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genes

by Ankitaverma » Wed Dec 04, 2013 9:34 am
As a result of the ground-breaking work of Barbara McClintock, many scientist 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 cells' 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

Q/A-E why not a
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by Mike@Magoosh » Wed Dec 04, 2013 12:01 pm
Ankitaverma wrote:As a result of the ground-breaking work of Barbara McClintock, many scientist 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 cells' 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

Q/A-E why not a
Dear Ankitaverma,
I'm happy to help. :-)

To be honest, this is not a very high quality SC question. The splits in this question are not very strong. Everything about the question aside from the SV agreement is debatable.

At the beginning, the word "the" before the numbers is not strictly necessary.

Within the long "that" clause, the subject "all of the information" is singular, because information is singular. See:
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2013/gmat-sente ... agreement/
Therefore, we need the singular verb "is", not the plural verb "are". This is one fatal flaw in (A).

Technically, the "mere" should limit the "3%", indicating that it is a very small amount. Technically, the adjective "mere" is correct and the adverb "merely" is incorrect. This is enough to isolate (E).

Does this make sense?
Mike :-)
Magoosh GMAT Instructor
https://gmat.magoosh.com/
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