Hi! I had a problem with the usage of "that" in option E. If we remove the part after first "that", "its" in the second half no longer refers to the elephant.

The sentence says that Australian embryologists have found evidence that suggests something. What does it suggest? Let’s focus on this part:

that suggests
that the elephant is descended from an aquatic animal,
and its trunk originally evolving as a kind of snorkel
The evidence suggests two things:

The elephant is a descendant of an aquatic animal
The trunk of the elephant originally evolved as a kind of snorkel (or if you don’t know the meaning of snorkel, you can think it as “kind of something”)
There are two clear problems with this sentence – both in latter part of “and”:

“its trunk originally evolving as a kind of snorkel” doesn’t have a verb. The “trunk” is followed by a verb-ing modifier. Logically, the idea communicated in this part seems to be suggested by the evidence. Therefore, it needs to be parallel to the clause before “and”. In other words, we need to change “evolving” (a modifier) to a verb in this part to make it correct.
The other problem is that we need to repeat “that” after “and” to make it parallel to “that the elephant is …”. Please remember that we cannot take “that” as common to the two clauses. Why do we need to repeat it? Because without such repetition, one can possibly understand the part after “and” to be another independent clause and not something suggested by the evidence

Australian embryologists have found evidence that suggests that the elephant is descended from an aquatic animal, and its trunk originally evolving as a kind of snorkel.


(A) that suggests that the elephant is descended from an aquatic animal, and its trunk originally evolving
'that' just popped out while reading this sentence. Here 'that' shows that evidence itself suggest. It is completely illogical. Moreover there is parallelism error as well. 'descended' and 'evolving'

(B) that has suggested the elephant descended from an aquatic animal, its trunk originally evolving
same error of 'that' as in option A. Parallelism error is still there. 'descended' and 'evolving'

(C) suggesting that the elephant had descended from an aquatic animal with its trunk originally evolved
Here 'suggesting' is modifying preceding noun 'evidence' and that is again illogical. usage of 'had descended' is also incorrect.

(D) to suggest that the elephant had descended from an aquatic animal and its trunk originally evolved
here 'to suggest' correctly shows intend of Australian embryologists. 'had descended' is incorrect.

(E) to suggest that the elephant is descended from an aquatic animal and that its trunk originally evolved
here 'to suggest' correctly shows intend of Australian embryologists. parallelism is also maintained. 'descended' and 'evolved'

I love the breakdown, AsadAbu!

Hey, taking a couple steps back there's a good deal to learn here. A couple points for you:

1) Remember that clarity of meaning is a big emphasis with the error types that the GMAT tests. And here that extra "that" is there to make the meaning crystal clear, that the "and" connects two things that the evidence suggests:

We've found evidence that the elephant is descended from an aquatic animal *and* that (the elephant's) trunk originally evolved as a kind of snorkel.

Without that extra "that" it's easy for the reader to see two nouns separated by "and" and see them both as objects, both as things that the elephant descended from. For example, if I were to say "DNA tests suggests that I descended from Irish immigrants and my wife's family is from Sweden" - here you can read it as I descended from two family tree branches (Irish immigrants and my wife's family, which would be a little unnerving) or that two groups (me and my wife's family) have taken DNA tests. (Then the portion "is from Sweden" stands as a fragment, but it makes you go back and re-read to unpack which two things are connected by "and" and that slows the reader down and causes confusion). A "that" after "and" makes it clear that DNA tests suggest two things - one about me and one about my wife's family.

ALSO note that in the SC problem we're talking about there's an "its" right after "and" in some choices. This is another place where clarity can be very helpful. Does "its" mean "the elephant's" or "an aquatic animal's"? With the "that" in place in choice (E), it makes it parallel with "the elephant's":

Evidence suggests 1) that the elephant... and 2)that its

That parallelism signals that both portions of "the evidence suggests" are about the elephant, thereby removing potential confusion about what "its" refers to.

2) So keep in mind that parallel structures in these kinds of constructions exists to ensure clear meanings particularly when you have lots of nouns in a sentence and a tiny connector like "and" or "or" (and potentially some pronouns, too). Parallel structure isn't just a random piece of grammar that the GMAT arbitrarily decided to test - the GMAT tests it because it adds a "reading comprehension" logical component to SC. Which brings me to:

3) One place we love teaching students to look for decision points on SC is anywhere you see a coordinating conjunction (and, or, but, etc.) followed by a structural word like "that," "which," "to," etc. Those are great signals that you're likely dealing with a parallel structure issue, and help point you back to the other parallel structural word - if I see "and that" I'm immediately going back to find a previous "that" so that I can investigate for parallelism and clarity of meaning. If I see "or which" it's the same thing...where's that other "which" so that i can assess? Sometimes (like here) those construction show up in an answer choice, but other times they appear far from the underlined portion. And *that's* where they can be all the more crucial (I'm struggling to find a link to my favorite example of this but I'll grab it and drop it in here via edit function).
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Hi VeritasPrepBrian,
First of all, Take my heartfelt thanks for giving me you precious time.
Now I need to take care the 2nd part-what's going on there.
If I remove first *that*, then the Embryologists are just suggesting "the elephant!), right? we used the first "that' not to make parallelism; we used the first "that' so that the Embryologists CAN"T suggest "the elephant" directly.

so, it is urgent to put a "that'' before ''the elephant''.

Now, it is time to find out the tag/parallelism marker--it is actually "and".

I am going to forget the 2nd "that" for some while, can I?

So, E says:
Australian embryologists have found evidence to suggest that the elephant is descended from an aquatic animal and *that* its trunk originally evolved as a kind of snorkel.
Intuition says that The "its" after the tag/parallel marker (and) directly indicates "the elephant" not "aquatic animal" at all. So, if want to use 2nd *that*, then we need to put another EXTRA *that* after first *that*, because the first *that* has been used so that the Embryologists CAN'T suggest "the elephant", isn't it?

Here is the Ron's insight about the ambiguous "it". I put this example just to confirm that the use of "its" in the official sentence directly indicates "elephant", not "aquatic animal".

"Take the pizza out of the box and put it.........."
My intuition automatically associated "it" with "pizza" not with "box" even though it's technically ambiguous.

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I love your following example, but have confusion a bit!
"DNA tests suggests that I descended from Irish immigrants and my wife's family is from Sweden"
In this example, "I" and "my wife's family" are two separate things. So, for better understanding we need a 2nd *that* after *and*, may be.
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Hi Shraddha,

I have been an egmat student and I have learned in your videos that to + infinitive form is used to suggest an intent or purpose. But if that is the case, wouldn't the sentence mean that the intent of finding was to suggest... isn't it incorrect?

" to suggest that the elephant is descended from an aquatic animal and that its trunk originally evolved" is correct because it implies that the elephant is extant

e) to suggest that the elephant is descended from an aquatic animal and that its trunk originally evolved
why not .... that the elephant be descended from an ....? subjunctive requires bare infinitive form as I have read.

The simple reason that B uses the present perfect'has' indicates that the suggestions are over. The evidence is no longer suggesting that evidence is going to be applicable in the near or distant future. But the intention of the text is to say that we can take the evidence as a permanent one until at least some new evidence comes up. A present tense 'suggests' is the correct word choice

CAn you pl tell me why two beliefs suggested by one evidence is wrong.
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(A) that suggests that the elephant is descended from an aquatic animal, and its trunk originally evolving

(B) that has suggested the elephant descended from an aquatic animal, its trunk originally evolving

(C) suggesting that the elephant had descended from an aquatic animal with its trunk originally evolved

(D) to suggest that the elephant had descended from an aquatic animal and its trunk originally evolved

(E) to suggest that the elephant is descended from an aquatic animal and that its trunk originally evolved

Isn't there modifier issue as well in options A, B and C?
I eliminated these three options based on relative pronoun 'that'. According to my understanding, 'that' can only refer to preceding noun. SO in this case evidence can't suggest to i eliminated options A and B. In option C, again 'ing' modifier modifies evidence so its wrong.
Please correct me if there is any gap in my understanding.