GMATPREP question need help

[hellofanny321]

Team,
Please help me on this question, as i am very confused.

What is their descendants in A -
Less than 35 years after the release of African honeybees outside Sao Paulo, Brazil
I guess, "their" is referring to "African honeybees" i.e subject but how can "their" refer to anything following "of" ? I was under the impression that the subject of a clause cannot be in of ....

Please help me !

this has nothing to do with the "subject of a clause"; we're discussing the antecedent of a pronoun, not the subject of a clause.

the pronoun is UNAMBIGUOUS - "african honeybees" is the only possible thing to which "their" can refer - so we're all good here.

could you pls elaborate more, Ron?
i'm still confused
in OG-12-43 C: that is about the same size as Great Britain’s land area, but in Laos with a population of only 4 million people, many of them
OG says"The reference of them is unclear"
and here's the link if anyone is interested:
laos-has-a-land-area-t5749.html

so i assume that in this question, A got the same problem since a pronoun cannot refer to a noun after "of"

also, in OG, "Beatrix Potter, in her book illustrations, carefully coordinated them..."
them cannot refer to illustrations because of the preposition in

one more example,OG 12"In a previous design, the weight of the discus used in Track competition is concentrated in a metal center,but now it is lined with lead around the perimeter,"
it cannot refer to the discus

and i conclude that pronoun cannot refer to a noun in the prepositional phrase, and i've been using this rule for quite a long time, is that wrong?

thanks in advance!

[dvrsrikar]

Hello Ron

Can you pls explain what/who is the subject of this Question:
"Less than 35 years after the release of African honeybees outside Sao Paulo, Brazil, their descendents, popularly known as killer bees had migrated as far north as Southern Texas." ?

It might not be relevant to the ques, but am trying to understand whether the subject is "the release of African honeybees" or "honeybees"?

Thanks a ton!

DVR

[dvrsrikar]

Hello Ron

Can you pls explain what/who is the subject of this Question:
"Less than 35 years after the release of African honeybees outside Sao Paulo, Brazil, their descendents, popularly known as killer bees had migrated as far north as Southern Texas." ?

It might not be relevant to the ques, but am trying to understand whether the subject is "the release of African honeybees" or "honeybees"?

It'll be great if you can reply soon since I have my GMAT on Wed!

Thanks a ton!

DVR

[maribelsalazar02]

I am confused on less vs. fewer.. i thought we are supposed to use fewer on things we can count.. since years are things we can count (one year, two years.. ) why are they using "less" to say "Less than 35 years after the release.."? I confused.. can you please clarify? THanks!!

[RonPurewal]

I am confused on less vs. fewer.. i thought we are supposed to use fewer on things we can count.. since years are things we can count (one year, two years.. ) why are they using "less" to say "Less than 35 years after the release.."? I confused.. can you please clarify? THanks!!

you only use "fewer than" with what are called countable items.
strictly speaking, this means things that:
1) ONLY exist in whole number quantities (i.e., you can't have, say, 5.5 of them), and
2) are actually separable from each other.

for instance, people, shirts, books, etc. all satisfy these two criteria. you can't have decimal quantities of any of those things, and each unit is separable from the other units.

specifically, you don't use "fewer than" with NUMBERS + UNITS OF CONTINUOUS MEASURE, such as gallons, years, feet, liters, etc.
this isn't really an exception to the rule, anyway, since those units fail both of the criteria above. for instance, if i have N gallons of something, then (1) fails because i can easily have a decimal number of gallons, and (2) of fails because the gallons are not physically separable quantities -- just one big mass of fluid.

examples (all are correct):
i have less than 5 gallons of gas in my tank (continuous unit of measure)
BUT
i have fewer than 5 gallon jugs of milk in my refrigerator (physically separable, countable items)

i have fewer than 20 quarters in my wallet (physically separable, countable items)
BUT
i have less than 20 dollars in my wallet (continuous unit of measure -- you can have decimal numbers of dollars, and "$20" doesn't actually refer to 20 separate items)

[vicksikand]

Manassingh - did have a valid question !

Less than 35 years after the release of African honeybees outside Sao Paulo, Brazil, their descendants, popularly known as killer bees had migrated as far north as Southern Texas.

"of African honeybees" is a prep phrase and African honeybees is thus the o.p.(object of prep) . In "their descendants" their seems to refer to the African honeybees, but since the subject is trapped as an o.p "their" doesn't have a true referent.

Also, will option C be correct if it were reworded as:
In less than the 35 years since African honeybees were released outside Sao Paulo, Brazil, : Using this construction the order of events on the time line is clear

"Since" gets us the time-frame and getting rid of the past perfect should correct the error. The way I see it if you have since in a sentence to clear the position(of an event) on the time-line you shouldnt use the present perfect tense.

[ChrisB]

Hi,

I think Ron answered both of your questions well earlier in this post, and I think your confusion stems from confusing a subjective pronoun that replaces a subject in a sentence with a possessive noun.

manassingh - did have a valid question !

Less than 35 years after the release of African honeybees outside Sao Paulo, Brazil, their descendants, popularly known as killer bees had migrated as far north as Southern Texas.

"of African honeybees" is a prep phrase and African honeybees is thus the o.p.(object of prep) . In "their descendants" their seems to refer to the African honeybees, but since the subject is trapped as an o.p "their" doesn't have a true referent.

Their is a possessive pronoun that refers back to "african honeybees" as the antecedent is the only thing to which "their" can refer. The pronoun is just taking the place of the noun honeybees and this problem has nothing to do with the "subject of a clause."

The problem with my brother is that he is just nuts about the GMAT.

In the above example the personal pronoun "he" clearly refers back to my brother. "He" is a subjective personal pronoun in that "he" can take a verb. In this case "subjective" doesn't mean that it must replace the main subject, or "the problem" in this example sentence.

I think the takeaway is that subjective pronouns can act as subjects but don't necessarily have to replace subjects. Further, pronouns replace nouns and you need to concern yourself with unambiguity to make sure that the pronouns agree. In the original problem "their" was outside the underlined portion and it was abundantly clear that "their" replaced "honeybees."

As for your other question:

Also, will option C be correct if it were reworded as:
In less than the 35 years since African honeybees were released outside Sao Paulo, Brazil, : Using this construction the order of events on the time line is clear

This doesn't work because the earlier event "were released" uses the simple past while the later past uses the past perfect. As a result the time order as defined by verb tense is reversed from what it should be. Ron already explained this in detail so I recommend you check out his posts above but here are some relevant excerpts:

If you were narrating in the present tense, you'd say the following: 'as of today, the bees have migrated as far north as southern texas.' therefore, since this sentence describes a situation in the past (it describes the situation 35 years after the release, which is before the present), you translate all present-tense verbs into the past tense. this turns 'have migrated' into 'had migrated'.

there is no explicit description of the 'second event' you're looking for in this problem, which is what makes it difficult. instead, the 'second event' is the point on the timeline, 35 years after the release of the bees. because the sentence describes a trend whose relevance continues up to and through that point, a perfect tense is appropriate. * choice c: 'the 35 years since' implies that the present is 35 years after the release date. not only does this conflict with the meaning of the original, but it also renders the past perfect (from the underlined part) inappropriate: you'd need present perfect in this case. also, since the release is a point event, it would belong in the simple past.

and

I'm with you on this one; i'd likewise prefer a wording such as 'in less than 35 years after...', because, in my opinion, it better conveys the idea that the migrations took place continuously over the 35-year period. just plain 'less than' seemed to me, and possibly to you as well, to suggest that the migrations might have occurred all at once.

in any case, though, you've got to remember that correctness trumps clarity (and definitely trumps concision as well). therefore, differences in wording, such as this one, are trifling in comparison to actual errors in usage, grammar, diction, or idiom. i think both of us will agree that there is no idiom error in the wording chosen here; it's just a somewhat awkward wording (a situation by no means uncommon on the real test).

I'm pretty much in lockstep with Ron on this one. I don't think it pays great dividends to rewrite these sentences because 1. that's not a practice that will help on the GMAT and 2. you tend to miss the point the problem is making. In this case your new version of the sentence repeated the issue of using "since" vs. "after" and ignored the takeaway regarding the less common use of the past perfect.

Thanks,
Chris

[vicksikand]

Thanks a lot for your response Chris !
Just need some further clarification.

Pronouns in the subjective case usually refer to nouns that functions as subjects. In this example:

Less than 35 years after the release of African honeybees outside Sao Paulo, Brazil, their descendants, popularly known as killer bees, had migrated as far north as southern Texas.

"their" is a possessive pronoun , but it refers to a noun( African honeybees) that is trapped as an object of a prep phrase (of African honeybees). Is this allowed? : can a pronoun refer a noun that is an object of a prep phrase?

[tim]

Not sure where this question comes from. You have an example of an official GMAT problem where the correct answer clearly has a pronoun referring to a noun inside a prepositional phrase, so yes of course it is allowed. It is important to realize that given a choice you usually want to find an antecedent that isn’t buried inside layers of prepositional phrases, but we don’t have a choice here so we’re stuck with this construction..

[kvitkod]

Ron, I should be lost, but why "the 35 years since" implies the present? (I chose C and try to understand my flaw)

thank you in advance


* choice c: 'the 35 years since' implies that the present is 35 years after the release date. not only does this conflict with the meaning of the original, but it also renders the past perfect (from the underlined part) inappropriate: you'd need present perfect in this case. also, since the release is a point event, it would belong in the simple past.

[RonPurewal]

Ron, I should be lost, but why "the 35 years since" implies the present? (I chose C and try to understand my flaw)

in general, "the" + numerical expression indicates exclusivity -- i.e., this construction indicates that these items/people/whatever are everything that exists.
this is not true only for time expressions; it's a general truth about english usage. for instance, three witnesses to a crime does not imply that there are only three witnesses, but the three witnesses to a crime implies that those are the only three people who were witnesses.

similarly, "the N years" implies that those N years are ALL years within the in question.
i.e.,
in the 25 years since jurgen schult's world record discus throw, very few throwers have even come close to equaling his mark.
--> this sentence is correct, because this world record discus throw actually occurred in 1986 (which was 25 years ago at the time of writing of this post). therefore, exactly 25 years have elapsed since that throw.

here's another example, from an official gmat prep correct answer:
Since 1990 the global economy has grown more than it did during the 10,000 years from the beginning of agriculture to 1950
again, this is ALL of the years between the beginning of agriculture and 1950. therefore "the" is appropriate.

such exclusivity doesn't make sense in the sentence at hand (especially in combination with "less than"), so it's incorrect.

[kvitkod]

Ron, many thanks

[tim]

:)

[AmunaGmat]

D) It took less than 35 years from the release of African honeybees outside Sao Paulo, Brazil, when

I know that choice D is wrong but I am asking clarity. I think when (as all time modifiers) modifies the verb. Is it correct? Thus, if it is in the middle as in this choice which verb does it modify? Took or Had migrated? Maybe I should say that I based my logic in that those modifiers with prepositions such as 'for the people and by the river', when they are set by commas, they modifier the verb that comes after the comma, not the preceding verb.

cheers for your assistance!!!

[RonPurewal]

D) It took less than 35 years from the release of African honeybees outside Sao Paulo, Brazil, when

I know that choice D is wrong but I am asking clarity. I think when (as all time modifiers) modifies the verb. Is it correct? Thus, if it is in the middle as in this choice which verb does it modify? Took or Had migrated? Maybe I should say that I based my logic in that those modifiers with prepositions such as 'for the people and by the river', when they are set by commas, they modifier the verb that comes after the comma, not the preceding verb.

cheers for your assistance!!!

i don't think you can really analyze this construction in that sort of way, because it doesn't exist in the first place.

there are only 3 versions of "took" (as far as i can recall) to refer to the duration of something:

1/
SUBJECT takes/took TIME PERIOD + TO + VERB
i usually take about 45 minutes to complete a weightlifting workout.
james took only 3 years to finish college.

2/
IT + takes/took + TIME PERIOD + FOR + person/thing + TO + VERB
it took only 3 years for james to finish college.

3/
IT + takes/took + person/thing + TIME PERIOD + TO + VERB
it takes me about 45 minutes to do a weightlifting workout.

there's no such thing as "it took ... when ...", so the construction is void -- that is, i don't really think it can be analyzed in the first place.