Hi Debayan,

If you check on this thread itself, on first page, I've posted OGV2#100.
Solve this question, and then I will piyt my analysis if you need one.

Thanks.
Shraddha
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Hi debayan,
Yes, you chose the correct answer. However, I would love to see a little detailed analysis of how you reach to the correct answer. Good job nonetheless.

Here is my analysis of the question:

Meaning

• According to some scientists, 65 million years ago, an asteroid, bigger than Mount Everest, slammed into North America.
• This caused extinction of all the plants and animals.
• So, logically it is the extinction of living entities that marks the end of the geologic era known as the Cretaceous Period.
• But the way this sentence is written, it seems that this event of a gigantic asteroid slamming into North America marks the end of this particular geological era. This is not logical.

Error Analysis

• “which” clause is modifying the event of an asteroid slamming the North America. Being a noun modifier, “which” clause can only modify a noun. Modifier error.
• Verb-ing modifier “causing plant and animal extinctions” is neither worded nor placed correctly to suggest that slamming of the asteroid led to the extinction of plants and animals. Modifier error.
• As discussed in the meaning analysis, it is not clear from the sentence that extinction marks the end of the Cretaceous Period. Meaning error.

PoE

A. which, causing plant and animal extinctions, marks: Incorrect for the reasons stated above.

B. which caused the plant and animal extinctions marking: Incorrect. Same “which” clause error in A.

C. and causing plant and animal extinctions that mark: Incorrect. There is no main verb after comma + and, leading to fragment.

D. an event that caused plant and animal extinctions, and it marks: Incorrect. “which” refers to plural “extinctions” that needs plural verb ‘mark’. Singular verb “marks” is incorrect.

E. an event that caused the plant and animal extinctions that mark: Correct..

Hope this helps.
Thanks.
Shraddha
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Thanks for the great article e-gmat team. Such great articles made me sign up for your course. Keep your good work flowing.

Anyways, I have a question on below ---

My questions ---

1) Why can not "a gift..." refer to the list "an IPhone 4S and IPad 3" ? That is why does this noun + noun modifier clause need to refer to individual item of the list ? My understanding is for most of the cases an item list (such as a, b, and c etc) can be taken as one single entity.

2) This might be perhaps gift is singular here - but again gift is a package - so it can still make sense with a list of items in the gift. I need help here to disambiguate on what basis list should be treated as one single entity and in what cases it needs to be broken down.

3) If possible, please provide examples of both the cases - a) a noun + noun modifier must refer to list as single entity b) and a noun + noun modifier must refer to one of the item of the list.

Thanks !

Thanks Shraddha for great explanation.

Hi anish123ster,

Emily Dickinson’s letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson were written over a period beginning a few years before Susan’s marriage to Emily’s brother and ending shortly before Emily’s death in 1886, outnumbering her letters to anyone else.

A. Dickinson were written over a period beginning a few years before Susan’s marriage to Emily’s brother and ending shortly before Emily’s death in 1886, outnumbering
B. Dickinson were written over a period that begins a few years before Susan’s marriage to Emily’s brother and ended shortly before Emily’s death in 1886, outnumber
C. Dickinson, written over a period beginning a few years before Susan’s marriage to Emily’s brother and that ends shortly before Emily’s death in 1886 and outnumbering
D. Dickinson, which were written over a period beginning a few years before Susan’s marriage to Emily’s brother, ending shortly before Emily’s death in 1886, and outnumbering
E. Dickinson, which were written over a period beginning a few years before Susan’s marriage to Emily’s brother and ending shortly before Emily’s death in 1886, outnumber

In choices D and E, the relative pronoun “which” refers to, as in any case, the preceding noun entity. In this sentence, the preceding noun entity is “Emily Dickinson’s letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson”, a noun phrase. So, “which” grammatically and logically refers to “letters” because “letters” is the head of this noun phrase.

Also notice that the prepositional phrase “to Susan Huntington Dickinson” cannot be placed anywhere in the sentence without violating the logic of the sentence. Hence, in this situation, “which” the noun modifier, has the liberty to jump over this prepositional phrase to refer to “letters”.

This a case where a noun modifier can refer to a slightly far away noun. You may review the following article to know the details about such modification:
noun-modifiers-can-modify-slightly-far-away-noun-135868.html

Hope this helps.
Thanks.
Shraddha
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Gourav, Well lets see your 1st question about mark"ed". well to be frank, if we look at this question we don't see any choice with marked, so that should not bother you and should not hamper you in answering this question. nevertheless even though I am not an expert, still I will try to answer your question regarding tense. as per my understanding the reason this tense is not past is because author intended to show that "plant and animal extinctions" mark the end of geological era, event is the bigger cause which further triggers the plant and animal extinction that mark the end, I guess this is the intent of the author.
regarding your 2nd question well lets take up an eg, "I drove a bike, and it went very fast", over here "It" is pointing to bike not me. but in this sentence you can clearly make this out as "it" as a pronoun cannot stand for me(subject), however in the original question "It" can stand for both "event" and "plant and animal extinctions" thus it is ambiguous in D
hope it helps.
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