GMAT Prep Question

[dongkim2]

To meet the rapidly rising market demand for fish and seafood, suppliers are growing fish twice as fast as their natural growth rate, cutting their feed allotment by nearly half and raising them on special diets.

A: their natural growth rate, cutting their feed allotment
B: their natural growth rate, their feed allotment cut
C: growing them naturally, cutting their feed allotment
D: they grow naturally, cutting their feed allotment
E: they grow naturally, with their feed allotment cut

OA: C

[fibbonnaci]

Initially it may seem that their is a pronoun anbiguity. But since the error repeats in every option, you assume it to correctly refer back to fish. You need to find yet another issue with the question.

-> the suppliers are doing 3 things
1) growing fish
2) cutting their feed allotment
3) raising them on special diets.

Therefore all the 3 items need to be parallel.
This eliminated B and E

-> items on either side of 'as fast as' need to be parallel.
Growing fish is parallel tp growing them naturally

This eliminates A and D

Thus
C remains and is the correct answer.

Hope this helps!

[girish3131]

am not convince on why D is wrong... ?

[rohan_vus]

I am also surprised to see OA = C and landed googling

The OA mentioned here seems a typo . Refer thread on MGMAT forum https://www.manhattangmat.com/forums/to- ... t3622.html . Here D is the answer.

[harshavardhanc]

-> items on either side of 'as fast as' need to be parallel.

Growing fish is parallel tp growing them naturally

How is this possible? How are they || ? participle growing on the right creates more of a confusion. It gives a hint that suppliers are growing fishes naturally. Does it make sense? No. The author wants to compare the speed at which suppliers are growing fishes and the speed at which fishes grow naturally. Hence, C cannot be correct at all.


as we all know, things on either side of as twice as should be parallel.

Here on the left, we have an activity "are growing fish", speed of which is being compared using twice as fast as.

The original sentence erroneously compares an activity with a noun :"growth rate". So, you need another activity on the right side as well : they grow naturally fits the bill.

IMO, D should be the correct answer.

[fibbonnaci]

Hey i am sorry. Ya i agree that 'growing fish naturally' is not correct.

I answered this question in a hurry. I checked for parallelism and went ahead without checking for the meaning offered by the sentence.

[harshavardhanc]

Hey i am sorry. Ya i agree that 'growing fish naturally' is not correct.

I answered this question in a hurry. I checked for parallelism and went ahead without checking for the meaning offered by the sentence.

that was the trap, I guess. We generally jump the gun and go for structural parallelism first. But here, logical ||ism is more important.

Moreover, this question is a clear-cut example of GMAC's dictatorship

I think that pronoun ambiguity is clearly present here. But as all the options have this flaw, we need to pick the better among the worse.

[girish3131]

no issue... small small things keeps on happening in big cities...RELAX.... BY SRK...

[gmat_perfect]

To meet the rapidly rising market demand for fish and seafood, suppliers are growing fish twice as fast as their natural growth rate, cutting their feed allotment by nearly half and raising them on special diets.

A: their natural growth rate, cutting their feed allotment
B: their natural growth rate, their feed allotment cut
C: growing them naturally, cutting their feed allotment
D: they grow naturally, cutting their feed allotment
E: they grow naturally, with their feed allotment cut

Some grammar:]

1. We are comparing two clauses "suppliers are growing" VS "Another clause" since we are given "as fast as" after a clause.
2. Every clause must have a subject and a finite verb.
3. The non-underlined portion has "rising". We should keep it in mind.

Now, come to the options:
A, B, and C are out because they are not using clauses after "as fast as". In E, "cut" is not parallel with "rising". Who remains? D.
Answer is D.