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Neanderthals had a vocal tract

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by catfreak » Thu Sep 08, 2011 9:14 pm
Nice little tip.
EducationAisle wrote:
stormier wrote:Is it wrong to say that a singular item resembles multiple items, as in - My television resembles the televisions of my neighbors?

Neandrethals had a vocal tract that resembled those (vocal tracts) of the apes ?
It is not wrong to say:

My television resembles the televisions of my neighbors.

But, it is wrong to say:

My television resembles those of my neighbors.

In the above sentence, those is intended to refer to televisions, but there is no televisions mentioned in the sentence, only television. Hence, you must repeat televisions.

Similarly, the correct sentence would be:

Neandrethals had a vocal tract that resembled vocal tracts of the apes.
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by navami » Fri Sep 09, 2011 9:53 am
B
This time no looking back!!!
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by prashant misra » Fri Sep 09, 2011 10:36 pm
i chose the option A as it sounds more appropriate to me.i am still confused between A and B as in option A it clearly refers to the vocal tracts of the apes though there is a number disagreement but it sounds more appropriate to me.anyone just provide a better explanation to my question
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by gunjan1208 » Fri Sep 09, 2011 11:33 pm
I shall go with B.

1. Subject has to be Neanderthal.(Make sense for rest of the sentence)
2. Tract is singular and second appostrophe follows the rule.


What is OA?
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by Deependra1 » Sun Sep 11, 2011 5:59 am
Answer: A?
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by asgupta2k » Mon Oct 03, 2011 11:57 am
B. for me.
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by praveenpurwar2004 » Sun Nov 06, 2011 10:48 pm
The sentence requires a subject appropriate to both members
of a compound predicate, the second member being and so
were probably without language. B, the best choice,
logically uses Neanderthals as the subject. Choice A also
uses this subject, but the plural pronoun those does not
agree with its singular antecedent, a vocal tract. C, D, and E
present the inappropriate subject vocal tracts, which cannot
logically govern the second member of the predicate (i.e.,
vocal tracts cannot be said to be without language).
Moreover, it is better to use the singular in referring to an
anatomical feature common to an entire species; C, D, and E
use the plural vocal tracts. D compounds the problem by
giving multiple vocal tracts to one Neanderthal.
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by s1s1s1 » Fri Nov 11, 2011 7:59 am
good one
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by ReyWilli » Wed Dec 14, 2011 3:04 pm
IMO A.

(D) says "tracts" were without language.
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by karthikpandian19 » Wed Jan 04, 2012 4:15 am
What is the OA for this question?

Can any GMAT instructor clarify on this tussle between B & E?
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by Stacey Koprince » Mon Jan 09, 2012 10:18 am
I don't post on the forums any longer but will answer this one quickly. :)

B is the official answer.

E is incorrect because it has a pronoun issue: the subject of the first clause is "vocal tracts" and the "they" pronoun later in the sentence is also a subject pronoun, which implies that it is referring back to the earlier subject, vocal tracts. Logically, though, "they" should be referring to Neanderthals.

Because the structure appears to point to one plural noun and the logic appears to point to another, we have pronoun ambibuity. Incorrect.

Answer B doesn't sound great. Know why? Because they have to make right answers sound not so great as the questions get harder. Otherwise, we'll all just pick the best-sounding answer and it'll be right and no questions will ever be hard. (Remember that the definition of hard is "most people get it wrong" - so how are they going to get most people to get it wrong if it sounds great?) :)

B sounds funny because of the "Neanderthals have a vocal tract" bit. When you are discussing a characteristic of an entire species, it is perfectly correct to make that characteristic singular.

Human beings have a nose.
Cows have a four-chambered stomach.

The reason we usually see such sentences written in this way? Contrast these two sentences:
Human beings have a nose.
Human beings have noses.

If you encounter a member of this species, the "human being," how many noses will you expect it to have?
;)
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by MQ0451 » Sun Feb 19, 2012 11:09 am
Yeah, it's B. There is confusion as to should vocal tracts be singular or plural. It should be singular, and to prove it, here is an example, and then I'll explain:

"Foxes can be easily spotted by their long orange tail."

This is a simpler example, but as you can see, the foxes have a singular tail. This is because we are talking about an identifying feature of the fox species, not a group of foxes. It is unambiguous what we are talking about - clearly foxes don't share a tail. And if we pluralized it, it becomes long orange tails, which sounds like they have more than one tail on their bodies. Thus we prove that singular features can apply to describing a species, and thus Neanderthals can also share a singular vocal tract.
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by sravanth » Thu Mar 08, 2012 4:39 am
IMHO: B

Let's go through the sentence once again...

Neanderthals had a vocal tract that resembled those of the apes (Stop here)

This is the first mistake...a singular tract is compared with multiple tracts (those). So this should be rectified.

A and C can be eliminated on this basis.

D says "The Neanderthal's vocal tracts...". One Neanderthal cannot have multiple tracts. Sounds illogical. This can be eliminated.

So, we are left with B and E.

Now go on, finish the rest of the sentence...

..and so were probably without language, (Stop here)

Here, "so were" after the conjunction refers to the subject "Neanderthals", which means "...and so Neanderthals were..."

But E begins with "The vocal tracts of the Neanderthals...", which changes the subject of the original sentence from "Neanderthals" to "Vocal tracts", hence the meaning of the second part will be changed to "...and so vocal tracts were..."

So, E can be eliminated.

B is the correct choice!
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by shubhamkumar » Fri Mar 30, 2012 7:09 am
Stacey Koprince wrote:I don't post on the forums any longer but will answer this one quickly. :)

B is the official answer.

E is incorrect because it has a pronoun issue: the subject of the first clause is "vocal tracts" and the "they" pronoun later in the sentence is also a subject pronoun, which implies that it is referring back to the earlier subject, vocal tracts. Logically, though, "they" should be referring to Neanderthals.

Because the structure appears to point to one plural noun and the logic appears to point to another, we have pronoun ambibuity. Incorrect.

Answer B doesn't sound great. Know why? Because they have to make right answers sound not so great as the questions get harder. Otherwise, we'll all just pick the best-sounding answer and it'll be right and no questions will ever be hard. (Remember that the definition of hard is "most people get it wrong" - so how are they going to get most people to get it wrong if it sounds great?) :)

B sounds funny because of the "Neanderthals have a vocal tract" bit. When you are discussing a characteristic of an entire species, it is perfectly correct to make that characteristic singular.

Human beings have a nose.
Cows have a four-chambered stomach.

The reason we usually see such sentences written in this way? Contrast these two sentences:
Human beings have a nose.
Human beings have noses.

If you encounter a member of this species, the "human being," how many noses will you expect it to have?
;)
Thanks Stacy.
:arrow:I chose E and made the mistake of not analyzing that option in context with the non-underlined part of the sentence.
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by tisrar02 » Sat Jun 16, 2012 5:44 am
I choose B.. Even though it sounds weird, its the best choice among the rest of the answer choices that doesnt sound awkward.
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