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sc question

by lonely gmatter » Sun Dec 17, 2006 8:23 pm
Q 1:
NASA’s methodical approach to the exploration of Mars has not yet answered the questions of whether biological life forms ever emerged on Mars [u]and whether, presuming such life forms having left fossil traces to begin with, those traces can[/u] still exist in some moist recesses of the cold and arid planet.

(A)and whether, presuming such life forms having left fossil traces to begin with, those traces can
(B) and whether, if it is presumed that such life forms left some fossil traces to begin with, can those traces
(C)and whether, presuming such life forms left fossil traces to begin with, those traces
(D) and, presuming such life forms did leave some fossil traces to begin with, if they can
(E)and, presuming such life forms to have left fossil traces to begin with, if they


I chose C, but the published answer is A.

I found that the parallel phrase starts with 'whether' is 'whether + noun + ever + verb' form, so after "and" should also be 'whether + noun + can + verb' form.

But what is the difference of the meaning(or grammatical difference) between 'having left' and 'left'?

Thanks for positng explanations in advance.
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Source: — Sentence Correction |
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whether - can

by aim-wsc » Tue Jan 02, 2007 2:44 am
the word ''whether'' makes it necessary to have can in the last.
... thats all i came ur with.
apparently you hv already cut B, D & E so i am not presenting the explanation there.

sorry for replying late :(
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by Stacey Koprince » Mon Jan 08, 2007 5:47 pm
Hi, can you tell me the source for this one? The word "having" in choice A is problematic - that is not grammatically correct.
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by jainrahul1985 » Mon May 23, 2011 10:46 pm
Is the OA C . Experts please comment ?
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by aspirant2011 » Tue May 24, 2011 4:56 am
yup I also feel that the OA should be C........
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by lunarpower » Tue May 24, 2011 5:39 am
none of the answers to this problem are completely correct.

@mundasingh (who sent me a PM), do you actually have the original source of this problem? i'm going to assume that you found this thread by specifically searching for it, because it's almost four and a half years old (!!)

the modifier "presuming" is incorrectly used in a/c/d/e, because it doesn't have a subject (i.e., if "presuming" is used in a formal sentence, then the sentence needs to mention who is making the presumption). the passive form "it is presumed" in (b) is ok -- that's the point of this kind of passive form, actually (i.e., to avoid having to mention an unimportant subject).

as stacey said, "having" in (a) is incorrect.

"to begin with" -- which is present in all five choices -- is an informal construction that isn't acceptable in formal english (unless you are literally talking about beginning some process with something; this sentence is not doing that).

(b) says "whether can..."; that's not ok.

in (d) and (e) the second "whether" is inappropriately replaced by "if".

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by rodrigozmn » Fri Jun 03, 2016 5:08 am
Actually the question is from an official source: "GMATPrep Exam Pack 2".
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by sahilmalhotra01 » Sun Aug 07, 2016 11:14 pm
lunarpower wrote:none of the answers to this problem are completely correct.

i feel like i've given this warning a million times before, but ... stay away from unsourced third-party questions!
the things that you "learn" from them will often be WRONG!

if you downloaded a bunch of questions from the internet and paid ... nothing, then those questions are going to be worth ... well, nothing.
(or even less than nothing, if they cause you to "learn" things that aren't actually true)
Hi @lunarpower,

I came across this question today in GMAT Prep : Practice Exam 5. Screen shot attached for your reference.

Its hard to understand that this question was discussed on BTG in 2006 and appeared in GMAT prep Practice Exam in 2016.
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