Starfish, With Anywhere from Five to Eight arms, Have a Strong Regenerative Ability, and If One arm is Lost it Quickly Replaces It, Sometimes by the Animal Overcompensating and Growing an Extra One or Two.

Question: Starfish, with anywhere from five to eight arms, have a strong regenerative ability, and if one arm is lost it quickly replaces it, sometimes by the animal overcompensating and growing an extra one or two.

1. One arm is lost it quickly replaces it, sometimes by the animal overcompensating and
2. One arm is lost it is quickly replaced, with the animal sometimes overcompensating and
3. They lose one arm they quickly replace it, sometimes by the animal overcompensating,
4. They lose one arm they are quickly replaced, with the animal sometimes overcompensating,
5. They lose one arm it is quickly replaced, sometimes with the animal overcompensating,

“Starfish, with anywhere from five to eight arms, have a strong regenerative ability, and if one arm is lost it quickly replaces it, sometimes by the animal overcompensating and growing an extra one or two.” - is a GMAT sentence correction question. This particular GMAT sentence correction topic has been taken from the book ‘The Official Guide of GMAT Verbal Review, 2nd Edition, 2009’. This question checks Parallelism, Comparison of two elements and Modifiers. GMAT Sentence Correction questions comprise 11-16 questions to be completed within 65 minutes. Each Sentence Correction question contains a sentence with an underlined portion that includes 0-2 errors.

Answer: B

Explanation: The given sentence correction question can be tested by the given-below rules:

1. Meaning
2. Pronouns
3. Grammatical construction

Option A: Incorrect
This option is incorrect because it uses the singular pronoun ‘it’ to refer to the plural noun ‘Starfish’. Also, this option incorrectly twists the meaning of the sentence by the phrase “sometimes by the animal overcompensating”, it implies that if the starfish loses an arm, it is quickly replaced by the starfish, and sometimes does so by overcompensating and grows one or two extra arms. So, Option A is incorrect.

Option B: Correct
This option is correct because it correctly uses the pronoun ‘it’ to describe the singular noun ‘arm’. Also, it uses the correct phrase “with the animal sometimes overcompensating”, it conveys the accurate meaning that if a starfish loses an arm, the arm is quickly replaced by the starfish and on occasions, it also overcompensates and grows an extra or two arms. So, Option B is correct.

Option C: Incorrect
The option is incorrect because it changes the meaning of the sentence by using the phrase “sometimes by the animal compensating”, this phrase implies that if a starfish loses an arm, it is quickly replaced by the starfish and sometimes the starfish does so by overcompensating and growing an extra or two arms. So, Option C is incorrect.

Option D: Incorrect
This option is incorrect because it incorrectly uses the pronoun ‘they’ to describe the singular noun ‘arm’. Also, this option uses a comma to combine the elements in a list with only two elements. If there are only two elements in a list, they must be joined by a conjunction. Option D is incorrect.

Option E: Incorrect
This option is incorrect because it also uses comma to join the elements in a list that has only two elements. Always remember that whenever there are only two elements in a list, they must be joined by a conjunction. So, Option E is incorrect.

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