Sentence Correction

apple100 wrote:The new image of Stone Age people as systematic hunters of large animals, rather than merely scavenging for meat, have emerged from the examination of tools found in Germany including , three wooden spears that archaeologists believe to be about 400,000 years old.



(A) merely scavenging for meat, have emerged from the examination of tools found in Germany, including
(B) as merely scavenging for meat, have emerged from examining tools found in Germany, which include
(C) as mere meat scavengers, has emerged from examining tools found in Germany that includes
(D) mere scavengers of meat, has emerged from the examination of tools found in Germany, which includes
(E) mere scavengers of meat, has emerged from the examination of tools found in Germany, including

I believe telling in one word is better than two words for GMAT Including> which includes

This is how i arrived at E

[spoiler]OA is E, but what is wrong with C. If C were "that include" instead of "that includes" would it be correct? Also does "that" modify Germany?[/spoiler]

lunarpower wrote:parallel structure is one reason why (c) is worse than (d) or (e).

to wit, look at the blue parts below. note that "rather than" is a one-part signal - i.e., unlike two-part constructions such as "both ... and" and "not only ... but also", it lacks a left-hand part indicating the beginning of the first parallel element. therefore, you can choose to start the first parallel element wherever you want - meaning that you can choose to include or exclude "as" at your convenience:

(c)
The new image of Stone Age people as systematic hunters of large animals, rather than as mere meat scavengers, has...
this parallelism is acceptable, but there are two undesirable things:
* "hunters OF large animals" isn't truly parallel to "meat scavengers"
* "meat scavengers" is awkward / unclear (you probably won't know this unless you're a native speaker of english and/or a writer)

(d)(e)
The new image of Stone Age people as systematic hunters of large animals, rather than mere scavengers of meat, has...
this is better parallelism (notice that "as" is excluded from the first part this time).
* note the EXACT parallelism between "hunters OF large animals" and "scavengers OF meat".

also, (c) implies, unambiguously (and absurdly), that germany itself "includes" 3 wooden spears.
(3 all the way!)

lunarpower wrote:

CaptainM wrote:Could you please help me to understand the usage of Include vs including in the following GPREP question:
In attempting to solve the problems caused by a lowering of the price of oil, oil
companies operating in the North Sea have taken a variety of approaches, which
includes their reducing employment, using new technology to pump oil more
efficiently from smaller fields, and finding innovative ways to cut the cost of building
and operating platforms.

C. which include reducing employment, using new technology to pump oil more
efficiently(OA)

E. including a reduction of employment, their use of new technology to be more
efficient at pumping oil

Thnx a Lot!!!!

this is not "include versus including"; the issue in (e) is its absolutely awful parallelism -- the 3 items actually appear in three completely different forms (vs. the perfect parallelism in choice (c): -ing, -ing, and -ing)

in this problem, they used "which include" presumably to avoid having two -ING's in a row. there have been other examples of GPREP sentences that use less-preferred constructions in order to avoid awkward repetitions, too.
see here
https://www.beatthegmat.com/ethnicity-t3 ... tml#211808

lunarpower wrote:also

by far the easiest way to kill (c) is subject-verb agreement: "includes" (singular) doesn't make sense, because "tools" (the clearly intended antecedent) is plural.

there is also a VERY subtle difference in meaning here, which is wholly idiomatic.
namely:
if you say "tools that include X", then X is A COMPONENT of the tools. so, for instance, "tools that include a bottle opener" means that a bottle opener is one of many attachments.
on the other hand, "tools(,) including X" implies that X is ONE OF the tools. so, for instance, "tools(,) including a bottle opener" means that the bottle opener itself is one of the tools in question.

clearly, S-V agreement is the easier way to go.