Interesting SC

[crimson2283]

Among the 1,500 sources of gamma rays Fermi has mapped so far, nothing resembles the bubble-shaped structures, that stretches across more than half of the visible sky from the constellation Virgo and the constellation Grus.

A. that stretches across more than half of the visible sky from the constellation Virgo and the constellation Grus.
B. that stretch across greater than half of the visible sky from the constellation Virgo to the constellation Grus.
C. which stretches across an area more than half of the visible sky from the constellation Virgo to the constellation Grus.
D. which stretch across more than half of the visible sky, starting from the constellation Virgo to the constellation Grus.
E. which stretch across more than half of the visible sky from the constellation Virgo to the constellation Grus.

[crimson2283]

OA - E

I chose D. D is not the right answer because - Starting from should also have an ending at which is missing in this sentence (Explanation given in SC Grail)

[boazkhan]

I was debating between B n E. Can someone explain what is wrong with B?

[Brian@VeritasPrep]

Hey boazkhan,

Good question - this one comes down to the functions of "which" and "that" in this case:

"which" is used as a modifier, so it's correct in following a comma. "That" would be correct if there were no comma:

Nothing resembles the bubble-shaped structures, which stretch...

or

Nothing resembles the bubble-shaped structures that stretch...

So really the main difference is that comma, which is fixed as a non-underlined portion of the sentence, so there you have to use "which".


Crimson - I should also add that the reason I eliminated "starting from" is that it's hard to logically say that one end of something astronomical is the "start", so I thought that was significantly less logical than E. It would be like saying "the Pacific Ocean starts in Shanghai and stretches to Lima". It doesn't really start in Shanghai...it just ranges from there to South America, you know? Start and end indicate that one comes first and the other last, so even if D had "and finishing at..." I'd still be leery of it if E were an option.

[Joe K]

Isn't B incorrect because of the use of "greater than" instead of "more than"?

[Brian@VeritasPrep]

Nice catch, Joe - you know, I didn't even notice that...once I found that fatal flaw on the first word ("that") I was done with the rest of it, so I didn't read any further. Which is a decent strategic point - I've found that if you're looking for likely decision points (and "that" vs. "which" was a big one since there was a 3/2 split in the first words of each answer choice) you can become pretty quick at these, saving time for CR and RC questions.