DNA

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DNA

by anant03 » Wed Sep 02, 2015 7:46 am
Though laypeople often refer to the panda as a bear, due to its physical resemblance to one, DNA testing has shown that it is more closely related to the common raccoon than any member of the bear family.

A) due to its physical resemblance to one, DNA testing has shown that it is more closely related to the common raccoon than

B) due to the fact that it physically resembles one, DNA testing showed that it is more closely related to the common raccoon than is

C) because of its physical resemblance to one, DNA testing has shown that it is more closely related to the common raccoon than

D) because of its resemblance to one physically, DNA testing has shown that it is more closely related to the common raccoon than is

E) because of its physical resemblance to one, DNA testing has shown that it is more closely related to the common raccoon than to


OA E

Experts please explain each options.

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by MartyMurray » Thu Sep 10, 2015 2:50 pm
anant03 wrote:Though laypeople often refer to the panda as a bear, due to its physical resemblance to one, DNA testing has shown that it is more closely related to the common raccoon than any member of the bear family.
You can get this question right in multiple ways. If you know the difference between due to and because of, you can eliminate some answer choices by using that decision point. If you don't know the difference, you can still find the answer.

This illustrates a key thing you can do to achieve a high SC hit rate. If you are not sure about how to use one decision point, use another.
A) due to its physical resemblance to one, DNA testing has shown that it is more closely related to the common raccoon than
Due to is used to create adjective like structures and can roughly be translated to caused by. So this answer choice can be eliminated by noting that refer is a verb and therefore requires an adverbial modifier rather than and adjectivial one. Alternatively you could just substitute caused by for due to and see that caused by its physical resemblance does not make sense.

Someone who is not sure about due to could still probably eliminate this answer choice because of a parallelism or meaning issue toward the end. Rather than saying that the panda is more closely related to the raccoon than to any member of the bear family, the sentence created using this answer choice leaves out the to after than, creating a possibly non parallel form and thus conveying a meaning different from the one I believe it's supposed to convey. Does that make the choice obviously wrong? Maybe not, but an SC hacker could figure out that it is probably wrong by looking at the other answer choices and seeing that some of them do have a to after than.

You want to get SC right? Be a hacker.
B) due to the fact that it physically resembles one, DNA testing showed that it is more closely related to the common raccoon than is
This choice includes the due to issue again. If you don't see that, you might be able to eliminate this one because it conveys not that the panda is more closely related to the raccoon than to any member of the bear family, but rather than the panda is more closely related to the raccoon than any member of the bear family is.

Is that subtly sketchy meaning enough to indicate that this choice should be eliminated? Hey if you don't have anything else to go on, you just might win doing that. Let's see.

Meanwhile, there is another issue with this one. due to the fact that is a little wordy.

C) because of its physical resemblance to one, DNA testing has shown that it is more closely related to the common raccoon than
Now we have the correct structure, because of. When because of is used, adverb like structures are created, and an adverbial structure is the right type of structure for modifying refer.

So is this choice the best answer? I see others below that also use because of.

Looking at this answer choice we see that it includes the same parallelism/meaning issue that A has. Hmm. So I think that we can kill two birds with one stone here. If the other answer choices have a better meaning and structure, we can eliminate this one, and also any adept hacker can may decide to use elimination of this choice as confirmation that choice A can be eliminated, even without knowing that due to is wrong there.
D) because of its resemblance to one physically, DNA testing has shown that it is more closely related to the common raccoon than is
This choice has because of, but also has slight the meaning issue that choice B has. So probably B and D are BOTH out.

This one also includes an awkward structure that the others don't, the structure because of its resemblance to one physically.

Just one left!!!!
E) because of its physical resemblance to one, DNA testing has shown that it is more closely related to the common raccoon than to


This one uses because of, the sentence created using it is well structured, AND the meaning conveyed is the meaning I have been looking for the entire time, that the panda is more closely related to the raccoon than to any member of the bear family.

Bingo.

So we could eliminate A, B, C, and D on meaning alone, even if we didn't know about the difference between due to and because of, and once again hack our way to SC success.

I don't think that this is an official question and I am not sure that an official question would employ such a subtle difference in meaning as a decision point. Any of the meanings here could somehow make sense. Still, the point stands. Getting SC right can often or even always be done via clever hacking, and the creators of the GMAT have no problem with that being the case. GMAT verbal is way more a hacking test than it is an English test.

Choose E.
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by conquistador » Fri Sep 11, 2015 1:59 am
anant03 wrote:Though laypeople often refer to the panda as a bear, due to its physical resemblance to one, DNA testing has shown that it is more closely related to the common raccoon than any member of the bear family.

A) due to its physical resemblance to one, DNA testing has shown that it is more closely related to the common raccoon than

B) due to the fact that it physically resembles one, DNA testing showed that it is more closely related to the common raccoon than is

C) because of its physical resemblance to one, DNA testing has shown that it is more closely related to the common raccoon than

D) because of its resemblance to one physically, DNA testing has shown that it is more closely related to the common raccoon than is

E) because of its physical resemblance to one, DNA testing has shown that it is more closely related to the common raccoon than to


OA E

Experts please explain each options.
Please mention the source of material for the question you post online.

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by anant03 » Tue Sep 15, 2015 2:14 am
Hi Marty ,

Thanks for your reply.

I have doubt in C and E.

my question is : why do we prefer THAN TO over THAN.

Please advise.

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by MartyMurray » Tue Sep 15, 2015 5:49 pm
This sentence includes clues to what makes sense in terms of meaning.

First the sentence says that the panda is referred to as a bear because it looks like one.

Then it says that DNA testing shows that it is more closely related to the raccoon.

So what I am getting from this is that the panda is more closely related to the raccoon than it is to bears.

That seems to be where the sentence is headed.

If we use choice C, then we get a sentence that conveys that the panda is related more closely to the raccoon than any member of the bear family is related to the raccoon.

I don't believe that that meaning is where this sentence is actually headed.

Choice E, on the other hand, conveys that the panda is related more closely to the raccoon than to any member of the bear family.

That makes sense as a meaning given what is going on in the rest of the sentence.

Would an official question use such a debatable or subtle decision point? Probably not. Still, the question is good for practicing the type of hacking one can use to rock GMAT SC.
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