The parachutelike membranes of Africa’s scaly-tailed flying

[GiladB589]

isn't E has a run-on sentence issue?


E.
Teratomas are unusual forms of cancerin, in that they are composed of tissues such as tooth and bone, tissues not normally found in the organ in which the tumor appears.

[tim]

Let us know if there are still any questions about this one.

[RonPurewal]

isn't E has a run-on sentence issue?


E.
Teratomas are unusual forms of cancerin, in that they are composed of tissues such as tooth and bone, tissues not normally found in the organ in which the tumor appears.

nope.
main sentence + modifier + modifier.
"in that xxxx" modifies the whole preceding clause; "tissues not normally xxxxx" modifies "(tissues such as) tooth and bone".

[BryanY988]

Hi Ron,

Could you please clarify if choice D is without the last word "at", will it still be a right answer and won't cause ambiguity?

thank you in advance!

no, if you take that word out, the sentence becomes ambiguous.

upon making this modification, "wrist" could be parallel to either "elbow" or "cartilage rod", thus creating two distinct meanings.

Hi Ron

In choice A, does the ues of "instead of" cause ambiguity?

Meaning A: because they are attached to a cartilage rod at the elbow instead of the wrist

MeaningB: because they are attached to a cartilage rod at the elbow instead of the wrist

Thanks.

[RonPurewal]

does the ues of "instead of" cause ambiguity?

nah. it's plain that the message is 'elbow vs. wrist'.

if there are 2 possibilities but only one of them makes sense, then that's not 'ambiguity'.
it is only 'ambiguity' if common sense genuinely cannot determine which of the 2 meanings is intended.

this is VERY rare on the exam. (i've only seen one official problem in which this is an issue, and that problem is very, very old.)
so, best not to think about it.

[BryanY988]

does the ues of "instead of" cause ambiguity?

nah. it's plain that the message is 'elbow vs. wrist'.

if there are 2 possibilities but only one of them makes sense, then that's not 'ambiguity'.
it is only 'ambiguity' if common sense genuinely cannot determine which of the 2 meanings is intended.

this is VERY rare on the exam. (i've only seen one official problem in which this is an issue, and that problem is very, very old.)
so, best not to think about it.

Thank you very much, Ron

[sahilk47]

Ron

On the GMAT, is "X rather than Y" more preferred to " X instead of Y"?

Thanks

[tim]

I have never seen an instance where the GMAT required us to make a distinction between "instead of" and "rather than". I'm sure Ron will let us know if he's ever seen one, but conventional wisdom is if you have to guess, "rather than" is more likely to be correct than "instead of". However, keep in mind that if you end up going this route, it means you have effectively given up on the problem and are resigning yourself to a flat out guess. Instead (or rather!), you should find some other issue to base your decision on, one that you can be more certain about. I can pretty much assure you there will be some other (more definitive) issue to base your decision on.

[sahilk47]

Tim

Although I shall wait for Ron to share his views on this query, i appreciate your response. Thank you!

[tim]

Don't expect Ron to share any "views" that I haven't already shared. If he knows of any examples that I don't, he'll probably post them here. It shouldn't make much difference to your studying though.

[Raja sekharS832]

What is THAT in correct option "in that they . . " refer to ?

[RonPurewal]

What is THAT in correct option "in that they . . " refer to ?

that isn't a pronoun. it's the same kind of that that appears in sentences like I told the manager that I would be leaving early.

the actual usage of this construction is explained on page 1 of this thread.

[aflaamM589]

Hello Ron,
Is being after preposition also problematic as is the case in C?
I haven't seen this kind of usage of being as correct in GMAT till now.
Can it be taken as safe elimination when taking the test under stressful situation?
Thanks

[RonPurewal]

you can just eliminate that choice using basic parallelism. "X instead of Y" should be a parallel structure, but there's nothing parallel to "being...".

don't make simple things complicated.