Many population studies have linked

[ugenderr]

Source:gmatprep
Answer:C

Many population studies have linked a high-salt diet to high rates of hypertension and shown that in societies where they consume little salt, their blood pressure typically does not rise with age.

(A) shown that in societies where they consume little salt, their

(B) shown that in societies that have consumed little salt, their

(C) shown that in societies where little salt is consumed,

(D) they showed that in societies where little salt is consumed,

(E) they showed that in societies where they consume little salt, their

I chose correct answer, C, but I need some help in understanding this choice.

I eliminated A, and B based on 'their' , which logically points to studies. And eliminated D and E based on parallelism (we need shown after and since 'have linked' is parallel to 'have shown').

In C, I see two independent clauses separated by comma.isn't it wrong? or the later independent clause (blood pressure ...) is some how related to preceding 'where clause' and makes it one independent clause and then a dependent clause?

can some one explain? thanks in advance.

[RonPurewal]

Source:gmatprep
Answer:C

Many population studies have linked a high-salt diet to high rates of hypertension and shown that in societies where they consume little salt, their blood pressure typically does not rise with age.

(A) shown that in societies where they consume little salt, their

(B) shown that in societies that have consumed little salt, their

(C) shown that in societies where little salt is consumed,

(D) they showed that in societies where little salt is consumed,

(E) they showed that in societies where they consume little salt, their

I chose correct answer, C, but I need some help in understanding this choice.

I eliminated A, and B based on 'their' , which logically points to studies. And eliminated D and E based on parallelism (we need shown after and since 'have linked' is parallel to 'have shown').

In C, I see two independent clauses separated by comma.isn't it wrong? or the later independent clause (blood pressure ...) is some how related to preceding 'where clause' and makes it one independent clause and then a dependent clause?

can some one explain? thanks in advance.

this is a tough construction.

the following will help:
if the sentence starts with the words resembling one of the following --
"my friend said that"
"studies have shown that"
"people believe that"
"companies have found that"
etc.
-- then these words DO NOT affect the grammar of the rest of the sentence AT ALL.
you can think of these constructions as "warm-ups". if you remove these constructions, the grammar of the entire remaining portion will be EXACTLY the same.

here's an example:
in 1950, a loaf of bread could be purchased for fifteen cents.
--> good sentence.
therefore,
my grandfather said that in 1950, a loaf of bread could be purchased for fifteen cents.
is also a good sentence.
... and so is
my grandfather thought for a few seconds and said that in 1950, a loaf of bread could be purchased for fifteen cents.

this sentence has the same structure as (c).

[ugenderr]

Thank you Ron for wonderful explanation.

[RonPurewal]

Thank you Ron for wonderful explanation.

glad it helped.

[rohit801]

Ron,
Typically "Where" is used for places, right?

" in societies where.." - i am assuming that this is ok as well. I thought 'where' was used for physical places such as land, country etc.

Would " socities, in which, blah.." be correct as well?

Also, how would you modify - "situations?"

Ex: The situation where people are afraid......OR
The situation in which people are afraid

BTW: I have coined a new term- " A Ronnish moment" and we use it frequently at my house. This is when a moment of clarity/Joy is experienced. My daughter,who is 4 yrs old, hit her first golf ball yesterday - it was a Ronnish moment for her!!

[adiagr]

Ron,
Typically "Where" is used for places, right?

" in societies where.." - i am assuming that this is ok as well. I thought 'where' was used for physical places such as land, country etc.

Would " socities, in which, blah.." be correct as well?

Also, how would you modify - "situations?"

Ex: The situation where people are afraid......OR
The situation in which people are afraid

BTW: I have coined a new term- " A Ronnish moment" and we use it frequently at my house. This is when a moment of clarity/Joy is experienced. My daughter,who is 4 yrs old, hit her first golf ball yesterday - it was a Ronnish moment for her!!

:)) Good One. I can certainly admit to having experienced a number of Ronnish moments.

[RonPurewal]

Ron,
Typically "Where" is used for places, right?

yes, although this problem proves that gmac accepts a certain wider range of uses.

" in societies where.." - i am assuming that this is ok as well. I thought 'where' was used for physical places such as land, country etc.

yep -- but, remember, you can't argue with the official answers. so we have just learned that "where" also applies to a certain segment of words that do not represent physical locations.

Would " socities, in which, blah.." be correct as well?

yes, although you should not place a comma after "in which".

Also, how would you modify - "situations?"

Ex: The situation where people are afraid......OR
The situation in which people are afraid

i'm 99.9% sure that the first one is wrong.
the second is definitely correct.

BTW: I have coined a new term- " A Ronnish moment" and we use it frequently at my house.

heh.

you use it frequently?
wow.

[shadangi]

Ron,
Typically "Where" is used for places, right?

yes, although this problem proves that gmac accepts a certain wider range of uses.

" in societies where.." - i am assuming that this is ok as well. I thought 'where' was used for physical places such as land, country etc.

yep -- but, remember, you can't argue with the official answers. so we have just learned that "where" also applies to a certain segment of words that do not represent physical locations.

Also, how would you modify - "situations?"

Ex: The situation where people are afraid......OR
The situation in which people are afraid

i'm 99.9% sure that the first one is wrong.
the second is definitely correct.

BTW: I have coined a new term- " A Ronnish moment" and we use it frequently at my house.

you use it frequently?
wow.

I don't remember how MANY RONNISH MOMENTS I have had in the past month. These moments have changed the game (of GMAT) for me - be it SC, RC, CR or even Quant; although I am pretty good at Quant in general, still I have learnt a couple of cool trick from Ron in this forum.

Anyways back to the question. So what-else other than "places" and "societies" could the relative pronoun "where" refer to?

Like Rohit, I always prefer ans choices with "in which" IF the referent of "where" is NOT absolutely and NOT clearly a place. I don't want to eliminate an right choice due to some misconception. I had been in a hurry, I would have eliminated A, C, D, E in the first split itself - SCARY :-S.

Help help help!

[RonPurewal]

Anyways back to the question. So what-else other than "places" and "societies" could the relative pronoun "where" refer to?

Like Rohit, I always prefer ans choices with "in which" IF the referent of "where" is NOT absolutely and NOT clearly a place. I don't want to eliminate an right choice due to some misconception. I had been in a hurry, I would have eliminated A, C, D, E in the first split itself - SCARY :-S.

Help help help!

i'm with you and rohit in general, but the name of the game here is "sit up and notice whenever gmac happens to do something like this".
it's not going to be possible to predict when they will allow it and when they won't -- we'll just have to keep watching for it.

[angela_lovegmat]

well,Ron,

i doubt whether what i think as follows is wrong or not :

in A:they refers to what? population ? ambiguous or no reference!
D: the reference of they is ambiguous ,since i may think they refers to studies or population .

the author of the question mentioned that he killed D&E via parallelism about verb tense. is it really so ?

looking forward to your reply! many thanks in advance !

[jlucero]

well,Ron,

i doubt whether what i think as follows is wrong or not :

in A:they refers to what? population ? ambiguous or no reference!
D: the reference of they is ambiguous ,since i may think they refers to studies or population .

the author of the question mentioned that he killed D&E via parallelism about verb tense. is it really so ?

looking forward to your reply! many thanks in advance !

Let's start with your last point about parallelism in order to clarify the pronoun ambiguity:

D&E are not parallel because the population studies have done two things: (1) they have linked a certain type of diet to hypertension and (2) they have shown that in some societies, blood pressure doesn't rise with age.

Population studies have linked and they have shown. So D & E are eliminated. But notice that the "they" in D & E is not ambiguous, because it refers to the subject of the sentence- population studies. And "population studies" isn't two separate nouns, it's a study (noun) about populations (adjective).

As for (A) you are correct that "they" is ambiguous, but it couldn't refer to population because population is an adjective. It could refer to the studies or societies:

Many studies have shown that in societies where THEY consume little salt...