Sentence Correction

Hi folks,
I am new to this forum and this is my first post, A SC from OG 10

The gyrfalcon, an Arctic bird of prey, has survived a close brush with extinction; its numbers are now five
times greater than when the use of DDT was sharply restricted in the early 1970's. .
(A) extinction; its numbers are now five times greater than
(B) extinction; its numbers are now five times more than
(C) extinction, their numbers now fivefold what they were
(D) extinction, now with fivefold the numbers they had
(E) extinction, now with numbers five times greater than

I chose D.Any Suggestions???

Welcome!
Few things are going on here:

- Describing numbers alone needs the form “greater than”. Describing number of objects needs the from “more than”, so B is out.
- The gyrfalcon, a birth needs the singular pronoun “its” so C and D are out. That leaves A and E, I believe A is the correct answer

Can semi colon be replaced with a comma? Doesn't semi colon imply its a new sentence. In that case C,D,E are out. B uses 'more than' which is incorrect.

Answer is A.

givemeanid wrote:Can semi colon be replaced with a comma? Doesn't semi colon imply its a new sentence. In that case C,D,E are out. B uses 'more than' which is incorrect.

Answer is A.

A semi-colon can not be replaced by a comma and carry the same structure. However, just because the original sentence used a semi-colon doesn't mean that you should immediately overlook the comma options. It's always possible that the sentence could be constructed correctly with a comma even though the original uses a semi-colon.

A semi-colon does basically imply a new sentence. The two clauses should be related to eachother, but they both have to be complete clauses on their own.

Hi all,

thanks a lot for the replies.I chose D because i thought that " greater than " should always be followed by a noun with which the comparison is being made. Rest all options didn't have that.

This is a parallelism question.
The pronoun following the first sentence has to be about the noun grayfalcon.
That would leave us A and B.
'greater than' or 'more than'
Since the sentence is talking about numbers we should go with 'greater than'.
'More than' can be used if we are talking about nouns (like birds) themselves.

The gyrfalcon, an Arctic bird of prey, has survived a close brush with extinction; its numbers are now five times greater than when the use of DDT was sharply restricted in the early 1970's. .

In this both sides of THAN are not parallel then how can this be correct...

Even I am confused how the two elements are parallel.

Its numbers now are five times greater than in the 1980s.

Another example

A) Small cars today are more fuel-efficient than in the 1980s.
B) Small cars today are more fuel-efficient than those in the 1980s.

I think (B) is better because 'small cars today' is parallel with 'those in the 1980s'.


thanks.

beingAndNothing, more/ much is used for non-countable nouns but number is a countable item. So "MUCH" will not be applicable here. A is the best option to chose. Getting me, beingAndNothing?

Camitava:

Thanks for the response. My real confusion is regarding parallel elements. Take a look at this sentence

Bihar is India's poorest state, with an annual per-capita income of $111, lower than in the most impoverished countries in the world

a) lower than in
b) lower than that of
c) and lower than that of
d) which is lower than in
e) which is lower than it is in

Correct Answer is [spoiler](b)[/spoiler]. OG states that the elements for
X is lower than Y are not parallel.

- Per capita income in Bihar is lower than in other cities of the impoverished world.
- Its numbers now are five times greater than in the 1980s.

So are both of these sentences parallel?

thanks.

BeingAndNothing, ur Qs is -

Bihar is India's poorest state, with an annual per-capita income of $111, lower than in the most impoverished countries in the world

a) lower than in
b) lower than that of
c) and lower than that of
d) which is lower than in
e) which is lower than it is in

- I will again go for B. Here according to me, the problem is not the comparison but the parallelism. We are comparing the income of Bihar with the income of the most impoverished country but not between Bihar and the most impoverished country. And A is doing the same mistake - it is comparing between income of Bihar with any impoverished country but not with the income of any impoverished country. Now got it, BeingAndNothing?

a. nice correct answer
b. numbers are countable so needs more than not greater.
c. uses thier for pronoun and not in line with sungular subject gyrfalcon.
d. same problem as C but uses THEY
E. needs a pronoun.

Is E wrnong because it needs an IT.?

beingAndNothing wrote:Camitava:

- Per capita income in Bihar is lower than in other cities of the impoverished world.
- Its numbers now are five times greater than in the 1980s.

So are both of these sentences parallel?

thanks.

I dont think it is per capita income in -- is right usage.

It should be "per capita income of"

And ofcourse parallelism should be taken care of.

Raj:
Please, what's the answer?

ssuarezo wrote:Raj:
Please, what's the answer?

OA is B