Almost the whole of Yellowstone National Park is located in one of the

Yes even I went for D . Seeing "is becoming" in C, i eliminated C.

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Easy to eliminate option A and B as they use "if" without any condition. "if" + condition+ then + result/effect

Among C,D ,and E, option E has pronoun ambiguity(they).

I choose D. "has become", which already happened and continuing.

Waiting for OE

Almost the whole of Yellowstone National Park is located in one of the world’s largest volcanic craters; the question is if the recent increased activity of the park’s geysers and hot springs indicate that the volcano has become active.

(A) if the recent increased activity of the park’s geysers and hot springs indicate that the volcano has become active.
(B) if recently observed increases in the activity of the park’s geysers and hot springs indicate that the volcano has become active.
(C) whether recently observed increases in the activity of the park’s geysers and hot springs indicate that the volcano is becoming active.
(D) whether recently observed increases in the activity of the park’s geysers and hot springs indicate that the volcano has become active.
(E) whether recently observed increases in the activity of the park’s geysers and hot springs indicate they are becoming active.

Error Analysis:

When we are asking questions, whether should be used. If is used only in case of condition. So A and B are wrong.
D is wrong because the verb is wrongly used. has become indicates that the event is not happening at present,but volcanic eruption is continuous one. So its wrong.
Option E is wrong because it incorrectly says hot springs become active.

Therefore the answer is C.

Imo C
whether is more appropriate here .
If is used for conditional .

Chose D.
C-Volcano is becoming active. - I am always skeptical about verb-ing in the middle of the sentence. It means that Volcano is becoming active, like a process. It is in a process of becoming active. Don't know if that was the meaning.Never heard of it.
D sounded much more precise . That it wasn't active before but has become active now

[quote="SajjadAhmad"]Almost the whole of Yellowstone National Park is located in one of the world’s largest volcanic craters; the question is [u]if the recent increased activity of the park’s geysers and hot springs indicate that the volcano has become active.[/u]

(A) if the recent increased activity of the park’s geysers and hot springs indicate that the volcano has become active.
(B) if recently observed increases in the activity of the park’s geysers and hot springs indicate that the volcano has become active.
(C) whether recently observed increases in the activity of the park’s geysers and hot springs indicate that the volcano is becoming active.
(D) whether recently observed increases in the activity of the park’s geysers and hot springs indicate that the volcano has become active.
(E) whether recently observed increases in the activity of the park’s geysers and hot springs indicate they are becoming active.

Source: GMAT For Dummies[/quote]

The original sentence states that the question is asked to check whether the volcano is active. Option C in this regard changes the meaning because according to option C the activation process is still continuing. I prefer ans D because it conserve the original meaning and corrects the errors in the original. Someone please help

[size=80][b][i]Posted from my mobile device[/i][/b][/size]

I agree that the best option is D.

In my opinion, the "active" state is binary - a volcano is either active or inactive.

Hi jch103020

D is wrong because it changes the meaning. D says ....'the volcano has become active'. It means volcano became active sometime in past and it is active since then even now, and If this will be the case then there is no question remains to ask whether ....bla bla.

Hope it helps.

GMATNinja can you help with this question? why C and not D is the correct answer.
Volcano is becoming active sounds weird. HAs become active also depicts active stared in past and d have an effect on present

For me , both C and D are really close options. How does one select the better option in such cases on test day ?

This isn't valid. The GMAT wouldn't require us to make a real-world distinction about whether activity now means that the volcano has already become active or is merely in the process of becoming active. This isn't a tense issue; it's a science issue!

VeritasKarishma Mam mikemcgarry sir GMATNinja sir I am unable to understand why Option D is incorrect here.Kindly explain

(D) is a problem for me. It uses present perfect "has become active" which implies it has just had an eruption or is having one right now. If it has had an eruption, the question itself does not arise.

Hence I would use "is becoming active" - is in the process of becoming active - Will we see an eruption soon?

Maybe if the volcano has already become active, we wouldn't be looking at just some geysers and springs. That is, there would be no "question" left to ask.

That said, I'm sure there is a technical side to the term "active volcano", so it's hard to say whether the GMAT would put you in this kind of situation.