In Nests Across North America, the Host Mother Tries to identify GMAT Sentence Correction

Question: In nests across North America, the host mother tries to identify their own eggs and weed out the fakes, but the brown-headed cowbird – a brood parasite that sneaks its eggs into other birds’ nests – produces eggs that look very similar to those of the host, making that task surprisingly difficult.

(A) the host mother tries to identify their own eggs and weed out the fakes, but the brown-headed cowbird – a brood parasite that sneaks its eggs into other birds’ nests – produces eggs that look very similar to those of the host, making that task surprisingly difficult
(B) the host mother tries to identify its own eggs and weed out the fakes, but the brown-headed cowbird – a brood parasite that sneaks its eggs into other birds’ nests – produces eggs that look very similar to that of the host, making it surprisingly difficult
(C) host mothers try to identify their own eggs and weed out the fakes, but the brown-headed cowbird – a brood parasite that sneaks its eggs into other birds’ nests – produces eggs that look very similar to the host’s, making that task surprisingly difficult
(D) host mothers try to identify their own eggs and weed out the fakes, but the brown-headed cowbird – a brood parasite that sneaks its eggs into other birds’ nests – produces eggs that look very similar to that of the host’s, making it surprisingly difficult
(E) host mothers try to identify its own eggs and weed out the fakes, but the brown-headed cowbird – a brood parasite that sneaks its eggs into other birds’ nests – produces eggs that look very similar to those of the host’s, making that task surprisingly difficult

Answer: C
Explanation: The following arguments could be used to defend the suggested language change:

• Parallelism
• Considering two separate truths
• Modifiers

host mothers try to identify their own eggs and weed out the fakes, but the brown-headed cowbird – a brood parasite that sneaks its eggs into other birds’ nests – produces eggs that look very similar to the host’s, making that task surprisingly difficult- Correct. Obtains complete agreement: "host mothers" goes with the singular "their." Because we are contrasting the "eggs" of the cowbird with the "eggs" of the "host," the comparison is appropriate.

Option A
the host mother tries to identify their own eggs and weed out the fakes, but the brown-headed cowbird – a brood parasite that sneaks its eggs into other birds’ nests – produces eggs that look very similar to those of the host, making that task surprisingly difficult- Incorrect. Since we are only referring to one mother in this sentence, the possessive word "their" is incorrect. Additionally, it mispronounces the pronoun "mother"

Option B
the host mother tries to identify its own eggs and weed out the fakes, but the brown-headed cowbird – a brood parasite that sneaks its eggs into other birds’ nests – produces eggs that look very similar to that of the host, making it surprisingly difficult- Incorrect. That of is a single pronoun; hence, it should be "those of," as "it" lacks a reference. The same singular antecedent should be indicated by each instance of "it" and "it's" in a sentence. Additionally, as that mistakenly relates to eggs, those should be used instead of that.

Option D
host mothers try to identify their own eggs and weed out the fakes, but the brown-headed cowbird – a brood parasite that sneaks its eggs into other birds’ nests – produces eggs that look very similar to that of the host’s, making it surprisingly difficult- Incorrect. The word "that" is used in two different places. The phrase "that look very similar to" is introduced by the initial "that," which also serves as a relative pronoun. Since "eggs" is substituted for the second "that," the plural form "those" must be used in this context.

Option E
host mothers try to identify its own eggs and weed out the fakes, but the brown-headed cowbird – a brood parasite that sneaks its eggs into other birds’ nests – produces eggs that look very similar to those of the host’s, making that task surprisingly difficult- Incorrect. Although the pronoun is "it," which is singular, the topic is "host mothers," which is multiple.

“In nests across North America, the host mother tries to”- is a GMAT sentence correction question. These types of questions contain grammatical errors and we have to choose the correct statement from the options. This topic is the GMAT sentence correction comes with four options and candidates need to choose the one which is correct. GMAT sentence correction is a part of GMAT verbal. It checks whether the candidate is able to decode the inaccuracy in the sentence. It also checks if they are able to bring out an idea or meaning of the context.

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