SC - Comparison

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by karthikpandian19 » Wed Jun 20, 2012 12:23 pm
Vinayak,

Recently, entomologists have discovered a number of new insect species, most of them at least as common as the birch aphid, a tree-dwelling insect,living on the bottom of oceans or within icebergs

LIVING correctly modifies A NUMBER OF NEW INSECT SPECIES


The
vk_vinayak wrote:
karthikpandian19 wrote:Recently, entomologists have discovered a number of new insect species, most of them as common or more common than the birch aphid, a tree-dwelling insect, which live on the bottom of oceans or within icebergs.


(A) most of them as common or more common than the birch aphid, a tree-dwelling insect, which live

(B) most of them at least as common as the birch aphid, a tree-dwelling insect, and living

(C) most of them at least as common as the birch aphid, a tree-dwelling insect, living

(D) mostly at least as common as the birch aphid, a tree-dwelling insect, which live

(E) mostly as common or more common than the birch aphid, a tree-dwelling insect, living
I pick C. In my opinion, for C to be correct, the modifier 'living' must refer to birch aphid. Here 'a tree-dwelling insect' is an appositive modifier and can be removed without altering the meaning of the sentence:

Recently, entomologists have discovered a number of new insect species, most of them at least as common as the birch aphid living on the bottom of oceans or within icebergs.
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by [email protected] » Sat Jun 23, 2012 1:13 am
Recently, entomologists have discovered a number of new insect species, most of them as common or more common than the birch aphid, a tree-dwelling insect, which live on the bottom of oceans or within icebergs.


(A) most of them as common or more common than the birch aphid, a tree-dwelling insect, which live

(B) most of them at least as common as the birch aphid, a tree-dwelling insect, and living

(C) most of them at least as common as the birch aphid, a tree-dwelling insect, living

(D) mostly at least as common as the birch aphid, a tree-dwelling insect, which live

(E) mostly as common or more common than the birch aphid, a tree-dwelling insect, living



Yes the OA comes out to be C,

Option C conveys the correct meaning unambigiously. It has the pronoun error you can say that there is some ambiguity but you cannot say that it is a bad option when compared to all the other options.

Option E is unidiomatic and does not convey the meaning with simplicity.

Hence the correct answer is C.
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by lunarpower » Thu Jun 28, 2012 3:12 am
i received a private message about this thread.

this problem is a knockoff of the following gmat prep problem:

In the past several years, astronomers have detected more than 80 massive planets, most of them as large or larger than Jupiter, which circle other stars.

most of them as large or larger than Jupiter, which circle

most of them as large or larger than Jupiter and circling

most of them at least as large as Jupiter, circling

mostly at least as large as Jupiter, which circle

mostly as large or larger than Jupiter, circling



the similarity is dreadfully obvious, so this problem really has zero value added. once you've gone over the gmat prep problem, you aren't going to learn anything by looking at this one.
you should just google a few of the words from this problem, and go read the threads that you find.

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vk_vinayak:
I pick C. In my opinion, for C to be correct, the modifier 'living' must refer to birch aphid. Here 'a tree-dwelling insect' is an appositive modifier and can be removed without altering the meaning of the sentence:

Recently, entomologists have discovered a number of new insect species, most of them at least as common as the birch aphid living on the bottom of oceans or within icebergs.
no.
this interpretation is nonsense, since a "tree-dwelling insect" won't live on the ocean floor, or inside icebergs, or anywhere else except in trees.

the modifier is meant to describe the new species. if you're going to play the "eliminate the modifier" game, then you should eliminate "most of them as common or more common than the birch aphid, a tree-dwelling insect," leaving just
...a number of new insect species living on the bottom of oceans...
now this is an interpretation that actually makes sense.
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by vk_vinayak » Thu Jun 28, 2012 3:43 am
lunarpower wrote: vk_vinayak:
I pick C. In my opinion, for C to be correct, the modifier 'living' must refer to birch aphid. Here 'a tree-dwelling insect' is an appositive modifier and can be removed without altering the meaning of the sentence:

Recently, entomologists have discovered a number of new insect species, most of them at least as common as the birch aphid living on the bottom of oceans or within icebergs.
no.
this interpretation is nonsense, since a "tree-dwelling insect" won't live on the ocean floor, or inside icebergs, or anywhere else except in trees.

the modifier is meant to describe the new species. if you're going to play the "eliminate the modifier" game, then you should eliminate "most of them as common or more common than the birch aphid, a tree-dwelling insect," leaving just
...a number of new insect species living on the bottom of oceans...
now this is an interpretation that actually makes sense.
I realized my mistake and the reason behind that mistake also: Odd number of commas.

I had tried removing each modifiers separately with two commas and the sentence didn't make sense to me. I know that if we remove a modifier, then we need to remove the corresponding two commas as well, but in this case, I overlooked the fact that one comma was common for these two modifiers. Good lesson for me.
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by lunarpower » Thu Jun 28, 2012 3:59 am
vk_vinayak wrote:I realized my mistake and the reason behind that mistake also: Odd number of commas.

I had tried removing each modifiers separately with two commas and the sentence didn't make sense to me. I know that if we remove a modifier, then we need to remove the corresponding two commas as well, but in this case, I overlooked the fact that one comma was common for these two modifiers. Good lesson for me.
if you are thinking about odd/even numbers of commas before thinking about what actually makes sense, then let's just say that SC is not going to be very fun for you.

more specifically, you should ALWAYS establish the meaning of the sentence before you look at any minutiae of grammar/punctuation/etc. always, always, always. it's going to be impossible to figure those things out if you don't have the meaning.
here, before you think about any grammar issues at all, you should realize, "hey, ok, the tree-dwelling insect can't live in the ocean, so that must be talking about the other insects." you should absolutely not be thinking about any grammar points at all until you figure out what the sentence is actually meant to say.
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