manhatten 12th edition question

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manhatten 12th edition question

by nickhar130 » Wed Dec 01, 2010 11:48 am
41. Excavators at the Indus Valley site of Harappa in eastern Pakistan say the discovery of inscribed shards dating to circa 2800 - 2600 B.C. indicate their development of a Harappan writing system, the use of inscribed seals impressed into clay for marking ownership, and the standardization of weights for trade or taxation occured many decades, if not centuries, earlier than was previously beliieved.

a) indicate their development of a Harappan writing system, the use of
b) indicate the the development of a Harappan writing system, using
c) indicates that their delevelopment of a Harappan writing system, using
d) indicates the development of a Harappan writing system, their use of
e) indicates that the development of a Harappan writing system, the use of

.. My question is how do you know which noun goes with "indicate". I assumed that the noun was EXCAVATORS and because that is plural, i assumed "indicate" plural as well. Please explain.
Source: — Sentence Correction |

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by tomada » Wed Dec 01, 2010 11:53 am
I went with D.
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by ov25 » Wed Dec 01, 2010 11:56 am
imo E

the discovery.... indicates that the development, the use of x...and the stdzation of...occurred earlier than was prev believed

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by nox104 » Wed Dec 01, 2010 11:58 am
indicates is a reporting verb, that is usually followed by a "that". In this case, what indicate(s) the development of a Harappan writing system? Excavators or the discovery? In fact, it is the latter. Among C,D and E:
C: Has incorrect pronoun usage (their has no antecedent)
D: Is missing "that" and also uses "their"
E: Is the correct answer.

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by tomada » Wed Dec 01, 2010 12:11 pm
Darn, now I see the mistake. I'd better hit that BEFORE pressing ENTER
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by rishab1988 » Wed Dec 01, 2010 1:21 pm
The answer should be E

subject =discovery
verb=indicates

the result of a discovery,theory or anything always need a that[this can't be dropped].

Left with C and E

C has 2 issues

1) as such their is referring to excavators.This is illogical.

Even if you missed that,look at parallelism [Gmat's favorite topic]

2) indicates that their...........,using [an inanimate object can't use anything.You need a person[doer of action here.You will see another example in which Using... [acts as a dangling modifier for it doesn't modify a person]....,and the standardization..[a noun]

But the first part uses their a pronoun.Both have to be same parts of the speech.Noun goes parallel with noun,pronoun with pronoun,adjective with adjective...

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by rishab1988 » Wed Dec 01, 2010 1:28 pm
Why is the post named Manhattan 12th edition.Am I missing something?

I know of only one guide that has 12th edition,the OG12.

Or Manhattan has come up with a new guide name Manhattan 12?

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