Question
Researchers studying the brain scans of volunteers who pondered ethical dilemmas have found that the basis for making tough moral judgments is emotion, not logic or analytical reasoning.
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 structure of the sentence is:
- Researchers (Main subject)
- studying the brain scans of volunteers (verb-ing modifier modifying ‘researchers’. Researchers studied the brain scans of the volunteers)
- who pondered ethical dilemmas (relative clause modifying ‘volunteers’. What kind of volunteers? The volunteers who pondered ethical dilemmas.)
- have found (Main verb)
- that the basis for making tough moral judgments is emotion, not logic or analytical reasoning. (What did they find? This part answers this question.)
- studying the brain scans of volunteers (verb-ing modifier modifying ‘researchers’. Researchers studied the brain scans of the volunteers)
Everything’s fine with the original sentence.
Option Analysis
(A) Correct.
(B) Incorrect. There is no main verb in the sentence. “found” is now part of the “who” relative clause. Also, the OG explanation says that “basis to make” is unidiomatic use, and this use is sufficient to reject this option.
(C) Incorrect. There is no verb for the subject “Researchers” before “and”. The structure of the sentence is “Subject and Verb”!
(D) Incorrect. This option distorts the meaning of the original sentence and produces an illogical meaning. With “while pondering ethical dilemmas”, this option means that researchers studied the brain scans while the researchers pondered ethical dilemmas! Neither intended nor logical! Also, the OG explanation says that “basis to make” is unidiomatic use, and this use is sufficient to reject this option.
(E) Incorrect. This option makes the same error as option D.
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Hi CJ,
Just wanted a clarification on the usage of “have found” in the original sentence.
Does this mean Researchers found something in past, and its results are still valid?
Correct. For researchers, the results still hold.
Hi CJ,
Also, In option E isn’t usage of the “They” is incorrect as Volunteer don’t exist in the sentence ?
Thanks in advance!
It’s fine. “They” can refer to a noun in the possessive form. Here’s an OG question around the same concept: https://gmatclub.com/forum/although-she-was-considered-among-her-contemporaries-to-be-the-better-208881.html
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