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...)

zixuan1017

感谢分享！               

boring0706

https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/forums/since-1990-the-global-economy-has-grown-more-than-it-did-t552-60.html
这里RON说that of的结构前面必须要有一个平行的结构，也就是XX of XX的结构。然而E选项没有，感觉这就比较矛盾了。希望来个NN解释下。

Patrickkk

comparable to that of Great Britain没有谓语动词，
comparable to that of Great Britain 是land的修饰语， 不要加is吗？

land are that is comparable to that of Great Britain ???

CHERRY_MA

感觉Ron的意思是C选项them的问题可以不必过多纠结，它还有其他更明显的错误

YVETTEWYW

feifeionly 发表于 2011-6-9 12:33
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 t ...

同意！               

yangmuhua89757

我认为C的错误在于本句but转折强调LAOS这个地方虽然有great britsh那么大但是人口却很少，但是C的重心却发生的转移，in laos with。。。。貌似在做地点状语，句子结构变成了LAOS虽然有great britsh那么大，但是很多人却是部落成员

我要喝可乐

C选项中的with a population 这种说法是不是本身就很挫？

悠悠爱田

karentsang 发表于 2011-9-26 21:16
OG12- 43 Laos has a land area about the same as Great Britain but only four million in populat ...

谢谢，你的回答让我明白了c为什么不行~！

Sdx1993

还是Manhattan厉害，分析的好透彻