Sentence Correction

While many of the dinosaur fossils found recently in northeast China seem to provide evidence of the kinship between dinosaurs and birds, the wealth of enigmatic fossils seem more likely at this stage that they will inflame debates over the origin of birds rather than settle them.

A) seem more likely at this stage that they will inflame debates over the origin of birds rather than

B) seem more likely that it will inflame debates over the origin of birds at this stage than

C) seems more likely to inflame debates on the origin of birds at this stage rather than

D) seems more likely at this stage to inflame debates over the origin of birds than to

E) seems more likely that it will inflame debates on the origin of birds at this stage than to

OA: D

ceilidh.erickson wrote:This is SC #124 in OG 2016.

This question is testing SUBJECT / VERB agreement and CLAUSE structure.

When a sentence begins with a word like "while," the structure is dependent clause + independent clause.

While X is true, Y is also true.

Here, "X is true" is a dependent clause, and "Y is true" is the independent (or main) clause.


While many of the dinosaur fossils found recently in northeast China seem to provide evidence of the kinship between dinosaurs and birds, the wealth of enigmatic fossils seem more likely at this stage that they will inflame debates over the origin of birds rather than settle them.

The independent clause in this sentence starts after the comma: the subject is "the wealth," NOT "fossils."

A) seem more likely at this stage that they will inflame debates over the origin of birds rather than

"the wealth ... seem" does not agree. The correct idiomatic usage would be "the wealth seems to," not "seems that." "They" is also ambiguous. Incorrect.


B) seem more likely that it will inflame debates over the origin of birds at this stage than

Same issues as with A, and "it" is also ambiguous here. Incorrect.


C) seems more likely to inflame debates on the origin of birds at this stage rather than

"The wealth... seems" fixes the subject/verb issue, but the modifier "at this stage" seems to indicate that the birds are at a particular stage - illogical. We want to say that it "seems likely at this stage."


D) seems more likely at this stage to inflame debates over the origin of birds than to

Correct. The subject and verb agree, and the modifiers make logical sense.


E) seems more likely that it will inflame debates on the origin of birds at this stage than to

The verb is correct, but the construction "the wealth... seems... that it will" is both non-idiomatic and illogical.


The correct answer is D.

Great explanation,
Ceilidh can you please let us know a little more about pronoun ambiguity?
Ron Purewal, also from MGMAT, has a different position on this issue.
But you have eliminated number of choices based on pronoun ambiguity( albeit not solely on this issue).
Should other errors also be spotted before knocking off a choice containing an ambiguous pronoun?


Can you please let us know a little more when pronoun can be considered ambiguous; It will clarify a lot of confusion that prevails and equip us with another method to eliminate an incorrect answer choice much more confidently?

In C, is rather than correctly structured ? Can we eliminate C on the basis of rather than ?

rather than ---> x rather than y

But here ---> to inflame debates ........ rather than settle them ("to"is missing)

Thanks

Thanks Ali

Hello Everyone!

This is a great example of a GMAT question that focuses on verb tenses and idioms! Let's start by taking a quick look at the question and highlight any major differences between the options in orange:

While many of the dinosaur fossils found recently in northeast China seem to provide evidence of the kinship between dinosaurs and birds, the wealth of enigmatic fossils seem more likely at this stage that they will inflame debates over the origin of birds rather than settle them.

(A) seem more likely at this stage that they will inflame debates over the origin of birds rather than
(B) seem more likely that it will inflame debates over the origin of birds at this stage than
(C) seems more likely to inflame debates on the origin of birds at this stage rather than
(D) seems more likely at this stage to inflame debates over the origin of birds than to
(E) seems more likely that it will inflame debates on the origin of birds at this stage than to

After a quick glance over the options, we have a few things we can focus on:

1. seem vs. seems (Subject-Verb Agreement)
2. they will inflame / it will inflame / to inflame (Subject-Verb Agreement & Idioms)
3. than vs. than to (Idioms)

Let's start with #1 on our list, which focuses on subject-verb agreement. The verb we're dealing with here is seem/seems, so we need to look to the original sentence to find our subject:

While many of the dinosaur fossils found recently in northeast China seem to provide evidence of the kinship between dinosaurs and birds, the wealth of enigmatic fossils seem more likely at this stage that they will inflame debates over the origin of birds rather than settle them.

Since "wealth" is singular, we need to find the options that use the singular "seems," and then rule out the ones that use the plural "seem."

(A) seem more likely at this stage that they will inflame debates over the origin of birds rather than
(B) seem more likely that it will inflame debates over the origin of birds at this stage than
(C) seems more likely to inflame debates on the origin of birds at this stage rather than
(D) seems more likely at this stage to inflame debates over the origin of birds than to
(E) seems more likely that it will inflame debates on the origin of birds at this stage than to

We can eliminate options A & B because the subject and verb don't agree. Now that we have this narrowed down to only 2 options, let's move on to the idiom issue. Again, if we look at the entire sentence, we can figure out which idiom we're working with:

While many of the dinosaur fossils found recently in northeast China seem to provide evidence of the kinship between dinosaurs and birds, the wealth of enigmatic fossils seem more likely at this stage that they will inflame debates over the origin of birds rather than settle them.

The idiom we're dealing with is:

more likely to X than to Y

Let's see which options use the correct idiom, and rule out those that don't:

(C) seems more likely to inflame debates on the origin of birds at this stage rather than --> more likely to X than Y = WRONG
(D) seems more likely at this stage to inflame debates over the origin of birds than to --> more likely to X than to Y = CORRECT!
(E) seems more likely that it will inflame debates on the origin of birds at this stage than to --> more likely that it will X than to Y = WRONG


There you go - option D is the only one that uses the idiom correctly and has proper subject-verb agreement!


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