Along the major rivers that traverse the deserts of northeast Africa

Dear Friends,

Here is a detailed explanation to this question-

Meaning is crucial to solving this problem:
Understanding the intended meaning is key to solving this question; the intended core meaning of this sentence is that the combination of a reliable supply of water and good growing conditions encouraged farming traditions that have endured for at least 6,000 years.

Concepts tested here: Meaning + Tenses + Awkwardness/Redundancy

• The present perfect tense (marked by the use of the helping verb “has/have”) is used to describe events that concluded in the past but continue to affect the present.
• The simple past tense is used to refer to events that concluded in the past.
• The present perfect continuous tense (marked by "has/have been") is the correct tense to refer to actions that started in past and continue into the present.

A: This answer choice alters the meaning of the sentence through the phrase "endure in at least 6,000 years"; the construction of this phrase leads to an incoherent meaning; the intended meaning is that the farming traditions in question have endured for at least 6,000 years. Further, Option A redundantly uses "combination" alongside "both"; this usage is redundant, as both terms convey the same information.

B: Correct. This answer choice uses the phrase "endured for at least 6,000 years", conveying the intended meaning - that the farming traditions in question have endured for at least 6,000 years. Further, Option B correctly uses the simple past tense verb "encouraged" to refer to an event that concluded in the past. Moreover, Option B correctly uses the present perfect tense verb "have...endured" to refer to an action that concluded in the past but continues to affect the present. Besides, Option B is free of any awkwardness or redundancy.

C: Trap. This answer choice incorrectly uses the present perfect tense verb "have encouraged" to refer to an action that concluded in the past; please remember, the simple past tense is used to refer to events that concluded in the past, and the present perfect tense (marked by the use of the helping verb “has/have”) is used to describe events that concluded in the past but continue to affect the present. Further, Option C incorrectly uses the simple past tense verb "endured" to refer to an action that concluded in the past but continues to affect the present; please remember, the present perfect tense (marked by the use of the helping verb “has/have”) is used to describe events that concluded in the past but continue to affect the present, and the simple past tense is used to refer to events that concluded in the past. Additionally, Option C uses the needlessly wordy phrase "of good growing conditions", leading to awkwardness and redundancy; this usage is redundant, as "of" can be deleted without a loss of clarity.

D: This answer choice alters the meaning of the sentence through the phrase "endured at least 6,000 years"; the construction of this phrase leads to an incoherent meaning; the intended meaning is that the farming traditions in question have endured for at least 6,000 years. Further, Option D redundantly uses "combination" alongside "both"; this usage is redundant, as both terms convey the same information. Moreover, Option D uses the needlessly wordy phrase "of good growing conditions", leading to further awkwardness and redundancy; this usage is redundant, as "of" can be deleted without a loss of clarity.

E: This answer choice incorrectly uses the present perfect continuous tense verb "have been enduring" to refer to an action that concluded in the past but continues to affect the present; please remember, the present perfect tense (marked by the use of the helping verb “has/have”) is used to describe events that concluded in the past but continue to affect the present, and the present perfect continuous tense (marked by "has/have been") is the correct tense to refer to actions that started in past and continue into the present. Further, Option E uses the needlessly wordy phrase "of good growing conditions", leading to awkwardness and redundancy; this usage is redundant, as "of" can be deleted without a loss of clarity.

Hence, B is the best answer choice.

To understand the concept of "Simple Tenses" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~1 minute):



To understand the concept of "Present Perfect Tense" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~2 minutes):



To understand the concept of "Present Perfect Continuous Tense" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~1 minute):



All the best!
Experts' Global Team

Answer B!

I think the main explanations are given in the first posts.

The trick here is to see that you need: "the combination of X and Y". if you cannot find out this type of idiom look closer at the meaning of the sentence.

Here, there is a combination of two things, so you need a reliable supply of water and something parallel with it (Ex: I need a combination of vodka and of red bull to enjoy my stay => does not make sense. You need to have a combination of vodka and redbull to enjoy your stay!) . The only answer right is B!

Hope it helps!

I don't have any problem of choosing the correct answer. What confuses me is the that following traditions. It seems that the sentence perfectly works without a that. So why you put a that here in every selections?

For convenience, I am striking out the modifiers and prep. phrases.

Along the major rivers that traverse the deserts of northeast Africa, the Middle East, and northwest India, the combination of a reliable supply of water and good growing conditions encouraged farming traditions that have, in places, endured for at least 6,000 years.

The subject and verb are as indicated above.

Suppose you remove that, you have a run-on sentence as follows.

The combination of X and Y encouraged farming traditions thathave endured for at least 6000 years.

Subject - verb - object - verb again

Clearly, the above construction is wrong. To correct the same, we either split the sentence using a conjunction or a relative pronoun (which becomes the subject for the relative pronoun clause) and thus avoiding run-on.

... the combination of (a reliable supply of water) and (good growing conditions) encouraged farming traditions that have, in places, endured for at least 6,000 years.

we can split this sentence into two parts:
If we remove that, we get-

the combination of X and Y encouraged farming traditions have endured for at least...

the combination- encouraged- traditions- have endured

Subject- verb- object/ subject- verb

Combination- subject case (subject of the verb encouraged)
however
farming tradition (FT) is in subject and object case both
object of the verb - encouraged
subject of the verb- have endured

Combination encouraged FT have endured ... This construction is flawed.

Hence "that" is required.

Combination encouraged FT that have endured...

Combination encouraged FT
(FT) that have endured... "that" is the subject of the verb "have endured"

we can also split the sentence and see this-

1) the combination of X and Y encouraged farming traditions.
2) these traditions have endured for at least 6000 years

"That" is used to connect these two sentences. We can not do without a connector here.

Let's take another example:

I have bought a new phone. Phonehas awesome features.
I have bought a new phonethat has awesome features.

Hope this helps!
Dolly Sharma
Verbal Trainer
CrackVerbal

Is it correct to assume that the "farming traditions" are still ongoing - to justify usage of "have".

My questions is - can we justify the usage of "have" by this rule - "When we are talking now in the present – about something in the past - we use Present Perfect. "
e.g. They seem to have developed this habit before their extinction 600 years ago.

Yes, from the context, it should be quite evident that farming traditions are still ongoing.


What you are talking about is a specific usage of present perfect. For example:

My friends have watched the movie.

This clearly means that the act of watching the movie is finished at some unspecified time in the past.

However, there is another usage of present perfect. That usage depicts that something started in the past, and has continued up to the present time. For example:

My parents have owned a car for more than ten years now.

Here, there is no reason to believe that my parents don't own the car now. The sentence under consideration, falls in this category.

p.s. Our book EducationAisle Sentence Correction Nirvana discusses present perfect tense, its application and examples in significant detail. If you can PM you email-id, I can send you the corresponding section.

Hi! both are incorrect.

C: Clearly good growing conditions encouraged farming traditions in the past (from the context of the sentence, this happened 6000 years ago). So, simple past encouraged should be used, not present perfect have encouraged.

D: At the very least, both is redundant, since we already have combination.

This question is fairly simple if you think clearly. (There is a distraction i.e use of 'For' which I am not sure if they can be the basis of eliminating answer - Maybe mikemcgarry or VeritasPrepKarishma can help us??)

My reasons to narrow down the answer are the following-
(A) good growing conditions both encouraged farming traditions that, in places, endure in - Both and combination is redundant
(B) good growing conditions encouraged farming traditions that have, in places, endured for
(C) of good growing conditions have encouraged farming traditions that, in places, endured for The 'combination' and 'have' - Subject verb disagreement
(D) of good growing conditions both encouraged farming traditions that have, in places, endured Combination of X and of Y seems incorrect
(E) of good growing conditions encouraged farming traditions that have, in places, been enduring for Combination of X and of Y seems incorrect

The use of "for" or "since" can definitely be used as a basis for eliminating answers, when a time context is referred.

Use of for: to indicate a period of time. I have been working for this company for the last 10 years. .
Use of since: to indicate a point in time. I have been working for the company since 2006.

Hello GMATNinja, Mikemcgarry, and other experts

The sentence just says that 'at least 6,000 years'. How do we know just from this phrase that it still continues?

If the sentence was:
..............and good growing conditions both encouraged farming traditions that, in places, endured for 6,000 years.

Will the use of simple past be correct here?


Thanks

Yeah, I think that there's a grey area here when it comes to the verb tense. I'm not sure that it would be wrong, exactly, to use simple past tense. But if you do, it would imply that the farming traditions no longer endure. That could be true, I guess, but it seems reasonable to think that the conditions that led to those farming traditions -- a reliable supply of water and good growing conditions -- haven't changed. At the very least, nothing in the sentence suggests that they've changed.

So present perfect ("have endured") seems a little bit more reasonable -- but to be fair, the question leaves room for debate on this.

But even if you ignore the verb tense issue, there are good reasons to eliminate all four wrong answers. Check out ChrisLele's explanation above for more.

I hope this helps!

Hi Shiv2016, as GMATNinja has pointed out, there is theoretically some room to interpret that the farming traditions have discontinued; however, there is nothing in the sentence to suggest so.

Also, notice that the articulation of the original sentence matters; while the original sentence is not absolutely correct, it uses the present tense (endure), thereby suggesting that that farming traditions are not a thing of the past.

(A) good growing conditions both encouraged farming traditions that, in places, endure in
The word COMBINATION implies that the two conditions combine to have an effect. So, the word BOTH is redundant. ELIMINATE A

(B) good growing conditions encouraged farming traditions that have, in places, endured for
Looks good.
Also, the present perfect tense have endured suggests that the "enduring" may continue into the future.

(C) of good growing conditions have encouraged farming traditions that, in places, endured for
The idiom is "a combination OF X AND Y", not "a combination OF X AND OF Y"
ELIMINATE

(D) of good growing conditions both encouraged farming traditions that have, in places, endured
ELIMINATE

(E) of good growing conditions encouraged farming traditions that have, in places, been enduring for
ELIMINATE

Answer: B

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Please +1 kudos

(A) good growing conditions both encouraged farming traditions that, in places, endure in

(B) good growing conditions encouraged farming traditions that have, in places, endured for

(C) of good growing conditions have encouraged farming traditions that, in places, endured for

(D) of good growing conditions both encouraged farming traditions that have, in places, endured

(E) of good growing conditions encouraged farming traditions that have, in places, been enduring for

Just a small hop step and jump here. The correct parallel idiom is the combination of X and Y, where X and Y are required to be parallel. We need a structure such as -- a combination of (X) a reliable supply of water and (Y) good growing conditions. The intrusion 'of' before good working conditions spoils the parallelism. Therefore, C, D, and E are in one sweep.

Between A and B, it would not take much to see in A that 'both' has no relevance in the context as it is not referring any two events after that.

B is the best to arrive at the shortest

Hello Everyone!

This is a great example of a GMAT question that focuses on idiomatic structure and parallelism! Let's take a closer look at the original question and highlight the major differences between options in orange:

Along the major rivers that traverse the deserts of northeast Africa, the Middle East, and northwest India, the combination of a reliable supply of water and good growing conditions both encouraged farming traditions that, in places, endure in at least 6,000 years.

(A) good growing conditions both encouraged farming traditions that, in places, endure in
(B) good growing conditions encouraged farming traditions that have, in places, endured for
(C) of good growing conditions have encouraged farming traditions that, in places, endured for
(D) of good growing conditions both encouraged farming traditions that have, in places, endured
(E) of good growing conditions encouraged farming traditions that have, in places, been enduring for

After a quick glance over the options, there are 3 main things we can focus on:

1. good / of good (parallelism/idioms)
2. both encouraged / encouraged / have encouraged (verb tense/idioms)
3. endure in / endured for / endured / enduring for (idioms)

Since #1 on our list will eliminate 2-3 options right away, let's start there. When we look at the sentence as a whole, we see that we're talking about a combination of 2 items here: a reliable supply of water and good growing conditions. The proper idiomatic structure for this would be the following:

a combination of X and Y

Let's see which options do this correctly, and rule out the ones that don't:

(A) good growing conditions both encouraged farming traditions that, in places, endure in --> a combination of X and Y both = WRONG
(B) good growing conditions encouraged farming traditions that have, in places, endured for --> a combination of X and Y = GOOD
(C) of good growing conditions have encouraged farming traditions that, in places, endured for --> a combination of X and of Y = WRONG
(D) of good growing conditions both encouraged farming traditions that have, in places, endured --> a combination of X and of Y both = WRONG
(E) of good growing conditions encouraged farming traditions that have, in places, been enduring for --> a combination of X and of Y = WRONG

There you go! Option B is the correct choice because it's the only one that uses the proper idiomatic format for "a combination of X and Y!"

**********

Wonder what would've happened if we focused on another part of the list instead? Let's see what would happen if we focused on #3 on our list: endure in / endured for / endured / enduring for:

(A) good growing conditions both encouraged farming traditions that, in places, endure in

This is INCORRECT. It's not idiomatically correct to say something "endures in" a certain number of years. We say that things "endure for" a certain number of years!

(B) good growing conditions encouraged farming traditions that have, in places, endured for

This is still CORRECT because it's proper to say something "endured for" a number of years. Also, by using past perfect tense (have endured), it's clear that these farming traditions started 6,000 years ago, and they're still being used today.

(C) of good growing conditions have encouraged farming traditions that, in places, endured for

This is INCORRECT because it uses plain past tense, which means the farming traditions started in the past and ended in the past. The intended meaning of the original sentence was to say that these traditions started in the past and are still going on today.

(D) of good growing conditions both encouraged farming traditions that have, in places, endured

This is INCORRECT because it doesn't make sense to say that farming traditions "endured 6,000 years." It's not idiomatically correct - we say that things "endured for" an amount of time.

(E) of good growing conditions encouraged farming traditions that have, in places, been enduring for

While this is OKAY, based on the idiomatic "enduring for" and the use of present perfect continuous tense, we would eventually have to rule it out as INCORRECT because it doesn't use the idiomatic "combination of X and Y" structure correctly.

In the end, option B is still the correct choice!


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