Although no proof yet exists of electromagnetic fields generated by

Hi mates,

IMO C

A out: "posing" is not correct
B out: "that" is not needed
D out: the inversion of subject-verb (any threat-poses) is not needed her
E out: akward

OA and Source?

Cheers

C is correct.

(A) of electromagnetic fields generated by household appliances posing any health threat - WRONG because although + clause, not noun phrase.
(B) of electromagnetic fields generated by household appliances that pose any threat to health - WRONG because "that" modifies "appliances", --> change meaning
(C) that electromagnetic fields generated by household appliances pose any threat to health - CORRECT
(D) that poses any threat to health from electromagnetic fields generated by household appliances - WRONG, change meaning, because "that" modifies exists --> doesn't make sense.
(E) for any health threat posed by electromagnetic fields generated by household appliances - WRONG, although + clause, not noun phrase.

Although + clause ==> A, E are out.
B is out because of wrong modifier "....household appliances that pose........"
D is out because of wrong modifier "no proof yet exist that poses.............."
C is correct.

Although no proof yet exists of electromagnetic fields generated by household appliances posing any health threat, mounting scientific evidence has convinced many experts that there is cause for concern.
(A) of electromagnetic fields generated by household appliances posing any health threat
(B) of electromagnetic fields generated by household appliances that pose any threat to health
(C) that electromagnetic fields generated by household appliances pose any threat to health
(D) that poses any threat to health from electromagnetic fields generated by household appliances
(E) for any health threat posed by electromagnetic fields generated by household appliances

Only C is correct

can an expert please elaborate on pqhai's statement that for why E is wrong:

"Although + clause ==> A, E are out."

Thanks!

The reasoning is wrong. "Although+clause" is valid. e.g.,
Although I was sick, I went to school..... correct

A and E cannot be eliminated because of the reason stated by pqhai. There is no problem with a subordinate clause starting with "although".

Option A implies that there is no proof of electromagnetic force ( i.e. there is no proof that electromagnetic force exists). The part "generated by household appliances posing any health threat" is a modifier of "electromagnetic force ". However the intended meaning is that no proof exists of the fact the EMF poses threat - this meaning is not conveyed in Option A.

Similarly option E implies that there is no proof of health threat ( i.e. there is no proof that health threat exists). The part "posed by electromagnetic fields generated by household appliances" is a modifier of "health threat ".

E) proof for = eliminated
D) proof that poses any threat = eliminated => proof is not posing any threat
B) household appliances that poses => house hold appliances are not posing any threat Eliminated
A) household appliance posing => ing without comma modifying household appliances Eliminated
C is correct=> proof that em fields( generated by hh appliances )pose any threat to health

Although no proof yet exists of electromagnetic fields generated by household appliances posing any health threat, mounting scientific evidence has convinced many experts that there is cause for concern.

Ahh, we have (of)PREP+NOUN+VERB-ing (of + electromagnetic fields + posing) construction, which is mostly considered to be wrong in GMAT(As quoted by Ron Purewal). Because here Action of the sentence is the intended object of the preposition.In that case meaning of the sentence will be distorted. So we can safely eliminate option A

Is household appliances that pose any threat to health? No, so we can eliminate this option.

Sounds good and technically correct. So let us hold this option.

Is proof poses threat to health? Eliminate this.

Here the idiomatic usage is wrong. Correct idiom is proof of something or proof that+clause. There is no such things as proof for something.

Dear AnthonyRitz DmitryFarber GMATGuruNY AjiteshArun GMATRockstar IanStewart MartyTargetTestPrep,

Is proof FOR in E. wrong?

I've found an example of proof FOR here https://www.lexico.com/definition/proof

However,

Please help

It's not idiomatic. Non-idiomatic phrases aren't technically 'wrong' a lot of the time (grammatically they're often fine) and there can be rare cases where you'd want to use them, if you're using words in non-idiomatic ways. "Proof for" is not the main reason E is a bad answer here.

Dear IanStewart,

Could you share how to reject choice E. on solid grounds?

One of the most useful things you can learn, when studying wrong answers to SC questions, is how to recognize bad writing. Answer E here is terrible writing - whenever you string a lot of modifiers together as E does, it becomes unclear what goes with what. Sometimes answers that do that will still be correct (if a sentence is expressing an especially complicated idea) but they're usually wrong, because usually it's possible to express things with greater clarity. You can see the problem with the construction in E by comparing these two sentences:

"Tigers raised in zoos released into the wild stand little chance of survival."
"Tigers raised in zoos run by our state stand little chance of survival."

The sentences have the same structure, but the modifiers (if you interpret the sentences sensibly) are connected differently in each. In the first sentence, the intended meaning is that the tigers are "released into the wild". In the second sentence, the intended meaning is that the zoos are "run by the state". You could just as easily interpret the first sentence to mean that the zoos are released into the wild, and the second to mean that the tigers are run by the state.

E has the same problem. Is the threat generated by appliances, or is the radiation? Even more important than that though is that E is just bad writing, and if you see a lot of modifiers strung together, you should look for a different answer that makes connections between modifiers and their objects unambiguous. Only pick the potentially unclear answer if you find no better option.

Although no proof yet exists of electromagnetic fields generated by household appliances posing any health threat, mounting scientific evidence has convinced many experts that there is cause for concern.

Meaning Analysis: Currently no proof exists that electromagnetic fields generated from household appliances pose any health treat. But there are some scientific evidence that convince experts otherwise.

Sentence Structure:

Although no proof yet exists (Subject - proof ; Verb - exists)(The word "although" suggests that some information "in contrast" is going to be presented)
of electromagnetic fields (Prepositional phrase stating more information about the proof in discussion)
generated by household appliances (past participle phrase OR verb-ed modifier modifying the previous noun "elec. fields")
posing any health threat, (present participle phrase OR verb-ing modifier modifying "elec. fields")
mounting scientific evidence (Subject)
has convinced many experts (Verb)
that (Connector) (convinced in a way demands the presence of "that")
there is cause for concern. (Additional information stating what the experts are convinced of)

Answer Choice Analysis:


Modifiers are additional information used by the author to add more meaning to the sentence. Keeping this in mind, often we can eliminate modifiers to decipher what exactly the author intends to say. If we plug either of the choices what we land up with is "Although no proof yet exists of electromagnetic fields" The rest is just a bunch of modifiers (additional information) that can be avoided to understand the meaning of the sentence.

So we get an illogical meaning that "electromagnetic fields do not exist. This is definitely not what the author is saying. The way the sentence is written conveys that the proof of any "threat" by these fields does not exist. We can safely eliminate (A) and (B)


Now we have a dependent clause in which "electromagnetic fields" is our subject (plural) and "pose" is our verb (plural). If we re-write the sentence we get

Although no proof yet exists that electromagnetic fields generated by household appliances pose any threat to health, mounting scientific evidence has convinced many experts that there is cause for concern.

If we eliminated the modifier "generated by..." we still get a sentence that makes perfect sense. Indeed there is no proof that elec. fields pose any threat to health.


There is a misplaced modifier error that leads to a meaning error. The "that poses" seems to modify "proof" illogically stating that the proof poses threat to health.


No proof exists for... not sure if that's the right idiom. I believe "proof of" is what we generally use. But anyways, in comparison to (C) this sentence structure is less preferable.

Correct choice: (C)

nikitamaheshwari to answer your questions:

1) I don't think there is any preference between threat to health and health threat. If you replace "threat to health" with "health threat" the sentence would still stand correct.

2) Yes, I believe the that in (C) is vital. If we remove the "that" or if we replace it with "of" the sentence structure and thus its meaning gets distorted. As mentioned above, "that" starts a dependent clause with "elec. fields" mas our subject and "pose" as our verb

3) Yes "that" jumps over "household appliances" to modify elec. fields. From a logic stand point it is clear why that refers to elec. fields (check above SC structure + meaning analysis in case of any doubt) BUT look at it from a grammar perspective as well. One could argue that what follows after that is "pose" which is plural and we have two entities before that that are plural "elect. fields" and "appliances" So, from a grammar stand point one could say that there is a bit of ambiguity.

But as taught in SC Nirvana by EducationAisle "that" is a more flexible relative-pronoun. It can modify a word preceding it or the entire phrase whichever makes BOTH: grammatical and logical sense.

So, in a nut shell, yes "that" refers to "elec. fields"

I hope this helps

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