After the Arab conquest of Egypt in A.D. 640, Arabic became the domina

It is clear in the first glimpse to a trained eye that the race is between options A and B

Here's the official explanation provided by the GMAC for this question:

According to the sentence, after 640 AD, Arabic became the dominant language in Egypt. It replaced older languages and writing systems. The verb became refers to that distant past, and the phrase replacing … writing systems modifies the noun Arabic, the subject of the sentence. The adjective older correctly modifies both languages and writing systems.

Option A: Correct. The sentence states a historical fact with clarity, precision, and correct grammar and usage, as explained above.

Option B: This answer choice has two flaws. It uses the word systems, which adds nothing significant to languages. The clause that were older modifies language systems only but should also modify writing systems; it represents no improvement over the given sentence, which applied older logically to both languages and writing systems.

Option C: The present tense becomes is inconsistent both with the past tense replaced and with the reference to a distant past. The pronoun it refers to Arabic, which is the subject of both becomes and replaced. Since there is no comma preceding and, the pronoun it should be omitted.

Option D: The phrase languages that were older and writing systems is awkward and represents no improvement over the given sentence, which applied older logically to both languages and writing systems. The present tense becomes should be past tense, referring to a distant past as does the past tense replaced.

Option E: The present tense becomes should be replaced by the past tense, referring to a distant past. Arabic’s becoming the dominant language was precisely contemporaneous with its replacement of older languages, so having replaced indicates, illogically, that when Arabic became the dominant language, it had somehow already replaced the other languages. As previously explained, languages that were older fails in that older does also not modify writing systems, contrary to what was likely intended.

The correct answer is A.

Please note that I'm not the author of this explanation. I'm just posting it here since I believe it can help the community.

egmat: I was not fully confident about the verb-ing modifier in this sentence. My approach was this way.
'Egyptians replaying older languages and writing systems' does not make sense. So obviously it is not modifying noun.
Next I checked for 'Arabic became the dominant' by 'replacing older languages and writing systems' which made sense and then checked the doer of the 'modified action' and 'modifier action'.
Doer of the 'modified action' in this case is 'Arabic'.
Doer of the 'modifier action' in this case is 'Arabic'.

And then finally marked the answer choice A.

Savvy09


In line 2, I think you mean "obviously it is NOT modifying a noun," right? Beyond that, your reasoning seems correct. I'll add that when we see a comma followed by an -ing word, this typically creates an adverbial modifier that applies to the preceding clause. Expect that first--it would be an exception if this were a noun modifier.

Can you please clarify "Since there is no comma preceding and, the pronoun it should be omitted."(yellow colour)?

rajidraadkhan

What they are getting at is that when we have "it," we end up with two full clauses ("Arabic becomes the dominant lang" and "it replaced older langs"). The explanation is pointing out that when have two full clauses, we're more likely to see COMMA + AND than just a plain AND. However, without IT, we just have two verb phrases (becomes . . . and replaces), and we wouldn't want to separate those with a comma.

However, this is less of a rule than a style/clarity issue. The difference in tense between "becomes" and "replaced" is a much simpler and more direct way to rule out C.