NewJersey Deer Population

[tim]

[RonPurewal]

Thanks.

sure.

[MARSHALLM603]

NEWYORK can't have any PREDATORS in thsi world ha haa (((..
only deer population can have some predators...so it should modify deer population ..not the NEWYORK..

public service announcement: new york and new jersey are two different places.

--

back to your regularly scheduled programming:

the above poster has correctly summarized why 'deer population' is the right noun to follow the opening modifier: there are no predators that threaten to eat new jersey (political metaphors notwithstanding).

i agree that describing a deer population as 'with expanses of green suburban neighborhoods' is somewhat ridiculous - in my mind, it conjures an image of smartly attired deer touring the latest subdivisions along with their antlered sales representatives - but it's better than the awful lack of parallelism in choice d (without natural predators and no hunting allowed - ugh).

never forget that you're often reduced to picking the choice that's least awful, rather than the 'best' one.

Dear Ron:

Sorry to open this old thread again. I am still a little bit confused with Option C:

With no natural predators and with expanses of green suburban neighborhoods where there is no hunting, the deer population in New Jersey, wildlife officials estimate, has grown to exceed 175,000.

My question is that the population is estimated to grow, and the growth should happen in the future, since it is estimated by someone now. But how come the sentence uses the perfect tense, indicating that the growth might already happened?

I mean does not the sentence imply that the dear population dropped before ( because of predators and hunting, which is not the case now), and since the conditions for dear are better now, thus the official guys are estimating an increase of dear population?

Could you pls kindly help? Thanks!

[RonPurewal]

no, it's an estimate of the current size of the population.

clearly, populations of wild animals are not known with any significant accuracy (how would you count them?), so they have to be estimated.

[jabgt]

That's a good question.

I thought about this for a bit. Here's my best answer:

* If the prep phrase does not specifically pertain to the subject at all, then it doesn't matter where the subject is placed.
E.g., "In 1993" is purely the timeframe of an action. It would make no sense at all to say that any person or physical object is/was "in 1993".
So, in the sentence In 1993, I graduated from high school, "In 1993" is describing nothing other than the pure event. It doesn't pertain to any noun.
So, it makes no difference which noun is placed after it.
You could also write In 1993, Dupont Manual High School issued me a diploma.

On the other hand...
* If the prep phrase actually applies to a specific noun, then that noun should be placed directly after it.
E.g.,
With sufficient course credit to skip my first year of college afterward, I graduated from high school.
Here, "With sufficient course credit..." specifically describes me. So, "I" must follow it.
This sentence would be wrong:
*With sufficient course credit to skip my first year of college afterward, Dupont Manual High School issued me a diploma.

Hope that helps.

Thank you, Ron Sir! You can always explain what is deemed unexplainable! This explains how both of two versions of Prep problems make sense altogether "In addition to her work on xxx, Mary Leakey contributed to yyy/Mary Leakey's contributions to yyy".

[jabgt]

My problem with C was that - has a full sentence in the comma - wildlife officials estimate

This is the issue because a independent clause is placed within another clause ( without any conjunction )

Ron could you please let me know how this is correct...

as Ron would say, it's correct because the GMAT says it's correct. remember, don't question official answers, just internalize this as a valid construction..

"wildlife officials estimate" is not the independent clause that requires of conjunction. It's same as "the deer population in New Jersey, which officials estimate, has..." GMAC official sentences occasionally omit these words "which/that" when they work as objects in relative clauses, while they cannot be omitted when they work as subjects in relative clauses. Although grammar books generally state that this omission is applied to informal oral English not to formal written English, I'm pretty sure that GMAC accept it to formal written for the purposes such as style/conciseness, since I do have met this omission for several times (By the way, Ron has one splendid lecture in the forum regarding why what we have learned from grammar books are incomplete).

Although this question was asked long time ago, since I have been hugely benefited from previous Gurus' explanations and students' discussion, I guess someone else might want to check the discussion of the usage of "..., wildlife officials estimate, ..." as I intended to.

[RonPurewal]

i have no idea what "independent clause" and "relative clause" mean, so... i'm sorry, but, i can't even tell whether you are asking a question.

are you asking a question?

if so, can you please ask it without the use of unnecessary terms?
thanks.

[JbhB682]

On option C, Per my understanding, "Deer" is just an adjective and an adjective CANNOT be the subject of the clause.

Instead the subject of the clause i thought was "Population" only [ i dropped the adjective]

In option C

I don't understand how the noun "Population" (which is essentially a number) -- how can a number have a
- natural predator

Nor can the noun "Population" (which is a number) have
- expanses of green suburban neighborhoods

[esledge]

On option C, Per my understanding, "Deer" is just an adjective and an adjective CANNOT be the subject of the clause.

Instead the subject of the clause i thought was "Population" only [ i dropped the adjective]

In option C

I don't understand how the noun "Population" (which is essentially a number) -- how can a number have a
- natural predator

Nor can the noun "Population" (which is a number) have
- expanses of green suburban neighborhoods

You are right that "deer" is an adjective and "the population" is the subject. However, you are wrong that population is essentially a number--it can be quantified with a number, but "a population" is a group of people or animals living in a certain place. The group can have a natural predator.