Sentence Correction

A study by the Ocean Wildlife Campaign urged states to undertake a number of remedies to reverse a decline in the shark population, which includes the establishment of size limits for shark catches, closing state waters for shark fishing during pupping season, and requiring commercial fishers to have federal shark permits.
A. which includes the establishment of size limits for shark catches, closing
B. which includes establishing limits to the size of sharks that can be caught, closing
C. which include the establishment of size limits for shark catches, the closing of
D. including establishing size limits for shark catches, closing
E. including the establishing of limits to the size of sharks that are caught, the closing of

Is the answer C ??

D vs E.. D is simple and parallel

finalshot123 wrote:D vs E.. D is simple and parallel

Agree, the answer is D. Here's why I think so:

General rule: The statement ".... to undertake a number of remedies to reverse a decline in the shark population" indicates that a list of remedies will follow. As soon as you see a list, check for parallelism (and idiomatic usage)

A. which includes the establishment of size limits for shark catches, closing
Establishment of and closing are different parts of speech. Eliminate

B. which includes establishing limits to the size of sharks that can be caught, closing
This choice changes the meaning of the sentence. The original sentence intends to put a limit on the number of sharks caught while this sentence talks about putting a limit of the size of the sharks being caught. Eliminate.

C. which include the establishment of size limits for shark catches, the closing of
Awkward construction. 'Establishing' is much more concise than saying 'establishment of'. Eliminate.

D. including establishing size limits for shark catches, closing
Clear and succinct. Hold on to this choice and check the remaining choice.

E. including the establishing of limits to the size of sharks that are caught, the closing of
Again, this sentence uses awkward construction. 'Establishing' is much more concise than saying 'establishing of'. Eliminate.

E is wrong because the sentence is not conjoining gerunds which requires "the" to clarify the clause. The sentence is joining verbs therefore establsihing is correct and "the establsihing" breaks parallelism.

Nice work, gtestprep - we're stuck with "and requiring..." in the nonunderlined portion as the third item in a list, and in E the first two have "the" as precedents so they're not parallel.

Also keep this in mind about this question - in A, B, and C, "which" modifies "shark population", and none of these measures describes the population itself...they all describe the individual remedies. So A, B, and C are all out based on the modifier error, leaving you to make that decision between D and E.

For the record, I don't love D - I'd much prefer to see nouns in that list and following "including", but D is the only answer that stays parallel with a list, which is a pretty big item to look for.

Brian@VeritasPrep wrote: For the record, I don't love D - I'd much prefer to see nouns in that list and following "including", but D is the only answer that stays parallel with a list, which is a pretty big item to look for.

Why is that? I thought lists just have to be parallel to be correct?

Hey Chendawg,

My thought here is that the items in the lists need to be examples of "remedies" (the word earlier in the sentence that these all modify), and since that's a noun I'd be looking for nouns that precisely modify "remedies". I don't know that it's absolutely crucial here, but I've seen some official questions that have, for example:

One legacy of _______________ is:

A) understanding that X is true
B) the idea that X is true

and in this case (I forget the exact consequence), A would be wrong because "understanding" isn't a legacy, it's a present-tense verb.

Given that I've seen them test that before, I was looking on this one for a similar construct but didn't find it.



And just to follow up your question directly, be careful with things like "I thought that x JUST (or ONLY) had to be y to be correct". The GMAT is pretty tricky with finding ways to make a wrong answer have exactly what you're looking for, but introduce a secondary problem that makes it wrong. This happens all the time with idioms - people get really used to seeing an idiom like:

________ is so ____________ that...

and will pick an answer because "the idiom is right", when elsewhere in the sentence there's a clear subject-verb error or something else. So to put some context on it, you might have:

A) The intense beams of light is so powerful that fair-skinned people can sunburn in less than 10 minutes.
B) So powerful and intense are the beams of light that fair-skinned people can sunburn in less than 10 minutes.

People feel really cozy with A because the idiom "So X that Y" is correct, and it's a little more awkward in B ("So X is Y that..."). But A has a definite S-V agreement error ("beams' is a plural subject so we need "are"), so you're stuck with the less-comfortable idiom as being correct.


So my point here...don't let yourself get so hung up on finding the one item that you're looking for that you ignore other potential errors in it. Many a GMAT student has protested "but it's parallel" or "but the idiom works" and been completely wrong on another part of the sentence.

So you're saying because the examples in the list refers back to remedies, you think the sentence would be much better with nouns in the list? I guess I can understand what you're saying, but even though the examples aren't nouns but are instead actions, this wouldn't make it grammatically incorrect right?

Thanks for the tip about having blinders on, I definitely try to have them off!

Actually this is one of the things that people with knowledge about participles and Gerunds have tough time digesting. As used in D, establishing and closing are Gerunds, which really are noun forms, but GMAT seems to consider this a grey area where these can be construed both, as Participles and Gerunds.

As Brian mentions, if we had a choice that would be parallel and did not use this -ing form, it would have been preferable. Here, D is the only parallel form and hence, in that sense, this is a moot point.

C is also wrong because it seems as if " which " is pointing to population rather it should point to the measures............

D for me !!

Please Post Official Key,thanks.

I came across this problem too.

OA is D

alltimeacheiver wrote:A study by the Ocean Wildlife Campaign urged states to undertake a number of remedies to reverse a decline in the shark population, which includes the establishment of size limits for shark catches, closing state waters for shark fishing during pupping season, and requiring commercial fishers to have federal shark permits.
A. which includes the establishment of size limits for shark catches, closing - Decline in shark population does not get modified correctly with "which"
B. which includes establishing limits to the size of sharks that can be caught, closing- Decline in shark population does not get modified correctly with "which"
C. which include the establishment of size limits for shark catches, the closing of- Decline in shark population does not get modified correctly with "which"
D. including establishing size limits for shark catches, closing - Right answer with parallelism. Even though it is not a great sentence, POE suggests only this one
E. including the establishing of limits to the size of sharks that are caught, the closing of - Awkward and wordy construction

Made the mistake of going for E. Did not notice the fine line between establishing and establishing of.