One of the earliest birds with a beak and contour feathers

[Harish Dorai]

One of the earliest birds with a beak and contour feathers, Confuciusonrnis sanctus, with large clawlike "thumbs" on its wings, which probably helped them to climb up to a launching position for flight.


A) Same as underlined.
B) with large clawlike "thumbs" on their wings, which probably helped it to
C) had large clawlike "thumbs" on its wings, which probably helped them
D) had large clawlike "thumbs" on its wings, probably to help it
E) had large clawlike "thumbs" on their wings, probably to help it

Can some one give an explanation for this?

[givemeanid]

Is the answer D?

[GMAT 2007]

I vote for D too :)

GMAT 2007

[Harish Dorai]

Yes it is (D). It correctly uses "its" and "it", instead of "them".

[dbernst]

Harish, the best approach on sentence correction questions is to look for "splits," grammatical differences among the answer choices so you can quickly assess which constructions the sentence is assessing. In this problem, choices A, B, C and E incorrectly use plural pronouns (them, their, them, and their, respectively) to refer to Confuciusonrnis sanctus, a singular species. Moreover, each of those answer choices also includes the singular pronoun "it" (or "its"), just to reinforce that each is incorrect.

The best answer is D.

-dan

One of the earliest birds with a beak and contour feathers, Confuciusonrnis sanctus, with large clawlike "thumbs" on its wings, which probably helped them to climb up to a launching position for flight.


A) Same as underlined.
B) with large clawlike "thumbs" on their wings, which probably helped it to
C) had large clawlike "thumbs" on its wings, which probably helped them
D) had large clawlike "thumbs" on its wings, probably to help it
E) had large clawlike "thumbs" on their wings, probably to help it

Can some one give an explanation for this?