Question
Digging in sediments in northern China, evidence has been gathered by scientists suggesting that complex life-forms emerged much earlier than they had previously thought.
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
Here’s the sentence structure:
- Digging in sediments in northern China, (Verb-ing modifier modifying the main subject)
- evidence has been gathered by scientists (Main Subject – “evidence”; Main Verb – “has been gathered”)
- suggesting that (Verb-ing modifier currently modifying “scientists”. Should logically modify “evidence”)
- complex life-forms emerged much earlier than they had previously thought. (“clause” providing additional information about “suggesting” — suggesting what)
- suggesting that (Verb-ing modifier currently modifying “scientists”. Should logically modify “evidence”)
The sentence says that:
The scientists have gathered some evidence by digging in sediments in northern China. The evidence suggests that complex life forms emerged much earlier than previously thought.
The sentence has the following errors:
- The first blatant error is that the beginning modifier “digging” modifies “evidence”, meaning that the evidence was digging in sediments!
- “suggesting” (without comma) modifies the closest noun “scientists”, meaning that scientists suggest so. Logically, the evidence suggests so.
- The antecedent of “they” is not clear. Even though logically “they” should refer to “scientists”, structurally “they” seems to modify “life-forms”, producing an illogical meaning that these life-forms emerged earlier than these life forms had previously thought!!
Option Analysis
(A) Incorrect. For the errors described above.
(B) Incorrect. For the following reasons:
- Error no. 1 of the original sentence
- The use of past perfect “had been” is incorrect. There is no action in the simple past with which this action “previously thought” needs to be sequenced.
(C) Correct. All the errors in the original sentence have been rectified. Please observe that the structure “earlier than previously thought” is correct.
(D) Incorrect. “that which was previously thought” is incorrect. “that which” doesn’t stand for anything!
(E) Incorrect. “that” doesn’t refer to anything.
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Hi Cj,
i have doubt about usage of “that” in option D and option E. Pronoun can refer to near or far by nouns.
i assumed that “that” can refer to nearest noun.
Option D re-written after my understanding:
For discussion, i assumed “emergence of life forms” is a noun here ( which could be totally illogical or wrong! )
D) Scientists have gathered evidence that suggests a much earlier emergence of complex life-forms than That (emergence of life forms) which was previously thoughts
My thoughts about option D: Is Life forms emerged equivalent to emergence of life forms?.
That refer to “emergence of life forms” which modify -> forms but as per context it was emergence (emerged) which was previously thought and not life forms – is this a good reason to eliminate?
E) Scientists have gathered evidence that suggests a much earlier emergence of complex life-forms than that (emergence of life forms) previously thought
Thoughts: Illogical to say emergence thought. Hence eliminate.
Also , one more doubt is could you explain with more reasoning how the comparsion in option C make sense? Which idea and thoughts are compared in C?
“previously thought” in the “than” part doesn’t follow the normal parallelism in comparison structures.
For example:
Amit is more intelligent than previously thought.
This is a valid sentence. It means that your intelligence is greater than what it was earlier expected to be. Similar is the case with C.
Can we say that in Option D & E, Change from Active to Passive is also an quality issue?
Also, In Option B – you have mentioned that there is no sequence for which past perfect is required, but isn’t this an sequence : that the emergence of complex life-forms was much earlier (Which they are suggesting now) than had been previously thought (Which they had suggested earlier)?
There is no passive voice in options D and E.
Also, right now, the verb is “suggests” which is present tense; we don’t use past perfect to sequence with the present tense. If you think we’re sequencing with ’emergence’, you’re suggesting that people thought about emergence even before the emergence happened.
If “that” refers to ’emergence of life form’, we’ll have a complete nonsense sentence:
that suggests a much earlier emergence of complex life-forms than ’emergence of complex life-forms’
Similar reasoning for E as well.
Secondly, ‘which’ cannot refer to forms; ‘which’ will refer to ‘that’ i.e. ’emergence of complex life-forms’. Why? Because ‘forms’ is not there; only ‘that’ is. So, ‘which’ will refer to ‘that’.
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