A team of scientists has recently provided evidence of Earth

Question

A team of scientists has recently provided evidence  of Earth being bombarded daily with as many as 40,000 small comets, vaporizing in the upper atmosphere to  fall to Earth as rain.

(A) of Earth being bombarded daily with as many as 40,000 small comets, vaporizing in the upper atmosphere to
(B) of Earth's being daily bombarded with as many as 40,000 small comets, vaporizing in the upper atmosphere and that
(C) that as much or more than 40,000 small comets daily bombard Earth, vaporizing in the upper atmosphere, and
(D) that daily Earth is bombarded with as much or more than 40,000 small comets that vaporize in the upper atmosphere and that
(E) that Earth is bombarded daily with as many as 40,000 small comets that vaporize in the upper atmosphere and

Evidence you need a "that" so A and B are out. Option D has daily earth this is nonsensical. I have a question regarding option C its incorrect because of meaning issue and  vaporizing  is ambiguous?

Zarrolou · Accepted Answer

Great analysis so far.

A team of scientists has recently provided evidence of Earth being bombarded daily with as many as 40,000 small comets, vaporizing in the upper atmosphere to fall to Earth as rain.

C is wrong because uses an icomplete idiom "as much as" is the correct one: "as much ?" is not complete

(C) that as much or more than 40,000 small comets daily bombard Earth, vaporizing in the upper atmosphere, and

I am not sure of what meaning issue you are refering to, but "vaporizing" is not ambiguos. It's not correct but it's not ambiguos
"vaporizing" as COMMA +ING modifes the preceding clause and it usually provides additional info/ explains the clause or shows the consequences
usage-of-verb-ing-modifiers-135220.html
It must also make sense with the subject, and here it does not "scientists - vaporizing "

Also it is not parallel to the next verb "fall" : vaporizing in the upper atmosphere, and fall
since both verbs refer to the comets, they must be parallel

vishnuns39620 · Answer

I think I'll go with Option E! Great question, thanks. I guess there are very good explanations above me so I'll stick to the same

fozzzy · Answer

Thanks for clarifying! My analysis for meaning issue in option C the sentence is now stating that there could be an equal number or greater number whereas the original sentence states that  as many as 40,000 small comets

Another issue with C is much vs many

Abhishek009 · Answer

A team  of scientists  has  recently provided evidence that Earth is bombarded daily with  as many as  40,000 small comets that  vaporize  in the upper atmosphere  and fall  to Earth as rain. 
  
Answer must be option (E) for the highlighted errors in red.

GMATBuddha · Answer

A team of scientists has recently provided evidence  of Earth being bombarded daily with as many as 40,000 small comets, vaporizing in the upper atmosphere to  fall to Earth as rain.
evidence of is wrong. evidence that is correct.
 
wrong because of the above stated reason.
 
same as (A)
 
as much or more than? who writes like this?
 
unnecessary parallelism. (E) conveys the message way better.

harshdev · Answer

A team of scientists has recently provided evidence of Earth being bombarded daily with as many as 40,000 small comets, vaporizing in the upper atmosphere to fall to Earth as rain.

(A) of Earth being bombarded daily with as many as 40,000 small comets, vaporizing in the upper atmosphere to
(B) of Earth's being daily bombarded with as many as 40,000 small comets, vaporizing in the upper atmosphere and that
(C) that as much or more than 40,000 small comets daily bombard Earth, vaporizing in the upper atmosphere, and
(D) that daily Earth is bombarded with as much or more than 40,000 small comets that vaporize in the upper atmosphere and that
(E) that Earth is bombarded daily with as many as 40,000 small comets that vaporize in the upper atmosphere and

Option D vs E . " as much or more than 40000" comets " vs " as many as 40000 small comets" 
Note that Many is used for countable nouns , relate with the proverb  " Too many cooks spoil the dish"  .
 We all know that this proverb is both grammatically and generally true , since cooks are countable so by reverse engineering many should be used for countable nouns.  
 Here in the given question comets are countable so we should use "as many as "   
E wins

woohoo921 · Answer

Hi experts,

I was stuck between (A) and (E). I thought that the correct idiom was "evidence of" vs. "evidence that". However, I see that with (A) the "vaporizing in the upper atmosphere to" modifier seems to be modifying "a team of scientists" and that cannot be correct. I would be so appreciative to confirm if it is more idiomatic to say, "evidence that" and if my understanding as to why (A) is incorrect is right. Thank you in advance.

DmitryFarberMPrep · Answer

woohoo921

The tricky thing about idioms is that it's completely normal to see words that can be used in more than one way. We say "evidence of" to introduce a noun: 
"There was evidence of tampering on the fusebox." We say "evidence that" to introduce a clause: "There was evidence that someone had tampered with the fusebox."

This is a very normal kind of split to see. Either one COULD work, if it were followed up in the right way. A doesn't work because we don't have "evidence of Earth," we have evidence of a situation: "Earth being bombarded." This doesn't work with "evidence of," and is one more way that the GMAT uses "being" to create bad choices. Generally, if you choose an answer with "being," you had better be really sure all the other choices are wrong! E, meanwhile, appropriately follows "evidence that" with a clause: "Earth is bombarded."

VerbalBot · Answer

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A team of scientists has recently provided evidence of Earth

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A team of scientists has recently provided evidence of Earth

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