Archaeologists in Egypt have excavated a 5,000-year-old wood

[rschunti]

Archaeologists in Egypt have excavated a 5,000-year-old wooden hull that is the earliest surviving example of a "built" boat—in other words, a boat constructed out of planks fitted together—and that thus represents a major advance, in terms of boat-building technology, over the dugout logs and reed vessels of more ancient vintage.
A. together—and that thus represents
B. together—and this has represented
C. together, and it represents
D. together that was representing
E. together to represent

This is GMATPREP question. I chose "E" which is wrong. So what is wrong with "E" and which one is correct answer and why.

[StaceyKoprince]

FYI - you can always find the right answer yourself by going back through the software - it will show you (though, of course, it won't show you why it's right).

E says that the boat was made of "planks fitted together to represent a major advance" - the meaning is says that the reason the planks were fitted together was to represent a major advance. The technique may be a major advance, but it doesn't make sense to say that the planks were fitted together in order to represent a major advance.

The long dash is used to indicate an example or an aside. Only the example or aside goes inside the dash, so that example either has to go all the way to the end of the sentence or we need to "close" the dash at some point by putting a second one in. In this case, the "in other words" text only applies to the "built boat" concept, so I want to "close" the dash when I'm done talking about it. So eliminate C, D, and E.

Then, between A and B, only A follows parallelism. "Archaeologists have excavated a hull that is X and that represents Y." Only A does that correctly.

[guest612]

Hi Stacey,

What's an aside?

I had a problem with this question as well and am pleased to find it has already been posted!

[StaceyKoprince]

An aside is just a little bit of extra info that is related to the sentence but is presented outside the core of the sentence. Basically, very similar to an example.

[Guest]

Hi Ron,

In the above sentence is the usage of "That" correct.. I have read your post stating that the usage of pointing words such as this, that, these and those should never be allowed to hang on its own...

Is'nt "the second "That" (and that thus represents) hanging over here ?

[RonPurewal]

Hi Ron,

In the above sentence is the usage of "That" correct.. I have read your post stating that the usage of pointing words such as this, that, these and those should never be allowed to hang on its own...

Is'nt "the second "That" (and that thus represents) hanging over here ?

nope, "that" isn't being used as a standalone noun (pointing word) here.
it's the second half of a parallel construction, in which it's used as a relative pronoun both times.
analogy:
i have a machine that does X and that also does Y.
think about how you would say this out loud: you would de-emphasize "that" in both parts, because it's not being used as a noun. instead, "...that also does Y" works in exactly the same way as does "...that does X".

by contrast, if you spoke a sentence with the illegal usage of this/that/these/those, you'd have to place vocal emphasis on whichever of these words is used. for instance, "i've tried this and that (pointing to different bits of food), but neither is as good as those (pointing somewhere else)." in this case, there would be a distinct emphasis on all three of these "pointing words", which this time really are being used in a way that flouts formal writing conventions.

[cesar.rodriguez.blanco]

The long dash is used to indicate an example or an aside. Only the example or aside goes inside the dash, so that example either has to go all the way to the end of the sentence or we need to "close" the dash at some point by putting a second one in. In this case, the "in other words" text only applies to the "built boat" concept, so I want to "close" the dash when I'm done talking about it. So eliminate C, D, and E.

I do not understand why we can eliminate together C, D and E.
Furthermore, what is the difference between A and C?
Is A better because of the parallelism; "wooden hull that......and that thus....."?

[cesar.rodriguez.blanco]

The long dash is used to indicate an example or an aside. Only the example or aside goes inside the dash, so that example either has to go all the way to the end of the sentence or we need to "close" the dash at some point by putting a second one in. In this case, the "in other words" text only applies to the "built boat" concept, so I want to "close" the dash when I'm done talking about it. So eliminate C, D, and E.

I do not understand why we can eliminate together C, D and E.
Furthermore, what is the difference between A and C?
Is A better because of the parallelism; "wooden hull that......and that thus....."?

[RonPurewal]

I do not understand why we can eliminate together C, D and E.

stacey explained this in her post above. it's because those choices misuse the long dash,

in that post, stacey described, in fairly complete detail, the usage of the long dash. is there something in her explanation that you don't understand?

Furthermore, what is the difference between A and C?
Is A better because of the parallelism; "wooden hull that......and that thus....."?

yes, (a) is better because it is parallel.
the parallelism in (c) doesn't work, since there's nothing in the former part of the sentence to which "it represents" can be parallel.

[CrackTheGmat]

Does not 'it' represent to a 5000 year old wooden hull?
Kindly clarify.

Furthermore, what is the difference between A and C?
Is A better because of the parallelism; "wooden hull that......and that thus....."?

yes, (a) is better because it is parallel.
the parallelism in (c) doesn't work, since there's nothing in the former part of the sentence to which "it represents" can be parallel.

[RonPurewal]

Does not 'it' represent to a 5000 year old wooden hull?
Kindly clarify.

right -- i wasn't talking about the pronoun reference; i was talking about the kind of parallelism (of ideas/concepts/meaning) implied by "and".

when you use "and", the two things connected by it should be separate (although presented in the same kind of context, hence the use of "and").

for instance:
today there was extra traffic on the freeway and i was late to work --> the use of "and" in this sentence actually implies that the traffic was NOT responsible for my being late to work.
(if you wanted to imply that i was late because of the traffic, you could write, among other things, there was extra traffic, so i was late or i was late because there was extra traffic.)

for the same reason, the use of "and" in this sentence creates the inappropriate implication that these two things have nothing to do with one another.

[namnam123]

This test our ability to read long sentences. For me like any non native speakers, this question is not hard after I read fiction books which contain similar long sentences.

[namnam123]

to be able to read long sentences of SC, CR and RC, non native speakers, specially persons who have not taken undergraduate study after getting 100 toefl ibt, need to read a lot, about 1000 -2000 pages of long sentences. This is simple and takes not very long time. half year is enough for success.

[RonPurewal]

to be able to read long sentences of SC, CR and RC, non native speakers, specially persons who have not taken undergraduate study after getting 100 toefl ibt, need to read a lot, about 1000 -2000 pages of long sentences. This is simple and takes not very long time. half year is enough for success.

i'm glad that someone is acknowledging the necessity for a certain baseline degree of familiarity with the written language.

i'm not sure that the same timeframe will work for everyone, but it is definitely true that you need to be at the intermediate/advanced level in english before you can seriously begin to consider these problems.

[samwong]

Archaeologists in Egypt have excavated a 5,000-year-old wooden hull that is the earliest surviving example of example of a "built" boat"”in other words, a boat constructed out of planks fitted together"”and that thus represents a major advance, in terms of boat-building technology, over the dugout logs and reed vessels of more ancient vintage.
A. together"”and that thus represents
B. together"”and this has represented
C. together, and it represents
D. together that was representing
E. together to represent

This is GMATPREP question. I chose "E" which is wrong. So what is wrong with "E" and which one is correct answer and why.

"example of example" doesn't look right. Did the original poster made a mistake? Thanks.