The army cutworm moth is a critical source

[tankobe]

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 (highlight to reveal)

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!

[mikrodj]

I think "as many as" is modifying insects, saying the number of insects that a bear finds on a single day is 40.000

[danielnorton25]

IMO E
This question was drawn from the following article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/02/08/scien ... wanted=all

[RonPurewal]

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.

[tankobe]

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.

Thanks RON!
Hmmm!
Sometimes i just want to learn more from a question, including the non-underlined part.

[devneeetbajaj]

whats the OA? It did not show up in post. Also, if it is E, which is what i can gather from commentary above, "which" is modifying bears, is that right? I thought "who" would be the right modifier.

[RonPurewal]

whats the OA? It did not show up in post. Also, if it is E, which is what i can gather from commentary above, "which" is modifying bears, is that right? I thought "who" would be the right modifier.

the oa is (e). this is in the post.

if you see just "OA is ", then this means the OA is written in white against a white background. if that's the case, then all you have to do is highlight that portion of the post to reveal the OA.

"who" is used for humans.
sometimes "who" is used for animals that are personified (such as people's pets), but the standard is "which".

basically, you'd use "who" in the same situations where you'd use "he" or "she".

for instance:

my dog was terminally ill, so we had to put him down.
my dog, who was terminally ill, walked really slowly when he could walk at all.
--> we normally personify pets, so, when discussing pets, we use pronouns that are normally reserved for humans.

the bear posed an immediate threat to the town's residents, so the sheriffs shot it.
the sheriffs shot the bear, which had posed an immediate threat to the town's residents.
--> we don't personify random animals.

the gmat will only do the second of these, so you can rest assured that the personal pronouns (who, whom, he, she, him, her) will be used only for human beings.

[gmatrant]

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

- "which overturn rock to find the insects" is a noun phrase modifying bears
- as many as 40,000 ... is also a noun phrase modifying insects isnt it.

Can you please clarify how the modifiers work? Also I dont see any such example in the SC Guide.

[RonPurewal]

- "which overturn rock to find the insects" is a noun phrase modifying bears
- as many as 40,000 ... is also a noun phrase modifying insects isnt it.

Can you please clarify how the modifiers work? Also I dont see any such example in the SC Guide.

actually, you've done quite a nice job of "clarify[ing] how the modifiers work". both of your characterizations are accurate.

the first of these modifiers is a standard "which" modifier; i believe the sentence correction guide contains many examples for this one.
i don't know the formal classification of the second one -- but note that you don't have to place it; it appears in the same location in all five choices, and is thus a non-issue in this problem.
if you see a modifier like this on the actual test, the most you'll have to do is make sure that it is placed close to what it actually modifies (i.e., "the insects"). if it is located unnecessarily far away from that noun -- or simply farther away than in other choices -- then it's incorrect.

[sanghvi.naman1]

Hi,

while the 2 errors (them and use of which) are apparent, I wanted to specifcally clarify the incorrect usage of and in Option D

This is my understanding of why and is incorrect. would appreiciate if you can point out any flaw in this reasoning

--> The 1st clause "˜army moth [subject] is [verb]... for bears’... [the 1st clause is a complete sentence]
--> The 2nd clause is simply providing further information about the bears, and modifiers will do this job
--> Use of and is incorrect, because there is no list here... its not the case that the moth is doing 2 things [moth is __A__ and __B__]. There is no 2nd action that the moth is doing.

[RonPurewal]

Nah. You don't need a second action performed by the moths, because the part after "and" is also a complete sentence. (I.e., if you have [complete sentence #1] AND [complete sentence #2], then it's totally ok"”even expected"”for the two sentences to have different subjects.)

"And" is inappropriate because it doesn't properly indicate the relationship between the two sentences.
The construction [complete sentence #1] AND [complete sentence #2] normally implies that the two sentences represent two separate, independent observations"”definitely not the case here.

[krrishna.chirumamilla]

Nah. You don't need a second action performed by the moths, because the part after "and" is also a complete sentence. (I.e., if you have [complete sentence #1] AND [complete sentence #2], then it's totally ok"”even expected"”for the two sentences to have different subjects.)

"And" is inappropriate because it doesn't properly indicate the relationship between the two sentences.
The construction [complete sentence #1] AND [complete sentence #2] normally implies that the two sentences represent two separate, independent observations"”definitely not the case here.

Hi Ron,

option D. bears, and they overturn rocks to find them and consume up to

Can we confirm that in addition to the AND error there is also pronoun ambiguity error in option D?

they overturn rocks to find them (bears or worms?)

Please explain.

Thanks.

[RonPurewal]

"Pronoun ambiguity" isn't tested in official problems"”and it's pretty clear what those pronouns are meant to stand for.
Sure, those pronouns are pretty ugly, but I wouldn't worry about them one way or the other.

[JaneC643]

Hi,
I read all of posts but I still have a question, what is "consuming..."in the correct choice E modifying? Does it modify the preceding whole sentence or just "bears"? As far as I know, the "comma+ing" modify either preceding clause or preceding nouns.
Thank you for anyone who could help me with it!

[RonPurewal]

I don't see the word "consuming" anywhere. Not in the question, nor in the choices.

Do you have a different version of this problem? If so, please post it in a new thread (to prevent massive confusion). Thanks.