Unlike frogs that metamorphose from tadpoles into adults

[RonPurewal]

Both of them state an fact and then the consequence related to the former part.

^^ That's already a perfect explanation; no need for any other explanation.

Before studying these two SC, I thought "with the result that... " is kind of redundant to express a result...

"Redundant" means that the same idea is expressed twice. Where is the second one? (It's not there.)

In fact, your phrasing here -- "kind of redundant" -- suggests that your understanding of "redundant" is not accurate.
Redundancy is either there or not there; either the idea is expressed twice or it isn't. Yes or no.

[Jean_M]

...
however, you should be able to kill (c) pretty quickly on the grounds that it doesn't start with mountain yellow-legged frogs (and thus finishes the unlike... comparison incorrectly).

(C) in the Sierra Nevada, mountain-yellow legged tree frogs take three or four years to reach adulthood, thus being

The following OA is from GMATPrep Pack 1. How does it compare with C given that (C) was eliminated based on an incorrect comparison and ignoring "...thus being..." for the purposes of illustration?

[redacted"”can't post paid questions]

Could we consider "...in the Sierra Nevada..." a meaning error because we are not describing frogs in a geographical location but rather frogs originating from a geographical location: "...of Sierra Nevada..."

UPDATE: I also noticed that (C) is the only one that has "mountain yellow-legged tree frogs."

[RonPurewal]

The following OA is from GMATPrep Pack 1. How does it compare with C given that (C) was eliminated based on an incorrect comparison and ignoring "...thus being..." for the purposes of illustration?

That answer doesn't compare with C at all. It uses "whereas", which is an entirely different animal.

"Unlike" compares two nouns.

"Whereas" provides a relationship between two complete sentences, and does not require specific placement of any elements within those sentences.

[RonPurewal]

Could we consider "...in the Sierra Nevada..." a meaning error because we are not describing frogs in a geographical location but rather frogs originating from a geographical location: "...of Sierra Nevada..."

No.
If the meaning is reasonable, there is no "meaning error".
"Meaning errors" occur when a sentence has a meaning that is illogical, self-contradictory, nonsense, or absurd.

[750plus]

Unlike frogs that metamorphose from tadpoles into adults within a one-year period, it takes three to four years for the mountain yellow-legged frog of the Sierra Nevada to reach adulthood, and so they are restricted to deeper bodies of water that do not dry up in summer or freeze solid in winter.

(A) it takes three to four years for the mountain yellow-legged frog of the Sierra Nevada to reach adulthood, and so they are
(B) it takes the mountain yellow-legged frog of the Sierra Nevada three to four years until it reaches adulthood, and therefore it is
(C) in the Sierra Nevada, mountain yellow-legged tree frogs take three to four years to reach adulthood, thus being
(D) mountain yellow-legged frogs of the Sierra Nevada take three to four years until they reach adulthood, thus
(E) mountain yellow-legged frogs of the Sierra Nevada take three to four years to reach adulthood, and so they are

The OA is E

Dear Instructors,

Can you please explain what is wrong with option D.

The usage of 'thus' looks correct to me. I know I'm wrong but want to know.

Thank You

[RonPurewal]

two things:

1/
that kind of modifier normally describes the closest action. so, you have "(thus) restricted..." trying to modify "...to reach adulthood".
this is problematic, since that modifier doesn't have anything to do with reaching adulthood; it describes a situation that obtains before the animal reaches adulthood.

2/
"until" describes something that happened / was true up to a certain point in time. (e.g., Charlie was very weak until he started lifting weights.)
"take 3-4 years" is not such a thing.

[RonPurewal]

you can also just remember this structure as an idiom: "take [TIME PERIOD] to + verb"
The mechanic took only 20 minutes to perform a complete tune-up on my car.

there's no other construction that is idiomatically acceptable with "take + (time period)", so, if you're good at memorizing things, this one is black-and-white.

[750plus]

you can also just remember this structure as an idiom: "take [TIME PERIOD] to + verb"
The mechanic took only 20 minutes to perform a complete tune-up on my car.

there's no other construction that is idiomatically acceptable with "take + (time period)", so, if you're good at memorizing things, this one is black-and-white.

Wow.

You made it easy for me.

Thank You Ron.

Warm Regards
Rajat Gugnani

[RonPurewal]

sure.

[750plus]

Mr. Purewal,

I again have a question for you.

I have lately observed that I face a lot of problem in deciding whether when a sentence is redundant.

I'd like you to please explain that why have we used 'they' after AND in the correct sentence here. I'm substituting the correct option, E in the original sentence. The sentence now looks like :

Unlike frogs that metamorphose from tadpoles into adults within a one-year period, mountain yellow-legged frogs of the Sierra Nevada take three to four years to reach adulthood, and so they are restricted to deeper bodies of water that do not dry up in summer or freeze solid in winter.

Why can't I write the above sentence as

Unlike frogs that metamorphose from tadpoles into adults within a one-year period, mountain yellow-legged frogs of the Sierra Nevada take three to four years to reach adulthood, and so are restricted to deeper bodies of water that do not dry up in summer or freeze solid in winter.

- - - - - - -

I'm not questioning the authenticity of the question here. Of course it is correct the way it is written, but I'd like to know the necessity behind ' they ' in the sentence.

- - - - - -

This leads me to ask you another question. I have seen that in some of the questions it is necessary to keep the ' pronoun ' and in some cases a ' verb ' after the parallel marker. How do I take a decision there.

I'm quoting another example here [Again from GMAT Prep]

In 1984 medical researchers at Harvard and Stanford universities concluded that sedentary life-styles lead to heart and lung diseases that shorten lives, and they strongly recommended that middle-aged people undertake some form of regular exercise.

Here, again we have 'they' after AND. What if I drop it?

Please if you can share what should be my approach in dealing with such cases.

Many thanks in advance.

[RonPurewal]

those are fine with the subject. they're also fine without it.

this is a style issue: with the additional subject, both sentences are much easier to read. (both sentences are rather long.)

you will NEVER have to make this decision, since style issues are not tested on this exam.
if you do happen to see both versions, then one of them will be incorrect (for some other reason).

[750plus]

those are fine with the subject. they're also fine without it.

this is a style issue: with the additional subject, both sentences are much easier to read. (both sentences are rather long.)

you will NEVER have to make this decision, since style issues are not tested on this exam.
if you do happen to see both versions, then one of them will be incorrect (for some other reason).

Thanks for the response.

But, this is what I think of the GMAT Prep example that I posted

In 1984 medical researchers at Harvard and Stanford universities concluded that sedentary life-styles lead to heart and lung diseases that shorten lives, and they strongly recommended that middle-aged people undertake some form of regular exercise.

Now, if we remove 'they'

In 1984 medical researchers at Harvard and Stanford universities concluded
that sedentary life-styles lead to heart and lung diseases that shorten lives, and strongly recommended that middle-aged people undertake some form of regular exercise.

It looks like that sedentary life styles is recommending something. This to me looks 100 % incorrect. So, I think we definitely need 'they' here.

__________________

But your point that it is a STYLE issue made me think twice, but I really cannot understand that where am I going wrong in the above explanation that I just wrote.

It'd be great if you can direct me in the right direction.

Warm Regards

[RonPurewal]

nah. the sentence is still fine without "they", for at least 3 different reasons:

1/
in context it's obvious that the researchers "concluded xxxx" and "recommended yyyy".
basically no one would even think of the alternate explanation, unless (s)he were completely ignoring context/meaning and looking purely at mechanics (= always a bad idea).

2/
also, the idea that a lifestyle can "recommend" something is absurd on its face. if someone were hypothetically to read the sentence that way, (s)he would IMMEDIATELY know that this is the wrong interpretation.

3/
it's more natural to associate "recommended" with the other past-tense verb ("concluded") than to associate it with the present-tense "lead".

[RonPurewal]

also, more fundamentally, let's pretend for a moment that the sentence IS actually wrong without "they". (it's not... but let's pretend.)

in this case, adding "they" wouldn't help you anyway!
grammatically, "they" can stand for "sedentary lifestyles" just as well as it can stand for "researchers". so, the sentence with "they" is subject to exactly the same (mis)interpretations as is the version without "they".

short version:
if your explanation were correct, then the version with "they" would also be wrong, for exactly the same reason.

[tim]

I'm going to reference a post I wrote just a couple of minutes ago:

https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/foru ... 10018.html

This is the exact same issue in reverse. Whereas you can't join two independent clauses without a comma in front of the "and", if there IS a comma in front of the "and" without it being paired with another comma earlier in the sentence, you MUST create an independent clause by including a subject after the "and". As with the other post of course, if Ron points out an official GMAT problem that violates this near-universal English grammar rule, I'll withdraw my claim.