Domestic Animals

Hi there,

I'd first look at the splits among the answer choices. (A) and (B) clearly begin differently from (C), (D), and (E), so I'd make my first decision based around that difference. In this case, I'd rule out (A) and (B) because the subject of the sentence in those options is all animals which were originally feral, and dogs, horses, and sheep are simply being given as sort of "optional" examples, so these two options wrongly make a statement about all originally-feral animals.

So we're down to (C), (D), and (E), and at this point I'd note the splits we see at the end of those options. We have to choose among "have since been domesticated," "had been domesticated," and "were domesticated." I'd rule out (D) right away, because I'd only use that past perfect ("had been domesticated") if I needed to situate the domesticating prior in time to the being feral -- and doing so would be illogical, since you're not feral anymore once you're domesticated. As between (C) and (E), they both seem good... UNTIL I fit them back into the unchangeable parts of the sentence. But when I do that, I see the "as early as the Stone Age" at the end of the sentence. It doesn't make sense to say "have since been domesticated as early as the Stone Age," because "have...been domesticated" is a present perfect verb form, and you'd only use the present perfect to relate something to the present (as in "I am not (now) hungry, because I have eaten"). You couldn't use present perfect to situate the beginning of a process in the Stone Age. So we need to stick with the regular past ("were domesticated"). It works well to say "were domesticated as early as the Stone Age."

Does that make sense?

I believe this question test only the concept of tenses...see the first three options look tempting but they use "present perfect" tense which is wrong here....why??? the non-underlined portion suggests that the sentence is talking about the era of stone age....so clearly using present perfect. which means some action started in past and continues to present is wrong. Hence drop A, B, C...

In Op D, the use of past perfect is wrong...it suggests before the animals were known feral they had been domesticated...its nonsensical. Also u can delete this choice on the basis of parallelism also...were made parallel to had domesticated

Hence Op E

Thanks Ashley and Atul!

OMG, you guys are right. I didn't read the complete sentence over when I was left with C and E.

Thanks for your explanations!

Cyrus

@Ashley

Hi, thanks for the post but i have one doubt in your reasoning for this part:

editing my post as i got the answer of my question!!!

I could not understand why present perfect in incorrect, doesnt that mean animals have been domesticated since as early as Stone Age.( i got this meaning from original sentence)

I am confused with this sentence. As Atul said, I am not clear why we eliminated (A). Also, to me, 'have been' makes more sense because these animals continue to be domesticated.

Seeking a clearer explanation. Thanks.

@Vikram and @realizedream

Thanks guys, i must admit my mistake which i made in my first post. Here is another reasoning for dropping Op A, B, C and this time i think its correct.

first of all if u notice A, B and C....they are in passive voice (have been domesticated) while Op E is in active voice.

One more point to drop Op A and Op B

notice the word "providing" apply the rule for COMMA + -ing participial...it modify the subject of the preceding clause which is "animals" in A and B...so that means "Animals providing...." seems incorrect...as it takes the whole complete set of feral animals which is incorrect we need to take only those specific animals (sub set of feral animals as given in question) "dogs, horses and sheep providing " see.....

Op D is clearly wrong...look my first post for reasoning

Op E, this op is perfect...why???

1) active voice construction
2) 2 past events are shown: a) dogs, horses and sheep were feral
(b)dogs, horses and sheep were domesticated ---> they were domesticated in past

3) dogs, horses and sheep providing ---> represents a present activity

4) dogs, horses and sheep serving ---> represents a present activity

So if u see the sequence, its perfect...2 events related to subject happened in past and so described in simple past...and then modifiers are explaining the activities after those two past events.

hi,

I could not understand how "Animals providing...." is incorrect & "dogs, horses and sheep providing" is correct. Please explain

I am still not clear with
1. Why the animals were restricted to dogs....
2. Why present perfect cannot be used

So i choose A

My apologies for the late response but Atul has pretty much the gist of it.

You need to make the sentence somewhat like:
Animals were originally feral AND were domesticated for........., providing X, and serving Y.

On this you are left with C,D,E and D can be eliminated easily from there and C eliminated based on the ending of the sentence(as early as Stone Age).

Hey all,

A good discussion here.

Animals which were originally feral, such as dogs, horses, and sheep, have been domesticated for the purpose of producing foods and goods, providing faster transportation, and serving as pets for amusement as early as the Stone Age.

(1) Animals which were originally feral, such as dogs, horses, and sheep, have been domesticated
(2) Animals which used to be feral , such as dogs, horses, and sheep, have been domesticated
(3) Dogs, horses, and sheep are examples of animals which were originally feral and have since been domesticated
(4) Dogs, horses, and sheep are examples of animals which were originally feral and had been domesticated
(5) Dogs, horses, and sheep are examples of animals which were originally feral and were domesticated

A couple clarifications/add-ons:

1) Note that the active voice/passive voice distinction actually does not come into play here, as *all* of the answer choices are in passive voice. *Anytime* you've got a conjugated form of the verb "to be" + a past participle (in this case, our past participle is "domesticated"), you've got a passive voice construction. Since voice is a totally separate category from tense, you can have passive voice occurring in any tense. Here, options (A), (B), and (C) are in present perfect passive, option (D) is in past perfect passive, and option (E) is in simple past passive.

For comparison with active voice counterparts, see this table (it uses the verb "to write" and the noun "books," but you can substitute "to domesticate" and "animals" for "to write" and "books" ).

Remember, though, that passive voice is not grammatically wrong (in fact, there are lots of uses in which it's very common, e.g. "This building was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright"); it's just oftentimes stylistically awkward (it sounds much more natural, for instance, to say "I threw the ball over the fence" than to say "The ball was thrown by me over the fence"). So the passive voice vs. active voice question comes into play on the GMAT as a sort of tie-breaker: if you're choosing between two otherwise good answers and one is passive and the other active, then likely the active one is the better choice.

2) On why present perfect can't be used:
Realizedream mentions that present perfect seems good since these animals continue to be domesticated. That's a good point, and IF the sentence ended with "since the Stone Age" rather than "as early as the Stone Age," we could certainly go for present perfect, because "since..." indicated that something continues to the present, and once we introduce that idea of the present, we're justified in using the present perfect. But since the sentence actually reads "as early as the Stone Age" and actually gives no indication that the animals continue to be domesticated in the present, we don't have that concept of the present introduced; we've only got the past ("as early as the Stone Age"). Therefore, we're not justified in using the present perfect.

Best,