfish.

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vinay1983: Legendary Member; Posts: 643; Joined: Wed Aug 14, 2013 4:27 amFollowed by: 7 members; Thanked: 48 times

by vinay1983 » Sat Oct 05, 2013 5:42 am

theCodeToGMAT wrote: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.

[spoiler]OA: Is Monkfish Plural???[/spoiler]

Fish is "plural" so i think the same applies here too. However I would concentrate on what the sentence is trying to convey.

Since there is no limitation on the size of monkfish that can be caught, so this is leading to their extinction/depletion.Any option, which can give this meaning is correct. Let us look at the options:

A-Bingo!

B-According to "Ron", parallelism is from right to left, so "unlike cod and haddock" so there must be
"monkfish" in the previous part, but that is not the case, so out

C- Incorrect usage of "which"

D-Same as C

E-same as B

Should be A

Aside I think we are supposed to worry about "the size of monkfish" here rather than monkfish. It does not seem to be the only subject here.

Also "haddock" brings back memories of "Captain Haddock" of Tintin

You can, for example never foretell what any one man will do, but you can say with precision what an average number will be up to!

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theCodeToGMAT: Legendary Member; Posts: 1556; Joined: Tue Aug 14, 2012 11:18 pmFollowed by: 34 members; Thanked: 448 times; GMAT Score:650

by theCodeToGMAT » Sat Oct 05, 2013 5:55 am

uff.. one day I will definitely doubt that I am singular or plural..

R A H U L

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ani781: Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts; Posts: 141; Joined: Fri Jun 24, 2011 4:35 amFollowed by: 1 member; Location: Edison; Thanked: 12 times

by ani781 » Sat Oct 05, 2013 7:03 am

B-According to "Ron", parallelism is from right to left, so "unlike cod and haddock" so there must be
"monkfish" in the previous part, but that is not the case, so out

@Vinay : Can you explain this pls ?

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vinay1983: Legendary Member; Posts: 643; Joined: Wed Aug 14, 2013 4:27 amFollowed by: 7 members; Thanked: 48 times

by vinay1983 » Sat Oct 05, 2013 8:10 am

ani781 wrote:
B-According to "Ron", parallelism is from right to left, so "unlike cod and haddock" so there must be
"monkfish" in the previous part, but that is not the case, so out
@Vinay : Can you explain this pls ?

I would love to explain this, but it is tough. I have the video though, you can view it. PM me your mail id I would do it.

You can, for example never foretell what any one man will do, but you can say with precision what an average number will be up to!

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by [email protected] » Sat Oct 05, 2013 2:16 pm

Hi All,

What is the source for this question? I only ask because the "construction" of the question and some of its wrong answers aren't quite in line with with the construction of typical GMAT SCs.

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
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rakeshd347: Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts; Posts: 391; Joined: Sat Mar 02, 2013 5:13 amFollowed by: 4 members; Thanked: 50 times

by rakeshd347 » Sat Oct 05, 2013 5:25 pm

[email protected] wrote:Hi All,

What is the source for this question? I only ask because the "construction" of the question and some of its wrong answers aren't quite in line with with the construction of typical GMAT SCs.

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

Hi Rich,

I was surprised too. But it is a GMatprep test 2 question. So official question. Initially I thought Gmat doesn't give such an awkward SC but thats the fact they have given.

Thanks,
Rakesh

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by [email protected] » Sat Oct 05, 2013 5:54 pm

Hi rakeshd347,

The GMAT goes through a rigorous "testing phase" to determine whether a question is "fair" or "not." If a question is determined to be "unfair", at any point in the process, then the question is eliminated/discounted. This question might not ever have gotten past the "testing phrase" and counted as a legitimate question on a real GMAT exam, but it could have gotten far enough to show up as an "experimental" question, which is why it's in GMATPrep2.

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

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lunarpower: GMAT Instructor; Posts: 3380; Joined: Mon Mar 03, 2008 1:20 amFollowed by: 1535 members; Thanked: 2256 times; GMAT Score:800

by lunarpower » Sun Oct 13, 2013 2:34 am

I received a private message about this thread.

The whole "parallelism from right to left" thing arises naturally from the way you read sentences. Basically, if there are two parallel elements in a sentence, the reader doesn't know that there are two parallel elements ... until reaching the second one. At that point, there's going to be a "signal" (like and, or or, or any of a zillion others) that indicates "Hey, reader, this is the second half of a parallel structure."

E.g.,
I had plans to watch a movie at the theater across the street and to eat dinner with my brother.

As you're reading, you don't know there's parallelism until you get here:
I had plans to watch a movie at the theater across the street and to eat dinner with my brother.

Ok, now we know that "to eat dinner" is the SECOND part (right-hand part) of the parallel structure.

So now we go back and find the first part.

I had plans to watch a movie at the theater across the street and to eat dinner with my brother.

Ron has been teaching various standardized tests for 20 years.

--

Pueden hacerle preguntas a Ron en castellano
Potete chiedere domande a Ron in italiano
On peut poser des questions Ã Ron en franÃ§ais
Voit esittÃ¤Ã¤ kysymyksiÃ¤ Ron:lle myÃ¶s suomeksi

--

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ngalinh: Senior | Next Rank: 100 Posts; Posts: 68; Joined: Thu Jul 29, 2010 8:05 pmFollowed by: 1 member; Thanked: 3 times

by ngalinh » Mon Oct 14, 2013 6:41 pm

theCodeToGMAT wrote:uff.. one day I will definitely doubt that I am singular or plural..

cute!!

at 10:00pm, I thought "monkfish" or "fish" or "human" or "flower" is singular because it's just a name (or "label"-Ron's word).
but at 10:01pm I thought it must be plural because "fish" means all kind of fish, human means all types of human: male/female/middle...

so, I think it depends on what the "person" who has the right to rule our thinking in this test means

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sana.noor: Legendary Member; Posts: 512; Joined: Mon Jun 18, 2012 11:31 pmFollowed by: 20 members; Thanked: 42 times

by sana.noor » Mon Oct 14, 2013 8:12 pm

its A by the way this question doesnt sound like a gmat question.

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. (its the right option)

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. (Unlike cod or Haddock isnt parallel to lgeal limits, "them" refering 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. (which contributes? which is just after monkish and it seems monkish contributes to its depletion)

D. Unlike cod and haddock, there are no legal size limits on catching monkfish, which contributes to its depletion by being overfished.(unlike code and haddock isnt parallel to legal size, "which" is again a bad choice

E. Unlike catching cod and haddock, there are no legal size limits on catching monkfish,
contributing to their depletion because they are overfished. (unlike catching and haddock isnt parallel to legal size)

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by lunarpower » Mon Oct 14, 2013 9:29 pm

ngalinh wrote:
theCodeToGMAT wrote:at 10:00pm, I thought "monkfish" or "fish" or "human" or "flower" is singular because it's just a name (or "label"-Ron's word).
but at 10:01pm I thought it must be plural because "fish" means all kind of fish, human means all types of human: male/female/middle...

so, I think it depends on what the "person" who has the right to rule our thinking in this test means :)
Two things here.

1/
To summarize... You thought of one interpretation that works, and another that doesn't.
To that I say:
Ok, you found an interpretation that works! Where's the problem? Just ignore the interpretation that doesn't work.

2/
In this context, there's no doubt that "monkfish" is plural. If you don't understand why, just replace it with something like "shark(s)".
There are no limits on the size of shark that can be caught. --> Nope.
There are no limits on the size of sharks that can be caught. --> Yep.
It's "sharks". Not "shark". So "monkfish" here is like "sharks".

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by lunarpower » Mon Oct 14, 2013 9:32 pm

sana.noor wrote:its A by the way this question doesnt sound like a gmat question.

This question is in the gmat prep software. I've seen it with my own eyes.

Regarding "this question doesn't sound like a gmat question" -- If you are a non-native speaker of English, that kind of thing is almost impossible to judge. You're better off not thinking about it.
(Incidentally, this is why GMAT SC tests objective aspects of grammar and meaning, and not "style" or "awkwardness". That way it doesn't discriminate against non-native speakers of the language.)

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sana.noor: Legendary Member; Posts: 512; Joined: Mon Jun 18, 2012 11:31 pmFollowed by: 20 members; Thanked: 42 times

by sana.noor » Mon Oct 14, 2013 9:54 pm

Thanks Ron!
is my reasoning about wrong choices right? i am not a native English speaker but i work really hard to improve my SC.

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