Australian embryologists have found evidence that suggests that the el

"... have found evidence to suggest that ... " means that they are suggesting based on this evidence. They have found evidence and based on that they are suggesting. Use of the word "suggest" means they are hypothesising based on evidence.
It does not mean that they looked for evidence to be able to suggest this.
Therefore, use of "to suggest that" is correct in (D) and (E).

Hello Experts GMATNinja , egmat , sayantanc2k, RonPurewal, GMATNinjaTwo , SarahPurewal , VeritasKarishma,
EMPOWERgmatVerbal EducationAisle AjiteshArun LogicGuru1
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BrentGMATPrepNow (anyone who is available):


In option (A), the OG says: "the phrase following the conjunction "and" is not parallel with the relative clause "that the elephant is descended..."

This is confusing because the phrases have been separated by ", and" and the following phrase should be an independent one. Why does it still have to follow parallelism?

Found this somewhere else. Answer by Ron -

"has descended" means "has moved downward". this can be in either a literal sense (he has descended to sea level from a height of 8000 feet) or a metaphorical sense (i don't want to descend to the level of common street thugs), but it can't refer to ancestry.

if you mean to discuss ancestry, which is clearly the case here, then you must use "is descended".

Hi Pranjal07,

That structure (comma + and) doesn't always introduce an independent clause. What the OG is trying to say is that there is no subject-verb combination on the right of the and.

1. ... and its trunk originally evolving...

Its trunk is capable of acting as a subject, but evolving is just a present participle (an -ing is never a complete verb on its own). This means that we don't have a subject-verb combination on the right to match the one on the left of the and.
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A. Wrong: We need a that after and as well to retain the parallelism: suggests that 1 and (that) 2
B. Wrong: Suggest must be followed by that ( suggested that )
C. Wrong: Usage of Past Perfect “had” is incorrect - the sentence is in simple present
D. Wrong: Same reason as in A
E. Correct: Suggest that 1 and that 2 ( parallel )
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Hi Ajitesh,
You explained it very well. Thanks a lot for replying.
However, I read somewhere that whenever ",and" is introduced in the sentence, if the following part is an independent clause, it doesn't have to follow parallelism.
Is this okay?

Hi Pranjal07,

Could you link to that post (if you came across that advice on GMAT club)?

I don't think there's anything wrong with what you've been told. I might think about it differently, but the two approaches would most likely lead to the same outcome. I would consider two clauses joined by an and to already be parallel enough. That is, as far as the GMAT is concerned, we probably won't be asked to check whether individual elements within those clauses are similar.
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Hello moind,

Thank you for sending a PM on this one.

You asked:




Generally, the "to verb" phrase is used to present the intent of an action. However, this is not the only usage of this phrase. This phrase also acts as the direct object of a verb. For example, I love to cook various dishes at festivals.

The "to verb" phrase also acts as a noun modifier. For example, This is a very nice book to read during the long weekend. This is the usage we see in the correct answer choice. The phrase "to suggest" talks about "evidence". The evidence suggests something.



Hope this helps.
Thanks.
Shraddha
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Hi,

Doesnt ' evidence to suggest' mean that embryologists found the evidence for the purpose to suggest instead of the intended meaning that the evidence suggests something.

Hi Garima, this question has been answered my multiple experts in the posts above, in this thread.

Are you not convinced by those explanations?
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GMATNinja, KarishmaB, TommyWallach, @MartyTagetTestPrep

elephant is descended.. vs elephant has descended. -> kindly explain why "is" is correct here. I believe Elephant has descended will be correct. You dont say Ram is descended. You say Ram has descended or Ram is a descendant of monkey.

Also, can present and past tense be parallel. Can "is descendend" be parallel to "evolved"

'has descended' has an active meaning and it implies 'to move down' or 'sink in terms of morals.'
She has descended the stairs.
The lawyer has descended to the level of his clients.
etc

The action of going down is performed by the subject.

When talking about ancestry, we use 'is descended' because the action is performed on the subject.

The elephant is descended from an aquatic animal.
The elephant did not do the descending on its own.

Check out similar usage on other verbs:
The kids have eaten the chocolates. (active)
Chocolates are eaten by kids. (passive)

Yes, present and past tenses can be parallel based on requirement.

Hi Experts,

AndrewN GMATNinja MartyTargetTestPrep AjiteshArun RonTargetTestPrep KarishmaB


I eliminated Option (E) on the because "is descended" did not sound the best. But I have understood the meaning change that "is descended" creates.

I have gone through all the posts on the forums and I couldn't really find any other solid error in Option (B) other than the one stated above.

My thoughts on some things mentioned by others in the forum -

1) "There is a parallelism error in Option (B)."

The "its trunk..." can be a modifier. So it isn't wrong it could just be modifying the previous clause.

2) "has suggested" is incorrect use of tense.

Present Tense obviously works better here but I'm not sure if Present Perfect is flat out wrong.

3) "that" is missing after "has suggested"

If I'm not wrong, there are cases where we can omit "that" if it is used as a connector. Not IDEAL but not incorrect either.


So what would be a straight way to eliminate Option (B) if I did not know what the difference between "descended" & "is descended"?

Thanks

There are many red flags in option (B).
'That' is missing. Since 'evolving' is not progressive and happened in the past, we should rather use 'evolved.'
It is better to use suggests/suggesting/to suggest since the evidence continues to suggest.
'descended' has the active meaning of coming down.

In option D Is there actually a parallelism issue? Since if we place the stem after 'that' then:
.....to suggest that | elephant had descended from an aquatic animal

.....to suggest that | elephant's trunk originally evolved as a kind of snorkel.

Please help.

Good question. You're right: "the elephant had descended" and "its trunk originally evolved" could technically be parallel clauses in choice (D).

But the second "that" in choice (E) makes it easier for the reader to see that "to suggest" is the stem ("Australian embryologists have found evidence to suggest that [clause 1] and that [clause 2]").

This, in turn, makes it easier to understand that the evidence suggests two things: 1) that the elephant is descended from an aquatic animal and 2) that the elephant's trunk originally evolved as a kind of snorkel.

Is the parallelism in (D) technically wrong? No. But the parallelism in (E) is much better.

I hope that helps!
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Hi Experts GMATNinja KarishmaB

In (E)

Isn't the "its" a bit ambiguous? In can refer to "aquatic animal"?
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'Its trunk,' the subject of this clause correctly refers to the subject of the parallel clause 'the elephant.'

Australian embryologists have found evidence to suggest
- that the elephant is descended from an aquatic animal and
- that its trunk originally evolved as ...

There is no ambiguity here. We are giving details about the elephant only. Logically also, only the elephant has a trunk.

There are two things that the embryologists have found – the elephant is descended from an aquatic animal and that its trunk originally evolved as a kind of snorkel (to help breathe under water). We know that now the trunk doesn’t work as a snorkel.

The ‘that suggests/suggesting/to suggest’ are all acceptable.

embryologists have found evidence that suggests …
embryologists have found evidence suggesting …
embryologists have found evidence to suggest …

Each of these implies that evidence shows the two characteristics pointed out above.

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

We would not prefer ‘that has suggested’ because it indicates completion of an action. But the evidence still continues to suggest. Hence (B) is not correct.

(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

Now let’s look at the descended/is descended/has descended differentiation.
'descended/has descended' has an active meaning and it implies 'to move down' or 'sink in terms of morals.'

She descended the stairs
She has descended the stairs.
The lawyer has descended to the level of his clients.
(The action of going down is performed by the subject.)

When talking about ancestry, we use 'is descended' because the action is performed on the subject.

The elephant is descended from an aquatic animal.
(The elephant did not do the descending on its own.)

Check out similar usage on other verbs:
The kids have eaten the chocolates. (active)
Chocolates are eaten by kids. (passive)

Hence, the correct usage here is ‘is descended.’ Options (B), (C) and (D) are incorrect.

(A) that suggests that the elephant is descended from an aquatic animal, and its trunk originally evolving

Also, we need to use the past ‘evolved’ because its trunk evolved as a kind of snorkel in the past. Hence, options (A) and (B) are incorrect.

We are left with answer option (E).
Answer (E)