The army cutworm moth is a critical source

[NeerajM357]

The army cutworm moth is a critical source of fat for as many as a third of Yellowstone National Park's grizzly bears; they overturn rocks to find them, as many as 40,000 per bear in a single day.

(A) bears; they overturn rocks to find them, as many as
(B) bears; overturning rocks to find the insects, up to
(C) bears, overturning rocks to find them, as many as
(D) bears, and they overturn rocks to find them, up to
(E) bears, which overturn rocks to find the insects, as many as

Sourece: GMATPrep 2 OA is E

what is the function of as many as in E? adv or adj?
i think as many as is an omitted version; what is the full version?

stephen!

well, remember - DON'T QUESTION OFFICIALLY CORRECT ANSWERS.
if this is the correct answer to a GMATPREP question, then we can't question it; if gmac says it's correct, it's correct. period, end of story.

i'm not sure how you'd label that modifier (adj / adv / whatever), and, frankly, there's not much point in worrying about such labels, anyway. just know that modifiers that look similar to this one are correct - that's all you really have to know.

--

in any case, you don't need the final modifier to resolve this problem.
(a) and (d) have horrible pronoun problems.
(b) uses a semicolon incorrectly (the part that comes after the semicolon is a fragment).
(c) uses a COMMA -ING modifier incorrectly; that choice actually implies that the moth itself overturns the rocks.

Hi there,

Just for my understanding, choice c -> is not it comma+ing the present participle and it is touching "bears" so it modifies bears. The effect of cutworm being critical source of fat is bears overturn rock to find them and consume...

Thanks in advance!

[RonPurewal]

when 'comma + __ing' follows a complete sentence, it NEVER describes the preceding noun.

this is a fundamental misunderstanding, so you should start from the basics with this one. check out the discussion of 'comma + __ing' in the SC strategy guide.

[RonPurewal]

if you don't have the guide handy, then you can get the basic idea from this post:
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/foru ... ml#p110756

...but, yeah, this is a BIG misunderstanding. the entire point of 'comma __ing' is to describe the previous action, and specifically NOT to describe the directly preceding noun!

[NeerajM357]

Thanks Ron!

[RonPurewal]

sure.