OG12- 43 指代不清？？

joyce22

OG12- 43 Laos has a land area about the same as Great Britain but only four million in population, where many are
members of hill tribes ensconced in the virtually inaccessible mountain valleys of the north.
(A)     about the same as Great Britain but only four million in population, where many
(B)     of about the same size as Great Britain is, but in Laos there is a population of only four million, and many
(C)     that is about the same size as Great Britain’s land area, but in Laos with a population of only four million people, many of them
(D)     comparable to the size of Great Britain, but only four million in population, and many
(E)     comparable to that of Great Britain but a population of only four million people, many of whom

这道题对于C选项为何一直没有个确切解释。。。 正确答案是E我没有异议 但是C错误给出的解释是them指代不清。。。它到底是会引起什么样的误解啊？？在我看来them只可能指代前文的people啊。。。 我到觉得C错了是因为many前面缺少了连词连接两个句子。。。 强烈呼唤NN的指点啊。。。话说我搜到的这道题的解释都没有很明白的。。。

feifeionly

曼哈顿上找到的，我都贴出来了，大家慢慢消化


B项
1）"and" is an illogical transition;
it suggests that the sentence is presenting two separate, unrelated facts. (note that this is a "spoken language trap" -- native speakers are much more likely to think this is correct, since the word "and" is often used this way in spoken language.)

example:
today there was a great deal of traffic, and i was late for work.
--> this sentence implies that the traffic was NOT the reason i was late for work! (by contrast, if this sentence were spoken out loud, it would almost certainly be intended to blame the traffic for my tardiness.)

E项
1）the "but" creates parallelism between the 2 nouns describing things that laos has.
with choice (e), the sentence reads as follows:
laos has a land area comparable to that of Great Britain but a population of only 4 million people, many of whom...
so, basically, laos has X but Y, where X and Y show some kind of contrast with each other. (the contrast here is apparent, as great britain certainly has more than four million inhabitants.)
and the "many of whom..." clause modifies "4 million people", as such clauses are wont to do.
2）是否是run－on sentence
"many of whom" is not a subject pronoun; it's a relative pronoun. it has EXACTLY the same grammar as plural "which".

if you understand why
i adopted two dogs, which weigh approximately 100 pounds each
or
i adopted two dogs, each of which weighs approximately 100 pounds
is not a run-on sentence, then you also understand why (e) is not a run-on sentence.

by contrast, if the sentence had contained "many of them", then it would be a run-on.
so:
*i adopted two dogs, they weigh approximately 100 pounds each
is a run-on sentence (--> incorrect). for the same reason,
*i adopted two dogs, each of them weighs approximately 100 pounds
and
*... a population of only 4 million people, many of them are members of hill tribes...
would also be run-on sentences (--> incorrect).

3）on this test, there will be no meaningful distinction between “compare to” and “compare with”. Both are fine; if one of them is ok in any given situation, the other will also be ok in that situation.

C项

1）What is "them" referring to? It can't be referring to either country; a country would take a singular pronoun. Logically, it should be referring to Laotians, or Laotian people... but those words are not in the sentence.
2）One thing i've found is that the GMAT does not often allow antecedents that are buried deep in the sentence. "people" is buried under three layers of prepositions and is therefore not going to be your antecedent here. Keep in mind though that the GMAT's explanations for SC problems are often unsatisfying, and although their ANSWERS are always correct by definition, their EXPLANATIONS often leave a lot to be desired. The important thing to note here is that C is wrong for other reasons..

D项
1）* "comparable to the size of...", while not incorrect, is inferior to "comparable to that of..."
i.e., it's better to compare a land area to another land area (that of...) than to the somewhat ambiguous "size".

the more important reasons:
* "4 million in population" is not idiomatic.
* it's not clear to what "many" refers.
* "and" is an inappropriate transition; it suggests that there is no essential connection between "many..." and the previous mention of population.
- this is hard to think about at first, because this is the way it's done in spoken language. for instance:
spoken language: there were 50 women, and many of them were brunettes. --> this is considered incorrect in written language.
written language: there were 50 women, many of whom were brunettes.

2）Hmm. You could possibly argue for or against such an ambiguity in D. That's a little fuzzier because there are other things wrong with D in the same "area" of the sentence. Let's look at E first.

For E, the structure of the sentence (parallelism) tells us that we're talking about Laos' population.
Laos has X (a land area...) but [Laos has] Y (a population of...)
The "but" indicates parallelism. X and Y are the parallel items. The stuff before X has to apply to both X and Y. Voila! "Laos has" applies to both.

Apply that to D. We've got "but" there too, and an attempt at the X Y structure (though not correctly done):
Laos has X (a land area...) but [Laos has] Y (only 4 million in population...)

果汁软糖

题目释义：Laos has a land area… but a population…
考点：
1.    比较对象要形式对称，性质相同；特别指出文中size和area是可以比的，因为area有面积的意思，但是不能像A里面那样说两个area是the same,而要用equal或者comparable来表达数值上的对等，而不是地域或其他方面上的对等
2.    连词的运用：仅凭逗号是不可以连接两个句子的
3.    定语从句的关系连词：that/介词+which
4.    有人说E中people和population是重复表达，aeoluseros指出，population和people一个是"数量",一个人人群，重心不同，不重复.
选项分析：
A.    Land不可以和GB比较；where不可以作为population的连接词
B.    Is和has不对应；Land不可以和GB比较；
C.    定语从句wordy，用形容词短语就可以，更加简洁，而且意思没减少；with短语做状语修饰many of them不合理；them指代不明
D.    only 4 million in population表达不准确；and many的使用使句子结构改变，本来这一句是修饰成分，现在却成了并列的主干
E.    correct

果汁软糖

这是新prep里面的一道题，等新prep笔记出来以后大家就可以去查了 lz加油~

ryuu217

OG12- 43 Laos has a land area about the same as Great Britain but only four million in population, where many are
members of hill tribes ensconced in the virtually inaccessible mountain valleys of the north.
(A)     about the same as Great Britain but only four million in population, where many
(B)     of about the same size as Great Britain is, but in Laos there is a population of only four million, and many
(C)     that is about the same size as Great Britain’s land area, but in Laos with a population of only four million people, many of them
(D)     comparable to the size of Great Britain, but only four million in population, and many
(E)     comparable to that of Great Britain but a population of only four million people, many of whom

这道题对于C选项为何一直没有个确切解释。。。 正确答案是E我没有异议 但是C错误给出的解释是them指代不清。。。它到底是会引起什么样的误解啊？？在我看来them只可能指代前文的people啊。。。 我到觉得C错了是因为many前面缺少了连词连接两个句子。。。 强烈呼唤NN的指点啊。。。话说我搜到的这道题的解释都没有很明白的。。。

-- by 会员 joyce22 (2010/4/25 16:02:54)

(C)     that is about the same size as Great Britain’s land area,but in Laos with a population of only four million people, many of them
C选项是不是也可以这么理解
1.比较对象land area 重复出现---wordy
2.but???，many of them???---句子重心改变
3.them---in???with???of??? people的层过深，或者说可以像D选项一样直接用many，而没必要用many of them.

(E)     comparable to that of Great Britain but a population of only four million people, many of whom
看了答案才意识到but引导的平行结构很漂亮。a land area about???, but a population of ???

本人开始复习3个月了，可是语法还是没找到感觉，欢迎指正！

ccfelicia

菜鸟凑热闹。希望大家多多讨论。只是针对C选项：1。限制性定语从句that blah blah不够concise.可以完全省略 ； 2.代词指代问题。两个完整独立的句子最好用;连接，这样子两个句子的含义会分离（可以两个完全不同的topic)。如果只是用and/but连接那么连接的句子之间都会是有点联系的（差不多在同一个topic内）。而这里面应为使用,but连接，them既可以指people,也可以指land, laos(前面出现太多名词了）

呼唤NN!!!

ccfelicia

补充，E选项whom就会变得非常的明确-他只能指人

golazard

http://www.manhattangmat.com/forums/laos-has-a-land-area-t5749.html 这里有c选项的解释，我觉得还比较靠谱～～重复确实有点多，不过没有说道them的问题。。

pennybehappy

顶一顶 看了楼上给的链接 那个Ron说“go read that choice (c) again; the word "people" does not exist anywhere in that choice (or in the non-underlined part). a pronoun cannot refer to a word that is not actually there!
the closest you get in that sentence is “population”, but that's singular.”

可是“people”明明出现了啊，but in Laos with a population of only four milllion people, many of them

不解中

请指教

564557552

我觉得c可以写成n,but n ,句子。这结构明显有问题嘛!

geegee

C当中：but in Laos with a population of only four million people, many of them... 结构诡异。读的很累。写的人估计也头晕眼花，没法拿出手。