Sentence Correction

Hey stesteste,

There are a couple of issues with C.

First, not sure if this is an error with copying the problem: there is no "with" in answer choice C. In the correct answer, E, we have "arose simultaneously with but independently of the more celebrated city-states of southern Mesopotamia". This gives us two parts:

• arose simultaneously with the more celebrated city-states

and

• arose independently of the more celebrated city-states

Both of these are idiomatic.

In C, we have "arising simultaneously but independently of the more celebrated city-states of southern Mesopotamia". Since there is no preposition to go with "arising simultaneously", the preposition "of" goes with both parts:

• arising simultaneously of the more celebrated city-states

and

• arising independently of the more celebrated city-states

"simultaneously of" is not idiomatic, so we can eliminate C.

Second, we should use "arose" rather than "were arising" here. We only ever need to use a progressive tense (-ing) if we are trying to be very specific about when a thing a thing happened, usually because another thing was happening at the same time (e.g. "I was grabbing my keys when the phone rang.) Here, using the past progressive doesn't tell us anything else about when these nations arose - the sentence isn't "northern regions of the Middle East were arising simultaneously (with) but independently from the more celebrated city-states when something else happened". So we only need the simple past here. Pro-tip: simple tenses are usually better on the GMAT. If there is no reason to use a progressive tense, it's probably wrong.

Third, "having been cut" is not as concise as "cut", and both say the same thing. On the GMAT, if two things say the same thing and both are grammatically correct, always pick the shorter one. Another pro-tip: "having" and "being" are nothing words that are typically wrong on the GMAT - if you see either, see if there's another answer choice that says the same thing in less words.

Let me know if you'd like a breakdown of the sentence itself / the correct answer!