According to two teams of paleontologists

[gmatter_2008]

127. According to two teams of paleontologists, recent fossil discoveries in Pakistan show that whales, porpoises, and dolphins are more closely related to some of the oldest known even-toed ungulates--a group of hoofed mammals that today includes cows, camels, pigs, and hippos"”than to any other mammals.
A. that whales, porpoises, and dolphins are more closely related to some of the oldest known even-toed ungulates"”a group of hoofed mammals that today includes cows, camels, pigs, and hippos"”than
B. that whales, porpoises, and dolphins are more closely related to some of the oldest known even-toed ungulates"”a group of hoofed mammals that today include cows, camels, pigs, and hippos"”as
C. whales, porpoises, and dolphins to be more closely related to some of the oldest known even-toed ungulates"”a group of hoofed mammals that today include cows, camels, pigs, and hippos"”than they are
D. whales, porpoises, and dolphins as being more closely related to some of the oldest known even-toed ungulates"”a group of hoofed mammals that today includes cows, camels, pigs, and hippos"”as they are
E. whales, porpoises, and dolphins as more closely related to some of the oldest known even-toed ungulates"”a group of hoofed mammals that today include cows, camels, pigs, and hippos"”than


Hi tutors,

This is a question from GMAT Prep which I encountered.The correct Choice is A,which is ofcourse the best of the lot.

But Please check the highlighted portion of the sentence.

Shouldnt it be "include" rather than "includes"

Because 'that' is relative pronoun referring to Mammals

I have seen contrasting statements regarding this concept

PLease see the below examples

SUBJECT VERB AGREEMENT

1.This Pattern of climatic Changes affects the crops ('Pattern of changes' is the singular subject here so verb affects agrees with the singular subject) (No Doubt here)

2. The pattern of climatic changes that affect/affects the crops can be mitigated thorugh various procedures (should the Verb affect/affects agree with plural subject 'climatic changes' or singular subject 'pattern of climatic changes') (Doubt here)

3. This instructor is one of the MGMAT instructors who is/are really helping the students achieve their dream score (Should verb agree with first subject instructor or second subject instructors) (Doubt here)


4. A higher interest rate is only one of the factors, albeit an important one, that keeps/Keep the housing market from spiraling out of control, like it did earlier in the decade. (should Verb Keep agree with the singular subject 'interest rate' or the plural subject 'factors')

Please help me

Thanks
KKC
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[RonPurewal]

Shouldnt it be "include" rather than "includes"

Because 'that' is relative pronoun referring to Mammals

it should be 'includes', because the only noun that makes sense as an antecedent here is 'group'.
after all, it's the group that 'includes' its members. if you say 'hoofed mammals that today include cows, camels, ...', then the literal interpretation is that you're talking about hoofed mammals that actually contain cows, camels, and so forth as parts of their bodies! now that would be scary.
and remember that you MUST use the literal interpretation of whatever sentence you happen to be reading; you're not allowed to use words in any manner other than the most literal and formally correct possible.

1.This Pattern of climatic Changes affects the crops ('Pattern of changes' is the singular subject here so verb affects agrees with the singular subject) (No Doubt here)

correct.

2. The pattern of climatic changes that affect/affects the crops can be mitigated thorugh various procedures (should the Verb affect/affects agree with plural subject 'climatic changes' or singular subject 'pattern of climatic changes') (Doubt here)

i'm with you here; this sentence could be written either way. you could write the sentence to say that it's the climatic pattern that affects the crops, or to say that the climatic changes themselves affect the crops. either one is legitimate in my book.
if you had a problem whose answer choices split between these two options, you couldn't make a decision based on that split directly; you'd have to examine cues such as subject-verb agreement to figure out the correct choice.

3. This instructor is one of the MGMAT instructors who is/are really helping the students achieve their dream score (Should verb agree with first subject instructor or second subject instructors) (Doubt here)

this one has to be 'are', because it says 'one of...', not 'the one of...'. that's a crucial distinction; see the link referenced below.

4. A higher interest rate is only one of the factors, albeit an important one, that keeps/Keep the housing market from spiraling out of control, like it did earlier in the decade. (should Verb Keep agree with the singular subject 'interest rate' or the plural subject 'factors')

read the last part of this post.

[Guest]

[quote="gmatter_2008"]127. According to two teams of paleontologists, recent fossil discoveries in Pakistan show that whales, porpoises, and dolphins are more closely related to some of the oldest known even-toed ungulates--a group of hoofed mammals that today includes cows, camels, pigs, and hippos"”than to any other mammals.
A. that whales, porpoises, and dolphins are more closely related to some of the oldest known even-toed ungulates"”a group of hoofed mammals that today includes cows, camels, pigs, and hippos"”than
B. that whales, porpoises, and dolphins are more closely related to some of the oldest known even-toed ungulates"”a group of hoofed mammals that today include cows, camels, pigs, and hippos"”as
C. whales, porpoises, and dolphins to be more closely related to some of the oldest known even-toed ungulates"”a group of hoofed mammals that today include cows, camels, pigs, and hippos"”than they are
D. whales, porpoises, and dolphins as being more closely related to some of the oldest known even-toed ungulates"”a group of hoofed mammals that today includes cows, camels, pigs, and hippos"”as they are
E. whales, porpoises, and dolphins as more closely related to some of the oldest known even-toed ungulates"”a group of hoofed mammals that today include cows, camels, pigs, and hippos"”than


Hello,

I chose the wrong answer "C", and didnt realize the subject-verb agreement issue (group -> includes).

I tried to figure out other issues with my answer choice and wanted some input whether
they are correct:
Couple of issues:
1. We NEED "that" after "recent fossil discoveries in Pakistan show"
2. "they are" in "- than they are" at the end of the underlined sentence is not required?

thanks.

[JonathanSchneider]

Correct on both counts.
[editor: this is incorrect. you should say "show that NOUN VERB". but you can also say "show NOUN to be...", which should NOT contain "that". --ron]

[cesar.rodriguez.blanco]

Can you explain why do we need THAT after "pakistan show"?
His study showed that the hypothesis is correct.
His study showed the correctness of the hypothesis.

Moreover, what are the differences between A and D?
Is it only the "they" at the end of choice D?
What is the problem with the "AS" at the end?

[cesar.rodriguez.blanco]

Any feedback?

[RonPurewal]

Can you explain why do we need THAT after "pakistan show"?
His study showed that the hypothesis is correct.
His study showed the correctness of the hypothesis.

we don't. that was mistaken. see the correction above.

Moreover, what are the differences between A and D?
Is it only the "they" at the end of choice D?
What is the problem with the "AS" at the end?

"show ... as being" is unidiomatic.

"they are" actually doesn't present a problem. it's not necessary (as the poster above pointed out), but it's not wrong, either.

"as" should be "than". (you can't say "more ... as". you probably know this, but it's obscured by the huge volume of intervening words.)

[RonPurewal]

Any feedback?

by the way, cesar:

don't "bump" posts like this. if you do, then, ironically, the effect will be to DELAY the response to the post.

we always answer the OLDEST posts first. if you "bump" a post, it will become the newest post, which means we won't answer it until we get to ALL other posts from course students!

[teal777]

could we possibly have a split based on the word 'that' in the beginning of an choice?

[gmatwork]

Do we need the word 'that' after the verb 'show'? Please explain why or why not?

[tim]

teal777, your question makes no sense. can you explain what you mean?

priyanka, if you want to show that something happens, you need "that"; if you only want to show a noun, you do not need "that". for example:

i want to show my car. (i want to put it on display)
i want to show that my car runs well. (i want to prove something)

[gmatwork]

thanks for help!

[tim]

anytime!

[apswin]

a group of hoofed mammals that

Can we generalize that when we have to find an antecedent such as 'that' as mentioned above, we should get rid of prepositional phrase as mentioned in bold above. This makes it clear whether to use 'include' or 'includes'. Please correct me if I am wrong.

[jnelson0612]

a group of hoofed mammals that

Can we generalize that when we have to find an antecedent such as 'that' as mentioned above, we should get rid of prepositional phrase as mentioned in bold above. This makes it clear whether to use 'include' or 'includes'. Please correct me if I am wrong.

In this case the word "that" is just introducing a modifier that will describe the words in front. But yes, let's take out the prepositional phrase "of hoofed mammals", as it is another modifier that is just describing the noun "group". Then we can see that the core of the sentence is "a group that . . . includes".