To meet the rising marketing demand for fish

[vik]

To meet the rising marketing demand for fish and seafood, suppliers are growing fish twice as fast as their natural growth rate, cutting their feed allotment by nearly half and raising them on special diets.
A. their natural growth rate, cutting their feed allotment
B. their natural growth rate, their feed allotment cut
C. growing them naturally, cutting their feed allotment
D. they grow naturally, cutting their feed allotment
E. they grow naturally, with their feed allotment cut

How to eliminate between C and D?

And also in D they refers to what suppliers or fish and seafood . Why I am asking is in non-underlined portion raising them refers to what ?

This is a GMAT prep question

[RonPurewal]

you have a point with the pronoun reference: technically, it's ambiguous (although the intended meaning is pretty clear). however, since the same 'problem' is present in all five of the answer choices, i guess we shouldn't consider it a problem.

in answer choice c, 'growing them naturally' appears to be parallel to 'growing fish twice as fast...' therefore, the default interpretation of this sentence is that the suppliers are growing the fish (at 2x the normal rate), yet somehow also growing the fish naturally (at the normal rate). not only is this nonsensical, but it alters the meaning of the original sentence.

i agree with you that 'they' is a problem.

[editor (oct 2010): this post is three years old; since then, after collecting a great deal of other evidence, we've come up with a more accurate way of dealing with ambiguous pronouns.
see here:
post40400.html#p40400]

[vik]

Hi Ron

As per answer D is correct . Really confused with this sentence

Thanks
Vik

[StaceyKoprince]

Ron already addressed the issue of why C is wrong based on its meaning. I'll try to tackle the pronoun issue.

ACT / ETS (depending on who wrote this problem) doesn't seem to have a hard-and-fast pronouns rule - sometimes they allow something that seems ambiguous to us. Here's my guess as to why they think this is NOT ambiguous (ie, why they think it's fine).

This sentence has a list of three things: suppliers are A, B, and C.
A = growing
B = cutting
C = raising

A mentions the noun "fish" and then uses the pronoun "they" shortly thereafter. Examine the specific words: "growing fish twice as fast as they grow naturally." We're comparing fish to fish here - it wouldn't make sense to say that we're growing fish twice as fast as suppliers grow naturally - so the "they" here refers to "fish." Fine.

Then we know that A, B, and C need to be parallel, since we have a list. So "cutting their" and "raising them" should refer back to the same noun A was talking about - fish. Do they? Yes, they do, so the test says this is fine.

Also, I just want to echo something Ron said - although we think of this as ambiguous, notice that they don't make us choose based upon this issue. All five choices have the "problem" - so I should just ignore it. Any time you find what you think is a problem but the answer choices ALL contain it, find something else!

[rschunti]

In answer choice "C" as you have said that "default interpretation of this sentence is that the suppliers are growing the fish (at 2x the normal rate), yet somehow also growing the fish naturally (at the normal rate)."

What is the reason in choice "C" that this second interpretaion is also valid? Based on what rule/sentence structure this interpretation is done? What is the best way to learn these subtilities?

[rschunti]

Also am I correct in assuming that choice "A" is wrong because we are comparing "growing fish" with their "natural growth rate.".?

"...suppliers are growing fish twice as fast as their natural growth rate.."

[RonPurewal]

In answer choice "C" as you have said that "default interpretation of this sentence is that the suppliers are growing the fish (at 2x the normal rate), yet somehow also growing the fish naturally (at the normal rate)."

What is the reason in choice "C" that this second interpretaion is also valid? Based on what rule/sentence structure this interpretation is done? What is the best way to learn these subtilities?

you'd look at one of the mainstays of gmat grammar - in fact, what is probably the single most important concept in sentence correction: PARALLELISM.
in choice c, there is clear parallelism (although there shouldn't be!) between 'growing fish twice as fast' and 'growing them naturally'. this indicates that the same agent, i.e. the supplier, is performing both of these actions.

parallelism is absolute: it encompasses grammatical parallelism as well as logical parallelism. therefore, if you see two clauses / phrases written in parallel, you can take their meanings to be logically parallel as well. ironically, the logical parallelism is why this particular sentence doesn't make any sense.

[RonPurewal]

Also am I correct in assuming that choice "A" is wrong because we are comparing "growing fish" with their "natural growth rate.".?

"...suppliers are growing fish twice as fast as their natural growth rate.."

you are correct, if what you meant was that a faulty comparison (BAD PARALLELISM again) is being made.

because 'are growing fish' is a verb construction, it needs to be placed in parallel with another verb construction. choices a and b don't do that (there's no verb in 'their natural growth rate').

[Guest]

Then we know that A, B, and C need to be parallel, since we have a list. So "cutting their" and "raising them" should refer back to the same noun A was talking about - fish. Do they? Yes, they do, so the test says this is fine.

excuse me, skoprince, I don't think "growing", "cutting" and "rising" are logically parallel cuz "growing" seems to include the rest two action.

[Guest]

To meet the rising marketing demand for fish and seafood, suppliers are growing fish twice as fast as their natural growth rate, cutting their feed allotment by nearly half and raising them on special diets.
A. their natural growth rate, cutting their feed allotment
B. their natural growth rate, their feed allotment cut
C. growing them naturally, cutting their feed allotment
D. they grow naturally, cutting their feed allotment
E. they grow naturally, with their feed allotment cut

My question in D:

To meet the rising marketing demand for fish and seafood, suppliers are growing fish twice as fast as
they grow naturally,
cutting their feed allotment by nearly half
and raising them on special diets.

I think that
cutting [/b]their feed allotment by nearly half and raising [/b]them on special diets
modify the Verb "are growing" ?

[RonPurewal]

I don't think "growing", "cutting" and "rising" are logically parallel cuz "growing" seems to include the rest two action.

yes, you're actually correct. cutting and raising (note "raising", not "rising") constitute a participial modifier, and they're actually NONparallel to "ARE growing", the main verb of the sentence.
the structure is essentially identical to that in og11 problem #127 (please don't post details from that problem here), in which the two "-ing" participles in the modifier are distinctly nonparallel to the main verb. choice (e) in that problem sets up a spurious parallelism to distract you, but it's bad parallelism anyway (because there's a stray "it" in one of the 3 parts).

--

in fact, verbs in modifiers don't have to be -- and usually won't be -- parallel to the verb in the main clause.
in cases such as this one, they may appear parallel - mostly because "-ing" can play so many different roles - but they aren't.

[vineetbatra]

Ron/Stacey,

I did not select C for a different reason, please let me know if I my reason is correct/incorrect.

In C Growing them naturally, Cutting and Raising seems to be parallel. What I understand from an earlier post from one of you guys is that when things are parallel then they are happening at the same time and not adding emphasis on any one; however Growing is more important because it happens first.

Eg. Mary likes traveling to Europe, eating food and drinking wine. Or

Mary likes to travel to Europe, Eating food and drinking wine. (I don't recall the correct example)

Something like this where the first sentence meant that she likes all 3 things but 2nd sentence meant she like last 2 things while traveling to Europe.

I hope I am making some sense here.

Vineet

[RonPurewal]

Ron/Stacey,

I did not select C for a different reason, please let me know if I my reason is correct/incorrect.

In C Growing them naturally, Cutting and Raising seems to be parallel. What I understand from an earlier post from one of you guys is that when things are parallel then they are happening at the same time and not adding emphasis on any one; however Growing is more important because it happens first.

Eg. Mary likes traveling to Europe, eating food and drinking wine. Or

Mary likes to travel to Europe, Eating food and drinking wine. (I don't recall the correct example)

Something like this where the first sentence meant that she likes all 3 things but 2nd sentence meant she like last 2 things while traveling to Europe.

I hope I am making some sense here.

Vineet

this is correct; in fact, it's almost exactly the essence of what i wrote in the post above yours. well done.

[vineetbatra]

Thanks Ron,

Vineet

[StaceyKoprince]

yw!