Although Babylonian scholars were remarkable observers of human illnes

Guys is there any grammatical error in portion c???

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E. superficial, and that they did not entirely disprove......if we do not use 'that' ..is the sentence wrong ??

nice question.. n this is going to help you alot.
RULE- there has to be "that(pronoun referend )" for its respective subject. If the subject is same for both the actions then only one "that " is sufficient
eg: researchers believe that their proficiency(proficiency-1st subject) in anatomy was [u]superficial and that they(they-babylos-2nd subject) did not entirely disprovethe involvement of evil forces in a number of diseases.

Example where only 1 "that" is sufficient - Lindsey said that she is leaving the town for a couple of weeks and will not be able to attend the ceremony. Here there is only one subject " she" and both the actions " leaving , attend " are done by lindsey.
eg 2: The Japanese software is so complex that it cannot be built within the stipulated time and is highly encrypted" (I know the sentence doesnt make sense but get the point .

RULE- different subjects(doers) >> separate "that "
same doer >> one "that"
In subjunctive mode though ALWAYS AND ALWAYS USE "THAT"

I think there are two problems
1) in parallelism, disproving is a wrong verb
2) superficial, not entirely disproving... here ' not entirely disproving' trying to modify superficial ..which is wrong

Why is there a comma before the second that in option E. I eliminated E because commas are used to separate two independent clauses, no? Experts please help. Thanks!

Isn't the 'they' in option E ambiguous and is referring to the researchers. I eliminated it for this reason.

Could someone elaborate on this.


Thanks.

Hi

Let's look at the question a little more closely:

Although Babylonian scholars were remarkable observers of human illness and behavior, researchers believe that their proficiency in anatomy was superficial and did not entirely disprove the involvement of evil forces in a number of diseases.

1. The "their" refers to the Babylonian scholars.
2. So what we have is two clauses joined by the connector "and". Thus the subject of the two clauses would refer to the same person or thing - in this case the Babylonian scholars.
3. So finally the intended meaning is as follows:
The Babylonian scholars' (their) proficiency in anatomy was superficial.
and
The Babylonian scholars (they) did not entirely disprove....

Hope this helps

Hi manish899,

Generally speaking, pronoun ambiguity is not a major problem. Try to identify other, more reliable entry points before reaching for something like ambiguity.

Hi..

A small modification..

1. When an "ing" verbal modifier is preceded by a comma (the "ing" modifier is separated from the preceding clause by a comma), then the modifier modifies the verb in the preceding clause.

For e.g.,

The raindrops hit the roof, creating a rhythmic sound.

"Creating" is modifying the verb "hit". The "hitting of the raindrops" created the sound.

2. If the modifier is not separated by a comma it will modify the nearest noun.

For e.g.,

The raindrops hit the roof creating a rhythmic sound.

Now "creating" is illogically modifying "roof".

Hope this helps in future applications

I think (E) should not have `,` i.e. comma as `, and` starts a new clause.
Hence, (E) should be following in order to be correct choice:

E. superficial and that they did not entirely disprove

Why can't OPTION (A) be the right answer? I felt that it was their proficiency that did not entirely disaprove the involvement of evil forces in a number of diseases

If we look at it from this perspective, then was superficial and did not entirely disapprove. Doesn't it become parellel?

Kindly please help!

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Hello nayas96,

We hope this finds you well.

Having gone through the question and your query, we believe we can resolve your doubt.

The issue here is that the meaning produced by Option A - that the Babylonian's proficiency did not entirely disprove the involvement of evil forces in a number of diseases - is illogical. Proficiency refers to a "level of skill", and a skill level cannot be said to have failed in an action; the intended meaning is that the Babylonians did not entirely disprove the involvement of evil forces in a number of diseases.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
Experts' Global Team

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