According to two teams of paleontologists, recent fossil discoveries i

Question

According to two teams of paleontologists, recent fossil discoveries in Pakistan show  that whales, porpoises, and dolphins are more closely related to some of the oldest known even-toed ungulates—a group of hoofed mammals that today includes cows, camels, pigs, and hippos—than  to any other mammals.

(A) that whales, porpoises, and dolphins are more closely related to some of the oldest known even-toed ungulates — a group of hoofed mammals that today includes cows, camels, pigs, and hippos — than

(B) that whales, porpoises, and dolphins are more closely related to some of the oldest known even-toed ungulates — a group of hoofed mammals that today include cows, camels, pigs, and hippos — as

(C) whales, porpoises, and dolphins to be more closely related to some of the oldest known even-toed ungulates — a group of hoofed mammals that today include cows, camels, pigs, and hippos — than they are

(D) whales, porpoises, and dolphins as being more closely related to some of the oldest known even-toed ungulates — a group of hoofed mammals that today includes cows, camels, pigs, and hippos — as they are

(E) whales, porpoises, and dolphins as more closely related to some of the oldest known even-toed ungulates — a group of hoofed mammals that today include cows, camels, pigs, and hippos — than

(Q28 of Practice Test 1) Hi, encountered this on GMATPREP ... any ideas/explanation? thx

leonidas · Answer

(A).
Agree, more X than Y.

Also, in (E), it should be, a group that.... includes....

A. that whales, porpoises, and dolphins are more closely related to some of the oldest known even-toed ungulates—a group of hoofed mammals that today includes cows, camels, pigs, and hippos—than

E. whales, porpoises, and dolphins as more closely related to some of the oldest known even-toed ungulates—a group of hoofed mammals that today  include  cows, camels, pigs, and hippos—than

amitdgr · Answer

more closely related to X than to Y is the correct usage.
"a group" is singular...... the right verb is "includes" and not "include"

Only choices A,C and E maintain this structure. C and E have "include" which is wrong here.

only A remains.

hanumayamma · Answer

A. that whales, porpoises, and dolphins are more closely related to some of the oldest known even-toed ungulates—a group of hoofed mammals that today includes cows, camels, pigs, and hippos—than
B. that whales, porpoises, and dolphins are more closely related to some of the oldest known even-toed ungulates—a group of hoofed mammals that today include cows, camels, pigs, and hippos—as

C. whales, porpoises, and dolphins to be more closely related to some of the oldest known even-toed ungulates—a group of hoofed mammals that today include cows, camels, pigs, and 
hippos—than they are –  they has referent issue

D. whales, porpoises, and dolphins as being more closely related to some of the oldest known even-toed ungulates—a group of hoofed mammals that today includes cows, camels, pigs, and hippos—as they are

E. whales, porpoises, and dolphins as more closely related to some of the oldest known even-toed ungulates—a group of hoofed mammals that today include cows, camels, pigs, and hippos—than –  a group includes - agreement issue

Answer:A

GMAT TIGER · Answer

A.
1. needs that
2. More than
2. a group ......... that .......... includes.

amitdgr · Answer

GMAT TIGER, I sometimes get confused with the usage of "that", when do we know that the sentence requires "that" ? I really appreciate any help

Thanks

GMAT TIGER · Answer

My rule for this one: when there are two clauses, the "that" as a conjunction is better to use. Lets see how it looks like with and without that:

1: With that:

According to two teams of paleontologists,   recent fossil discoveries in Pakistan show   that   whales, porpoises, and dolphins are more closely related to some of the oldest known even-toed ungulates—a group of hoofed mammals that today includes cows, camels, pigs, and hippos—than to any other mammals.

2: Without that:

According to two teams of paleontologists,   recent fossil discoveries in Pakistan show     whales, porpoises, and dolphins are more closely related to some of the oldest known even-toed ungulates—a group of hoofed mammals that today includes cows, camels, pigs, and hippos—than to any other mammals.

with that sounds better, right.

JohnLewis1980 · Answer

Hi guys,

IMHO:  A

B the sentence between '-' has an error: the subject is 'group' and therefore, it should be 'includes' instead of 'include'

C same error

D it has being... I  usually  discard answers that containg the word 'being'

E same error than B and C

OA?

Cheers

reply2spg · Answer

I looked for conjunction "that" it is only in A and B, so eliminate C, D and E. now in B idiomatic error "more ...so" there fore eliminate B as well and the ans is A.

IMO A

seekmba · Answer

A it is

recent fossil discoveries show that A, B, and C are more closely related to X than to Y.

group is singular and thus need "includes"

According to two teams of paleontologists, recent fossil discoveries in Pakistan show  that whales, porpoises, and dolphins are more closely related to some of the oldest known even-toed ungulates—a group of hoofed mammals that today includes cows, camels, pigs, and hippos—than  to any other mammals.

A. that whales, porpoises, and dolphins are more closely related to some of the oldest known even-toed ungulates—a group of hoofed mammals that today includes cows, camels, pigs, and hippos—than - CORRECT

B. that whales, porpoises, and dolphins are more closely related to some of the oldest known even-toed ungulates—a group of hoofed mammals that today  include  cows, camels, pigs, and hippos— as

C. whales, porpoises, and dolphins  to be  more closely related to some of the oldest known even-toed ungulates—a group of hoofed mammals that today  include  cows, camels, pigs, and hippos— than they are  - also 'that' is missing

D. whales, porpoises, and dolphins  as being more  closely related to some of the oldest known even-toed ungulates—a group of hoofed mammals that today includes cows, camels, pigs, and hippos— as they are  - 'that' is missing

E. whales, porpoises, and dolphins as more closely related to some of the oldest known even-toed ungulates—a group of hoofed mammals that today  include  cows, camels, pigs, and hippos—than - 'that' is missing.

LogicGuru1 · Answer

There are 2 very easy decision points here 
1) A group of hoofed mammals :-  SINGULAR  , so correct verb would be  "INCLUDES"  not    "INCLUDE"  
2) The correct idiom is  MORE THAN

So look out for the correct SV (Subject-Verb) and Idiom use in the given options

According to two teams of paleontologists, recent fossil discoveries in Pakistan show  that whales, porpoises, and dolphins are   more   closely related to some of the oldest known even-toed ungulates—  "a group of hoofed mammals"   that today   includes   cows, camels, pigs, and hippos—  than    to any other mammals.

A. that whales, porpoises, and dolphins are more closely related to some of the oldest known even-toed ungulates— a group  of hoofed mammals that today  includes  cows, camels, pigs, and hippos— than 
 CORRECT:- This is a perfect Grammatical composition. Nothing wrong with it 
 
B. that whales, porpoises, and dolphins are more closely related to some of the oldest known even-toed ungulates— a group  of hoofed mammals that today  include  cows, camels, pigs, and hippos—  as  
 WRONG SV + WRONG IDIOM "More as"
 
C. whales, porpoises, and dolphins to be more closely related to some of the oldest known even-toed ungulates— a group  of hoofed mammals that today  include  cows, camels, pigs, and hippos—  than   they are
 WRONG SV
 
D. whales, porpoises, and dolphins as being more closely related to some of the oldest known even-toed ungulates—a group of hoofed mammals that today includes cows, camels, pigs, and hippos—  as   they are
 WRONG IDIOM "More as"
 
E. whales, porpoises, and dolphins as more closely related to some of the oldest known even-toed ungulates— a group  of hoofed mammals that today  include  cows, camels, pigs, and hippos—  than  
 WRONG SV

alwaysnewbie · Answer

Sentence Structure  
 Subject    Verb 
According to two teams of palaeontologists, recent fossil  discoveries  in Pakistan  show  that  whales, porpoises, and dolphins   are  more closely related to some of the oldest known even-toed ungulates—a group of hoofed mammals that today includes cows, camels, pigs, and hippos—than to any other mammals.

Simplifying the sentence (for easy understanding) 
According to two teams of palaeontologists,  recent fossil  discoveries  in Pakistan  show   that   whales, porpoises, and dolphins   are   more closely  related  to some of the oldest known even-toed ungulates—a group of hoofed mammals that today includes cows, camels, pigs, and hippos—than to any other mammals.

The two underlined portions are clauses which should be  connected properly . They are connected properly only in answer choices (A) & (B).

P.S. Answer choices (C), (D), & (E) are also incorrect for other errors.

Thanks

Skywalker18 · Answer

According to two teams of paleontologists, recent fossil discoveries in Pakistan show  that whales, porpoises, and dolphins are more closely related to some of the oldest known even-toed ungulates - a group of hoofed mammals that today includes cows, camels, pigs, and hippos - than  to any other mammals.

a) that whales, porpoises, and dolphins are more closely related to some of the oldest known even-toed ungulates - a group of hoofed mammals that today includes cows, camels, pigs, and hippos - than - Correct
b) that whales, porpoises, and dolphins are more closely related to some of the oldest known even-toed ungulates - a group of hoofed mammals that today includes cows, camels, pigs, and hippos - as --> idiom issue -- more .. than
c) whales, porpoises, and dolphins to be more closely related to some of the oldest known even-toed ungulates - a group of hoofed mammals that today includes cows, camels, pigs, and hippos - than they are - show that is needed
d) whales, porpoises, and dolphins as being more closely related to some of the oldest known even-toed ungulates - a group of hoofed mammals that today includes cows, camels, pigs, and hippos - as they are - show that is needed
e) whales, porpoises, and dolphins as more closely related to some of the oldest known even-toed ungulates - a group of hoofed mammals that today includes cows, camels, pigs, and hippos - than - show that is needed

Answer A

Jifan · Answer

Hello, can anyone clarify the comparison used in A and C ?
Are they correct or not ? 
Thanks

aniket16c · Answer

Experts, can you please clarify the use of "that".
For instance, consider this question: "According to two teams of paleontologists, recent fossil discoveries in Pakistan show THAT whales, porpoises, and dolphins are more closely related to some of the oldest ... "

If do not find any specific reason why "THAT" is required.
As far as I know, "that" can be omitted if a noun/noun phrase follows it.
 
A similar question was raised here and the respondent has explained that it sounds better. 
Can you please shed more light on it?
PS: I am not even able to comprehend the specific reason why I used "That" in the sentence "A similar question .. better"

EducationAisle · Answer

Hi Aniket, let's consider the following two options, one  without  "that" and the other  with  "that":
(i)  ...recent fossil discoveries in Pakistan show whales... 
(ii)  ...recent fossil discoveries in Pakistan show THAT whales...

When you see these two options, the question you should be asking is: Did recent fossil discoveries  show whales  or Did recent fossil discoveries show  something about whales ?

Clearly, the answer is that recent fossil discoveries show  something about whales  ( that  whales are more closely related to some of the oldest known even-toed ungulates). Hence, addition of  that  is important from a meaning clarity perspective.

Note that in some sentences, GMAT might  not  consider this meaning related nuance an issue at all (if none of the five answer choices mentions a that), but in cases where some options do mention that and other's don't, you should perform the above meaning analysis to arrive at the right answer.

p.s. Our book    EducationAisle Sentence Correction Nirvana    discusses  this meaning nuance , its application and examples. If you or someone is interested, PM me your email-id; I can mail the corresponding section.

AjiteshArun · Answer

If we see a  that  after  show , we normally expect a  clause  after the  that .

Research shows that  these strategies are of no use . 
 these  strategies   +   are

Here you can choose whether to keep the  that , or drop it and end up with something like this:

Research shows  these strategies are of no use .

Both are correct, although I'd advise you to  prefer  an option that keeps the  that  in the sentence.

However, if you  don't  see a clause there, the question could be asking you to take a grammar call.

Research shows these strategies to be of no use. 
  Research shows that these strategies to be of no use.

Option C: 
 Recent fossil discoveries in Pakistan show whales, porpoises, and dolphins to be more closely related to some of the oldest known even-toed ungulates... 
Read this as  show X to be Y . If you use a  that  instead, you'll get:

Recent fossil discoveries in Pakistan show that  whales, porpoises, and dolphins to be more closely related to some of the oldest known even-toed ungulates...   
Here we don't have a verb for  whales, porpoises, and dolphins , which means that we can't go for a  that  after  show .

thangvietnam · Answer

show sombody to do
exist in the dictionary.

show something as
dose not exist in the dictionary

can I conclude that "show something as" is incorrect and that "show something to do" is correct?

thangvietnam · Answer

without going to comparison we can still get the OA. but I want to talk more of comparison
comparison sentence is hard. you can find some official comparison problems and see how hard they are.

the purpose of comparison is to make clear comparison. we normally use ellipsis . ellipsis makes parallelism which makes comparison clear. if ellipsis make misunderstanding, it is wrong.

if the cut off phrase is the beginning or ending phrase of the second clause, normally we have good sentence. if ellipsis is the phrase in the middle of the second clause of comparison, it make misunderstanding

look at choice c
"than they are to any other animal". is this correct? 
in this ellipsis , the middle word is cut off , which is "related". 
we can think that we add "related" to "are....to ", and we have correct sentence. but language dose not permit misunderstanding
we do not have "are to any other animal" in the preceding clause, we can not have that phrase in the second clause.

in choice a, "than to any other animals" is correct because we have " more related to some" in the preceding clause.

this is gmat thinking. this thinking is proved by the following sentence from og 2020
Most of the country’s biggest daily newspapers had lower circulation in the six months from October 1995 through March 1996 than a similar period a year earlier.

(A) a similar period

(B) a similar period’s

(C) in a similar period

(D) that in a similar period

(E) that of a similar period

I am not confident of cut off midle phrase, pls comment on this point. thank you

Beingstoic · Answer

Here singular 'includes' is needed because if the author intends to give 'include' to mammals he would not have mentioned the 'group' in the first place.

According to two teams of paleontologists, recent fossil discoveries i

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According to two teams of paleontologists, recent fossil discoveries i

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