SC:is descended or has descended ?

[xiaonvhai123]

Hi, Instructors:

I have a question about option C:
C) suggesting that the elephant had descended from an aquatic animal with its trunk originally evolved

Besides the error of tense "had descended from ",
Is the usage of "with its trunk originally evolved" wrong?
The reason is the same with that "preposition + noun+ Ving" is WRONG... Can I confirm this with you?
"preposition + noun + Ved" is also wrong?

[jlucero]

Hi, Instructors:

I have a question about option C:
C) suggesting that the elephant had descended from an aquatic animal with its trunk originally evolved

Besides the error of tense "had descended from ",
Is the usage of "with its trunk originally evolved" wrong?
The reason is the same with that "preposition + noun+ Ving" is WRONG... Can I confirm this with you?
"preposition + noun + Ved" is also wrong?

Correct. "originally" is an adverb here modifying when the trunk evolved, but evolved is a "Ved". So the wrong usage is "preposition + noun + Ved". And as discussed above, without another "that", technically the elephant is descended from (an aquatic animal with its (the aq animal's) trunk evolved for X.

[mcmebk]

i'm not sure you have adequately explained what your point is. honestly, i don't know whether you have a question, and if so whether it's about something you disagree with or don't understand, and whether it has to do with Ron's post or our SC guide. slow down, take a step back, and try to explain clearly and comprehensively what your question or concern is..

Hi Tim, If I may comment honestly and openly, your answers on SC questions are almost always very frustrating and are almost never practical in giving us any concrete reasons about why certain options are right and why others are wrong. I don't know if it is because your don't express your explanations well or because your assigned role is to terminate lengthy discussions.

Anyway, as far as I can see, there are at least three good points that can lead us to eliminate A:

1. The structure: Evidence that suggests that...is not concise;
2. It is not generally a desirable structure to have comma between a list of two separate clauses (unless one of the clause is very long and difficult to read):

I spent ten dollars this morning and Joe spent 5 - Okay
I spent ten dollars this morning, and Joe spent 5 - Not Okay.

3. The parallel structure in option A is ambiguous, using comma+and, the clause "Its truck originally evolved..." seems to be in parallel with the main clause "Australian embryologists have found evidence...", it does not make sense.

Thank you Tim for your efforts all the same.

[tim]

Thanks for the feedback. Yes one aspect of the job is indeed terminating lengthy discussions that are leading nowhere when students start asking questions that are not actually questions. :) Our primary job though is actually to help students learn, and my approach to that is to force students to think about the questions and express their concerns in a way that indicates they have actually thought about them, rather than just spoon feeding answers to students. You've probably already found for yourself that thinking about problems is far more beneficial than just being told the answers; I base this on the fact that you've asked some legitimate and thoughtful questions yourself, questions that I'm happy to answer here (and hope I do to your satisfaction):

1) There is nothing wrong with an answer choice sounding "not concise". In fact, I have NEVER seen a GMAT problem for which the only way to eliminate an answer is concision. If you ever use the phrase "not concise" or "wordy and awkward" (or anything else that sounds similar) to explain your reasoning on a SC question, you have done something wrong. If you are willing to eliminate an answer choice because it is not concise, you may end up eliminating the correct choice. There is ALWAYS a real reason why SC answer choices are wrong, and concision is NEVER that reason. Please note that if you read an explanation that uses the words "awkward" or "wordy", that explanation is wrong - EVEN IF IT IS A DIRECT QUOTE FROM THE OFFICIAL GUIDE.

2) Please review your rules about conjunctions. The example you have listed as "okay" is actually not okay, and the example you have listed as "not okay" is actually okay.

3) Because the ",and" construction here joins two independent clauses, it is not a case of parallelism. "and" can be used either to join independent clauses OR as a parallel marker, not both. In other words, if you use "and" to join two independent clauses, you needn't be concerned about whether the clauses are parallel.

[mcmebk]

Thanks for the feedback. Yes one aspect of the job is indeed terminating lengthy discussions that are leading nowhere when students start asking questions that are not actually questions. :) Our primary job though is actually to help students learn, and my approach to that is to force students to think about the questions and express their concerns in a way that indicates they have actually thought about them, rather than just spoon feeding answers to students. You've probably already found for yourself that thinking about problems is far more beneficial than just being told the answers; I base this on the fact that you've asked some legitimate and thoughtful questions yourself, questions that I'm happy to answer here (and hope I do to your satisfaction):

1) There is nothing wrong with an answer choice sounding "not concise". In fact, I have NEVER seen a GMAT problem for which the only way to eliminate an answer is concision. If you ever use the phrase "not concise" or "wordy and awkward" (or anything else that sounds similar) to explain your reasoning on a SC question, you have done something wrong. If you are willing to eliminate an answer choice because it is not concise, you may end up eliminating the correct choice. There is ALWAYS a real reason why SC answer choices are wrong, and concision is NEVER that reason. Please note that if you read an explanation that uses the words "awkward" or "wordy", that explanation is wrong - EVEN IF IT IS A DIRECT QUOTE FROM THE OFFICIAL GUIDE.

2) Please review your rules about conjunctions. The example you have listed as "okay" is actually not okay, and the example you have listed as "not okay" is actually okay.

3) Because the ",and" construction here joins two independent clauses, it is not a case of parallelism. "and" can be used either to join independent clauses OR as a parallel marker, not both. In other words, if you use "and" to join two independent clauses, you needn't be concerned about whether the clauses are parallel.

What makes answer A the wrong answer then? Since you pointed out:

1) "Evidence that suggests that..." is fine since concise should not be an issue in this case

2) "Comma, and its trunk originally..." is fine since comma+and connects two independent clause and doesn't need to be in parallel? As noted in your answer: I spend 2 dollars, and Joe spend 5 is an okay sentence.

Any comment?

[RonPurewal]

What makes answer A the wrong answer then? Since you pointed out:

1) "Evidence that suggests that..." is fine since concise should not be an issue in this case

2) "Comma, and its trunk originally..." is fine since comma+and connects two independent clause and doesn't need to be in parallel? As noted in your answer: I spend 2 dollars, and Joe spend 5 is an okay sentence.

Any comment?

#2 fails in this context.

The clearly intended meaning of this sentence is that the evidence supports both ideas.
If you split that into 2 clauses that are independent of each other, then you're (a) saying that the evidence supports only the first idea, and (b) just randomly declaring that this other fact about trunks is also true.
So, that interpretation may be grammatically sound, but it's nonsense.

[ilyana777]

I like Ron's explanation of Present Perfect very much. It's really enlightening to me; I've never heard about such aspects of this tense.

Though, I have a question. I think that Present Perfect in B isn't a mistake. How come the verb "to suggest" is a state verb? Ron wrote that at some point in the past this evidence has suggested these things about the elephant, but it doesn't suggest them anymore. So, "at some point" indicates that it is a point action, a thing (act of suggesting) that happened at a definite time in the past and doesn't persist. However, this act of suggesting has its impact on the present, because those notions about the elephant still exist. Don't you agree? If not, I want to clarify this particular aspect of tense usage on easier sentences.

He has suggested that we go to play pool. I think his suggestion still stands. Am I wrong?
I've thought about your son's problems at school. Can you ask him to visit me so that we could talk it over? Can we use Present Perfect for this situation? If so, I think this person is still thinking about that boy's problems. All because "to think" isn't a state verb. So, he thought about it at some point in the past, and now, as a result, those thoughts are in his head and he wants to talk to the boy.

Also I want to share my thoughts about infinitive usage in the correct answer. I think, though I'm not sure, that it must be infinitive as consequence, similar to the following:
He woke up to see her beside his bed.
In our problem:
They have found ... to suggest ...

[RonPurewal]

He has suggested that we go to play pool. I think his suggestion still stands. Am I wrong?

"Has suggested" could mean this. But it could also mean ... not this. It depends on context.

If I said He has suggested that we play pool several times in the past, but now he wants to go bowling, then his suggestion does not obtain in the present.
If I say He has suggested that we play pool tonight, but I want to go bowling, then it still obtains.

There are 2 more pertinent points here, though.

1/
"He has suggested" means that he's NOT making the suggestion right now.

Even more importantly,
2/
These examples are all fundamentally irrelevant, because this is a different "suggest".
The sentence uses "suggest" to mean "is evidence". E.g., The blood on the sidewalk suggests that this is a high-crime area.
You're using "suggest" to mean "voice a recommendation out loud". That's a totally different verb.

[RonPurewal]

I've thought about your son's problems at school. Can you ask him to visit me so that we could talk it over? Can we use Present Perfect for this situation? If so, I think this person is still thinking about that boy's problems. All because "to think" isn't a state verb. So, he thought about it at some point in the past, and now, as a result, those thoughts are in his head and he wants to talk to the boy. [/i]

This is a remarkably deep understanding of this particular example -- but it's still irrelevant to this problem, because "suggest" as used in this sentence IS what you're calling a "state verb".
If a person "suggests" something -- i.e., by saying some recommendation out loud -- then that's clearly an action.
If a thing "suggests" that an idea is true, then that's just as clearly not an action. (You can replace "suggests" with "seems to support the idea" here.)

[RonPurewal]

Also I want to share my thoughts about infinitive usage in the correct answer. I think, though I'm not sure, that it must be infinitive as consequence, similar to the following:
He woke up to see her beside his bed.
In our problem:
They have found ... to suggest ...

No. The use of "to suggest" is really only there to avoid an awkward repetition of the word "that".

I wrote about this already, on the first page of this thread:
post33647.html#p33647
It's a long thread, but please read the whole thing. Or, at a minimum, please read all the moderators' posts. Thanks.

[ilyana777]

Thank you for your response; it is much appreciated!

I always read all the messages in a thread before posting in it. I understand that "evidence to suggest" here is ok - evidently, because it's in the official answer.

This problem is really good to demonstrate that the GMAT is opposed to repetition of the same words in span of three words. I read your posts regarding some problem in which "...of...of..." was in the wrong answer. Also, I came across an old yet very indicative problem (Paper Test Code 55, Section 6, Question 8) "Contrary to the scholarly wisdom" (you posted there too). In this problem they not only omitted the second "that", but also opposed to the repetition of "ethnicity", replacing the word by "it", which is technically ambiguous, because it refers to the following noun while it can also refer to the preceding noun "wisdom".

That shows us why they chose to use "evidence to suggest", but it doesn't explain the structure itself and usage of infinitive here. Is "evidence" a key-word? In that case, what other words work like "evidence"? I want to understand this type of infinitive usage rather than just memorize the correct answer.

In my next post I want to sum up my findings on infinitive.

[ilyana777]

Infinifive usage:
1) with some verbs:
http://www.englishpage.com/gerunds/infinitive_list.htm
http://www.englishpage.com/gerunds/verb ... e_list.htm
http://www.englishpage.com/gerunds/geru ... e_list.htm
http://www.englishpage.com/gerunds/geru ... t_list.htm
http://www.englishpage.com/gerunds/geru ... e_list.htm
+ forbid (with object)
+ recommend (with object) - though, some native-speakers doubt this usage
+ persuade (with object)
Somehow, these three verbs are missing from those lists, or maybe I missed them.
Note: all the verbs used with object and infinitive can also be used in passive with infinitive

[ilyana777]

2) with some adjectives:
http://langust.ru/unit_co/unit022c.shtml
Sorry for Russian site. As a matter of fact, it's essentially in English.
It isn't full list of possible adjectives, but the usage is quite clear.
3) in idiomatic constructions:
[adj] enough to [verb]
So [adj] as to [verb]
So as to - the latter is ok in normal English, but doubtful on the GMAT. It is evident from the problem from OG 10 (number is unclear) "In 1527 King Henry".
4) infinitive can describe an action whose object is the preceding noun:
I have a black canvas to paint.
I have children to raise.
5) to express intention: to do=in order to do ( this is particularly useful in problems where issue "to do vs. for doing" arises).
6) infinitive as consequence: "he woke up to see her beside his bed" - this usage is normal English, but I haven't seen it on the GMAT yet, or rather, I used to think I did - with reference to this problem.

[ilyana777]

As seen from above, "embryologists have found evidence to suggest" doesn't fall under any of the categories above. So, all I can think of now is some sort of a sentence like:
I have a key to unlock the door.
Is this similar to the sentence in our problem? It seems not.

Though, I can't explain very well the usage of infinitive here, nor in the problem at hand. Here it seems to be the infinitive of purpose used after a noun. Probably, I should extend the fourth point of my list.



And about that sentence:
He has suggested that we play pool several times in the past, but now he wants to go bowling.
Doesn't Past Simple suffice in this sentence?
I mean if I don't want to hint at some hidden result (for instance, that I'm irritated at his fickleness) of his suggestions...

[RonPurewal]

That shows us why they chose to use "evidence to suggest", but it doesn't explain the structure itself and usage of infinitive here. Is "evidence" a key-word? In that case, what other words work like "evidence"? I want to understand this type of infinitive usage rather than just memorize the correct answer.

In my next post I want to sum up my findings on infinitive.

Ilyana, I understand why you're asking this question, but, unfortunately, such questions are impossible for first-language speakers (of any language, not just English) to answer.

I don't know Russian, and so can't give a specific example, but imagine some Russian construction that's used in an unusual way (like "evidence to suggest" here).
Now imagine that someone says to you, "Quick! Name every Russian word that can work this way." Would you be able to do that? Of course not.

Same problem here -- you'll just have to "collect" these things as you go along. Rest assured that (i) there won't be many of them, and, far more importantly, (ii) they won't be necessary to solve the problems.

In fact, if you've gotten to a point where you are worrying about things as insignificant as this, then you are ready to go take the test (and probably have been ready for quite some time, too).