. Unlike most warbler species

[Guest]

Unlike most warbler species, the male and female
blue-winged warbler are very difficult to tell apart.

(A) Unlike most warbler species, the male and
female blue-winged warbler are very difficult
to tell apart.
(B) Unlike most warbler species, the gender of the
blue-winged warbler is very difficult to
distinguish.
(C) Unlike those in most warbler species, the male
and female blue-winged warblers are very
difficult to distinguish.
(D) It is very difficult, unlike in most warbler species,
to tell the male and female blue-winged warbler
apart.
(E) Blue-winged warblers are unlike most species of
warbler in that it is very difficult to tell the
male and female apart.

[Suyash]

In my opinion B.Since we need comparison,so should start with Unlike.So down to a,b and c.Usage of those is ambiguos in C.Left with a and b.Finally b as usage is clear and concise in meaning.

[guest]

Will go with "C"

[Hanumayamma]

(A) Unlike most warbler species, the male and female blue-winged warbler are very difficult
to tell apart. [Incorrect comparison - eliminate it]

(B) Unlike most warbler species, the gender of the blue-winged warbler is very difficult to
distinguish. [warbler species and the gender compared - eliminate it]

(C) Unlike those in most warbler species, the male and female blue-winged warblers are very
difficult to distinguish. [Those logically implies distinctions or differences - hold it]

(D) It is very difficult, unlike in most warbler species, to tell the male and female blue-winged warbler apart. ["unlike in most warbler species" modifying the difficult]

(E) Blue-winged warblers are unlike most species of warbler in that it is very difficult to tell the
male and female apart [It - referent issue].

[Suyash]

Agreed.Should go with C.

[RonPurewal]

i'm actually going to dissent from all the other opinions here and vote for (e).

(a) and (b) are wrong, wrong, wrong; you don't need to read any further than the first 5-6 words of each. in both cases, the comparison is invalid: they start out with "unlike most warbler species...", and then begin the following clause with something other than another warbler species.
remember, COMPARISONS NEED TO BE EXACTLY PARALLEL.
the only thing that we can compare to one species of bird is another species of bird. both (a) and (b) fail that particular acid test.

(c) is wrong because the ostensibly parallel construction isn't, well, parallel enough. if the first half of the construction is "those in most warbler species," then the second half MUST be "______ in this-or-that species." this choice isn't written that way.
the standard for parallelism in this sort of construction is set very high indeed.

(d) is pretty ridiculous. no one here picked it, so i trust that i don't have to spell out what's wrong with it.
if any readers want to know, post back and i'll explain in more detail.

(e), on the other hand, is the best of the 5 choices here:
* perfect use of the construction "in that": this construction LIMITS the meaning of the foregoing words. in other words, the following text "it is very difficult to ..." explains precisely in what way the blue-winged warblers are "unlike most other species of warbler".
* no issues with parallelism - and no issues with pronouns (see below)
* this type of 'it' construction is extremely common in english. for instance: 'it was impossible to tell what would happen next', 'it is obvious that you're upset', etc.
this is not a pronoun error. if you absolutely must assign a referent, then choose the entire following noun clause (e.g., "that you are upset" in the second example) - but it's better just to familiarize yourself with the construction, as the gmat will of course never ask you to point out the specific referent of a pronoun.
there are alternative constructions that avoid the use of 'it' in these cases, but they usually sound excessively stilted or literary (e.g., "that you are upset is obvious").

to the original poster: PLEASE post the official answer. thank you.

[rohit21384]

i'm actually going to dissent from all the other opinions here and vote for (e).

(a) and (b) are wrong, wrong, wrong; you don't need to read any further than the first 5-6 words of each. in both cases, the comparison is invalid: they start out with "unlike most warbler species...", and then begin the following clause with something other than another warbler species.
remember, COMPARISONS NEED TO BE EXACTLY PARALLEL.
the only thing that we can compare to one species of bird is another species of bird. both (a) and (b) fail that particular acid test.

(c) is wrong because the ostensibly parallel construction isn't, well, parallel enough. if the first half of the construction is "those in most warbler species," then the second half MUST be "______ in this-or-that species." this choice isn't written that way.
the standard for parallelism in this sort of construction is set very high indeed.

(d) is pretty ridiculous. no one here picked it, so i trust that i don't have to spell out what's wrong with it.
if any readers want to know, post back and i'll explain in more detail.

(e), on the other hand, is the best of the 5 choices here:
* perfect use of the construction "in that": this construction LIMITS the meaning of the foregoing words. in other words, the following text "it is very difficult to ..." explains precisely in what way the blue-winged warblers are "unlike most other species of warbler".
* no issues with parallelism - and no issues with pronouns (see below)
* this type of 'it' construction is extremely common in english. for instance: 'it was impossible to tell what would happen next', 'it is obvious that you're upset', etc.
this is not a pronoun error. if you absolutely must assign a referent, then choose the entire following noun clause (e.g., "that you are upset" in the second example) - but it's better just to familiarize yourself with the construction, as the gmat will of course never ask you to point out the specific referent of a pronoun.
there are alternative constructions that avoid the use of 'it' in these cases, but they usually sound excessively stilted or literary (e.g., "that you are upset is obvious").

to the original poster: PLEASE post the official answer. thank you.

Ron
OA is E

[vishalsahdev03]

i'm actually going to dissent from all the other opinions here and vote for (e).

(c) is wrong because the ostensibly parallel construction isn't, well, parallel enough. if the first half of the construction is "those in most warbler species," then the second half MUST be "______ in this-or-that species." this choice isn't written that way.
the standard for parallelism in this sort of construction is set very high indeed.

(e), on the other hand, is the best of the 5 choices here:
* perfect use of the construction "in that": this construction LIMITS the meaning of the foregoing words. in other words, the following text "it is very difficult to ..." explains precisely in what way the blue-winged warblers are "unlike most other species of warbler".
* no issues with parallelism - and no issues with pronouns (see below)
* this type of 'it' construction is extremely common in english. for instance: 'it was impossible to tell what would happen next', 'it is obvious that you're upset', etc.
this is not a pronoun error. if you absolutely must assign a referent, then choose the entire following noun clause (e.g., "that you are upset" in the second example) - but it's better just to familiarize yourself with the construction, as the gmat will of course never ask you to point out the specific referent of a pronoun.
there are alternative constructions that avoid the use of 'it' in these cases, but they usually sound excessively stilted or literary (e.g., "that you are upset is obvious").

to the original poster: PLEASE post the official answer. thank you.

I came down to E and C, in E it is saying
"it is very difficult to tell the male and female apart"

Please explain the correct meaning of "tell X and Y apart" it better to use "differentiate" . Are the two ( "differentiate" and "tell X and Y apart" ) same in the meaning? Please explain their usage?

This construction seemed wage and unusual to me so i went with C.
I have problems identifying when such uncommon structures are correct, please suggest something?

Thank you in advance.

[RonPurewal]

i'm actually going to dissent from all the other opinions here and vote for (e).

(c) is wrong because the ostensibly parallel construction isn't, well, parallel enough. if the first half of the construction is "those in most warbler species," then the second half MUST be "______ in this-or-that species." this choice isn't written that way.
the standard for parallelism in this sort of construction is set very high indeed.

(e), on the other hand, is the best of the 5 choices here:
* perfect use of the construction "in that": this construction LIMITS the meaning of the foregoing words. in other words, the following text "it is very difficult to ..." explains precisely in what way the blue-winged warblers are "unlike most other species of warbler".
* no issues with parallelism - and no issues with pronouns (see below)
* this type of 'it' construction is extremely common in english. for instance: 'it was impossible to tell what would happen next', 'it is obvious that you're upset', etc.
this is not a pronoun error. if you absolutely must assign a referent, then choose the entire following noun clause (e.g., "that you are upset" in the second example) - but it's better just to familiarize yourself with the construction, as the gmat will of course never ask you to point out the specific referent of a pronoun.
there are alternative constructions that avoid the use of 'it' in these cases, but they usually sound excessively stilted or literary (e.g., "that you are upset is obvious").

to the original poster: PLEASE post the official answer. thank you.

I came down to E and C, in E it is saying
"it is very difficult to tell the male and female apart"

Please explain the correct meaning of "tell X and Y apart" it better to use "differentiate" . Are the two ( "differentiate" and "tell X and Y apart" ) same in the meaning? Please explain their usage?

This construction seemed wage and unusual to me so i went with C.
I have problems identifying when such uncommon structures are correct, please suggest something?

Thank you in advance.

"tell X and Y apart" is basically the same thing as "distinguish X from Y".

i have a feeling that this is not a real GMATPREP question. has anyone on this thread seen it in an actual GMATPREP test?

[elevinty]

this question from gmat test52.
I was down between A and E, but I chose A because I thought that MALE and FEMALE is acting as an adjective to the Blue-winged Warbler, hence the comparison is between two species Warbler and MALE AND FEMALE BLUE WINGED WARBLER.
can u elaborate on that.
thank you for your time.
Amer

[RonPurewal]

this question from gmat test52.
I was down between A and E, but I chose A because I thought that MALE and FEMALE is acting as an adjective to the Blue-winged Warbler, hence the comparison is between two species Warbler and MALE AND FEMALE BLUE WINGED WARBLER.
can u elaborate on that.
thank you for your time.
Amer

what is "gmat test52"?

the gmat prep software only has a "test 1" and a "test 2", so it appears that my original suspicions (that this is NOT from gmat prep) have been confirmed.

choice (e) says:
Blue-winged warblers are unlike most species of warbler in that it is very difficult to tell the male and female apart.

the usage of "in that" implies that the rest of the sentence is going to give a specific way in which blue-winged warblers are unlike most other species of warbler -- i.e., this construction implies that the following clause is going to refer to blue-winged warblers.
given that context, there is no need to include another instance of "blue-winged warbler" after "male and female"; that would create redundancy.

[elevinty]

Ron,
I do understand why E is right, am not asking about E and I do understand the construction of IN THAT, but what I dont understand is why A is wrong because A is still comparing between most species of warbler and the blue winged warbler. As I said, in A "the male and the female" are just adjectives modifying warbler. So we are still comparing between the two noun phrases Species of Warbler and Blue Winged Warbler.
to answer your question "what is Test 52"?
This is one of the old GMAT paper based exams that you can buy buy them from MBA.com
and this question is in Test paper Code number 52

[vicksikand]

Unlike most warbler species, the male and female
blue-winged warbler are very difficult to tell apart.

(A) Unlike most warbler species, the male and
female blue-winged warbler are very difficult
to tell apart.

Comparing the entire species to the male and female sub-parts of another isnt correct.
Blue-winged warbler : blue winged is your adjective; I doubt whether you can call "the male and female" an adjective.

Choice E correctly compares the two species.

[RonPurewal]

Ron,
I do understand why E is right, am not asking about E and I do understand the construction of IN THAT, but what I dont understand is why A is wrong because A is still comparing between most species of warbler and the blue winged warbler. As I said, in A "the male and the female" are just adjectives modifying warbler. So we are still comparing between the two noun phrases Species of Warbler and Blue Winged Warbler.
to answer your question "what is Test 52"?
This is one of the old GMAT paper based exams that you can buy buy them from MBA.com
and this question is in Test paper Code number 52

(a) says
Unlike most warbler species, the male and
female blue-winged warbler...

this is an improper comparison; the male and female blue-winged warbler are not species (they are different sexes of one species). so that's incorrect.

[elevinty]

thank you RON...