SC1

[kamalakarthi]

Can you please help me on the SC question below.

[GMATGuruNY]

In April 1997, Hillary Rodham Clinton hosted an all-day White House scientific
conference on new findings that indicates a child's acquiring language thinking, and
emotional skills as an active process that may be largely completed before age three.

A. that indicates a child's acquiring language, thinking, and emotional skills as
B. that are indicative of a child acquiring language, thinking, and emotional skills as
C. to indicate that when a child acquires language, thinking, and emotional skills,
that it is
D. indicating that a child's acquisition of language, thinking, and emotional skills is
E. indicative of a child's acquisition of language, thinking, and emotional skills as

A: an all-day White House scientific conference on new findings that indicates
Here, that indicates (that + singular verb) seems to refer to conference (the nearest preceding singular noun), implying that an all-day White House scientific CONFERENCE indicates how a child acquires language skills.
Not the intended meaning.
Eliminate A.

B: findings that are indicative of a child
Not the intended meaning: the findings are not indicative of a CHILD.
Rather, the findings indicate how a child ACQUIRES LANGUAGE SKILLS.
Eliminate B.

In C, it lacks a clear antecedent.
Eliminate C.

Generally, an as-clause must refer to an ACTION.
To illustrate:
John WORKS as a doctor.
Mary SANG as John danced.
E: a child's acquisition...as an active process
Here, the as-clause in red cannot serve to modify a NOUN such as acquisition.
Eliminate E.

The correct answer is D.

[kc.19]

In April 1997, Hillary Rodham Clinton hosted an all-day White House scientific
conference on new findings that indicates a child's acquiring language thinking, and
emotional skills as an active process that may be largely completed before age three.

A. that indicates a child's acquiring language, thinking, and emotional skills as
B. that are indicative of a child acquiring language, thinking, and emotional skills as
C. to indicate that when a child acquires language, thinking, and emotional skills,
that it is
D. indicating that a child's acquisition of language, thinking, and emotional skills is
E. indicative of a child's acquisition of language, thinking, and emotional skills as

A: an all-day White House scientific conference on new findings that indicates
Here, that indicates (that + singular verb) seems to refer to conference (the nearest preceding singular noun), implying that an all-day White House scientific CONFERENCE indicates how a child acquires language.
Not the intended meaning.
Eliminate A.

B: findings that are indicative of a child
Not the intended meaning: the findings are not indicative of a CHILD.
Rather, the findings indicate how a child ACQUIRES LANGUAGE.
Eliminate B.

In C, it lacks a clear antecedent.
Eliminate C.

Generally, an as-clause must refer to an ACTION.
To illustrate:
John WORKS as a doctor.
Mary SANG as John danced.
E: a child's acquisition...as an active process
Here, the as-clause in red cannot serve to modify a NOUN such as acquisition.
Eliminate E.

The correct answer is D.

There seems to be three items in the list. But parallelism is not taken into account in any of the answer choices. Language, thinking (thoughts ?) and emotional skills. Please explain how the thinking is acceptable. Are gerunds/nouns interchangeable in the items of a list ?.
I know none of the answer choice has 'thoughts' for us to discuss over, but I'm curious.

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Hi kc.19,

While it might not look that way at first glance, the correct answer DOES use Parallelism. The three items in the list are all "skills", it's just that it would be considered redundant if the sentence stated:

"...acquisition of language skills, thinking skills and emotional skills...."

The GMAT sometimes is a bit "loose" with some of its "usage rules", but since all of the answers are written with the same "list of 3 things", there's nothing that we can do about the presentation. The "intent" of a sentence can sometimes be subtle though. If you take a piece of this sentence out of context, it would make no sense...

eg. How does a child "acquire THINKING"?

Answer: The child doesn't acquire "thinking", the child acquires "thinking skills."

You noticed that the list existed, so you KNEW to think about Parallelism - THAT clue should help you to notice that we're dealing with 3 skills, even if we don't "like" the presentation that appears in every answer. We CAN change the opening phrase/pronoun and the verbs, which is what Mitch did to get to the correct answer. When you find yourself dealing with an SC that has language that seems strange, but you can't change, you have to move past it and focus on the parts of the sentence that you CAN change.

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich

[GMATGuruNY]

There seems to be three items in the list. But parallelism is not taken into account in any of the answer choices. Language, thinking (thoughts ?) and emotional skills. Please explain how the thinking is acceptable. Are gerunds/nouns interchangeable in the items of a list ?.
I know none of the answer choice has 'thoughts' for us to discuss over, but I'm curious.

A conjunction such as and must serve to connect PARALLEL FORMS.
OA: a child's acquisition of language [skills], thinking [skills] and emotional skills
Here, and correctly serves to connect a list of MODIFIERS (language, thinking, emotional).
These modifiers all serve as ADJECTIVES modifying skills.
The words in brackets are omitted, but their presence is implied.
What TYPES of skills does a child acquire?
A child acquires language skills, thinking skills, and emotional skills.