Question
It is called a sea, but the landlocked Caspian is actually the largest lake on Earth, which covers more than four times the surface area of its closest rival in size, North America’s Lake Superior.
Option A
Option B
Option C
Option D
Option E
(This question is from Official Guide. Therefore, because of copyrights, the complete question cannot be copied here. The question can be accessed at GMAT Club)
Solution
Sentence Analysis
The sentence seems to say that:
Even though landlocked Caspian is called a sea, it is actually the largest lake on Earth (i.e. it is called a sea but it is a lake). This lake covers xyz surface area. “xyz” is actually a comparison with the surface area of some other lake. But we need not be concerned about that. We just need to understand the gist of the non-underlined part.
The sentence has the following problems:
- The sentence starts with an independent clause containing a pronoun (it), and then the next independent clause contains the noun (Caspian), which is the antecedent of the pronoun. While a pronoun may appear before its antecedent in a sentence, such sequence is generally permissible only when both are part of the same independent clause. Here, we are dealing with two separate independent clauses.
- The antecedent of “which” can be “the largest lake on Earth”. However, in such case, the sentence structure is this: “Caspian is the largest lake on Earth, which covers xyz area”. Logically, if Caspian is the largest lake, then Caspian itself covers xyz area. Thus, it is more logical to present “cover xyz area” as a separate predicate for the subject Caspian than to present it as a modifier, as in the given sentence.
Option Analysis
(A) Incorrect. For the reasons mentioned above.
(B) Incorrect. This option has Problem no. 2 of the original sentence.
(C) Correct. The sentence presents the initial contrast using “Though + verb-ed modifier”. Such construction is perfectly fine as explained in this article. Also, “comma + covering” modifies the preceding clause, presenting additional information about the preceding clause. Caspian is the largest lake on Earth. How? It covers more surface area than its closest rival in size.
(D) Incorrect. For the following reasons:
- The use of “though” and “but” together leads to illogical double contrast.
- Given that “though called a sea” is followed by another clause beginning with “but”, it is not clear what “called” modifies. Logically, it should modify “Caspian”. However, there is a clause “but it actually is…” in-between.
(E) Incorrect. The contrast in this option is: Even though the largest lake on Earth is called a sea, the largest lake is actually landlocked Caspian. Clearly, the original logical contrast (xyz is called a sea but it is a lake) has been replaced by an illogical contrast (largest lake is called a sea but it is Caspian) in this option. Secondly, the section in the non-underlined part “its closest rival” now means the closest rival of the largest lake. We don’t say that second ranking person is the rival of the “first rank”. The correct phrasing is: the second ranking person is the rival of the first ranking person.
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option E despite being called or despite called…nboth correct??
I don’t think “despite called” is grammatically correct. “despite” is a preposition and thus needs to be followed by a noun. While “being” can acts a noun, “called” cannot.
Its mentioned that The pronoun in one IC can refer to its antecendant noun in another IC according to an article on e-gmat .
Here Option 1 is ruled out because of this .
is there an exception to this ?
A pronoun can refer to a noun in another independent clause, provided that the independent clause appears before the pronoun.
The basis on which option 1 is ruled out is given as a rule in an article on E -gmat
that the pronoun in one IC can have an antecedent noun in another IC ?
is the pronoun ambiguity for which ( referring to earth or Caspian lake ) an error in option A and B
Hi CJ,
Thank you for the detailed explanation. This helps clear a lot of the misconceptions I had about ‘which’ being incorrect in A and B.
I still have doubts about the use of ‘which’ in A and B, and the use of ‘being’ in E.
In A and B, though logically ‘which’ only makes sense with ‘the largest lake on Earth’, grammatically it could modify both singular subjects ‘the largest lake’ and ‘Earth’ since the verb ‘covers’ that follows ‘which’ points to a singular subject. So grammatically, there is still some ambiguity, right?
In E, the use of ‘being’ indicates a temporary state of the lake being called a sea. That should be an error as well?
Thanks and Regards,
Udit
Grammatical ambiguity doesn’t matter as long as logical reference is clear. You’re right about ‘being’.
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