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AjiteshArun
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A recent study on Lyme Disease suggests that people who are bitten by 18 Jun 2022, 21:15
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Sambon
AjiteshArun MartyTargetTestPrep GMATGuruNY

Would appreciate your thoughts on this question. (C) is clearly the best answer choice but my concern is around a detail in (A). Few users in this thread pointed out that answer choice (A) should be eliminated because it lacks a verb after the relative pronoun "that." That explanation makes sense so long as we accept that "allergy to meat" is functioning only as a subject.

But can't "allergy to meat" also function as an object of the verb "believe"? Using "allergy to meat" as an object, the sentence would essentially say "Scientists believe allergy to meat to be turning into an epidemic" (Scientists believe X to be Y). Interpreted this way, the sentence has not a grammatical issue but a meaning issue i.e., how can scientists believe an allergy to be something?

In summary, is it fair to say that we should not eliminate answer choice (A) for the reason that it lacks a verb?
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Hi Sambon,

I agree that believe X to be Y is valid. In believe X to be Y, I'd normally expect Y to be a noun or some kind of descriptive element like an adjective or prepositional phrase, so yes, it's possible to read A as "allergy to meat = turning into an epidemic".

As this is a question of idiom, it'd be great to see more opinions on this.
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A recent study on Lyme Disease suggests that people who are bitten by 18 Jun 2022, 23:16
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Sambon
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A recent study on Lyme Disease suggests that people who are bitten by ticks, especially by the lone star tick, develop a severe allergy to meat that scientists believe to be turning into an epidemic.
AjiteshArun MartyTargetTestPrep GMATGuruNY

Would appreciate your thoughts on this question. (C) is clearly the best answer choice but my concern is around a detail in (A). Few users in this thread pointed out that answer choice (A) should be eliminated because it lacks a verb after the relative pronoun "that." That explanation makes sense so long as we accept that "allergy to meat" is functioning only as a subject.

But can't "allergy to meat" also function as an object of the verb "believe"? Using "allergy to meat" as an object, the sentence would essentially say "Scientists believe allergy to meat to be turning into an epidemic" (Scientists believe X to be Y). Interpreted this way, the sentence has not a grammatical issue but a meaning issue i.e., how can scientists believe an allergy to be something?

In summary, is it fair to say that we should not eliminate answer choice (A) for the reason that it lacks a verb?
Show more
Yes, it's fair to say that "believe" can be the verb of that relative clause. So, in the (A) version, the relative clause does not lack a verb.

In fact, there is no 100 percent clear issue with the (A) version. So, I guess we choose the (C) version just because it's a slightly better way of communicating the meaning, but this question isn't ideal. It appears to be one of those older SC questions in which one of the incorrect choices is a little too close to correct.
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A recent study on Lyme Disease suggests that people who are bitten by 19 Jun 2022, 22:25
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Bunuel

It turns out that this question is not in OG10. Kindly consider removing the OG10 tag.
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A recent study on Lyme Disease suggests that people who are bitten by 20 Jun 2022, 01:29
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Bunuel

It turns out that this question is not in OG10. Kindly consider removing the OG10 tag.
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Done. Thank you!
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A recent study on Lyme Disease suggests that people who are bitten by 20 Jun 2022, 15:51
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Sambon
can't "allergy to meat" also function as an object of the verb "believe"? Using "allergy to meat" as an object, the sentence would essentially say "Scientists believe allergy to meat to be turning into an epidemic" (Scientists believe X to be Y). Interpreted this way, the sentence has not a grammatical issue but a meaning issue i.e., how can scientists believe an allergy to be something?

In summary, is it fair to say that we should not eliminate answer choice (A) for the reason that it lacks a verb?
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A: an allergy that scientists believe to be

This construction is grammatically valid.
Analogous examples from the web:
items that experts believe to be most important
a wasting syndrome epidemic that scientists believe to be the largest marine wildlife disease event in history
behaviors that psychologists believe to be expressions of a given trait
The issue in A is not grammatical but semantic.

The idiom here is X believes Y to be Z.
In each of the web examples above, the blue portion -- Z -- expresses what is thought to be a GENERAL TRUTH.
A general truth is a statement that is true not at a particular moment but that is ALWAYS true.
Generally:
When this idiom is properly used, the Z-portion should be something thought to be a general truth.

Back to option A:
an allergy that scientists believe to be turning into an epidemic
The full verb in the red portion is not to be but to be TURNING.
to be turning is not a general truth.
Quite the opposite: this construction expresses a TEMPORARY action that is happening RIGHT NOW.
Since the Z-portion in A is not something thought to be a general truth, the idiom X believes Y to be Z seems misused.
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A recent study on Lyme Disease suggests that people who are bitten by 21 Jun 2023, 00:58
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