Dear AjiteshArun,

Thank you for your response. If that's the case, then does that mean in general, it's ok to construct a parallel structure that has two clauses in two different tenses? Thanks!

Hi shabuzen102,

Yes, it is.

We should check how appropriate the tenses are (instead of making them the same no matter what else gets compromised in the process).
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choice E show that possesive can refer to the subject of the preceding clause

"its trunk" refers to "elephant because both are subject. this make "its trunk" become clear.

we used to see that pronoun can refer to the subject of the preceding clause. now we see that possessive can do so. this is what we should note

Hi,
I m confused over one thing now. When do we use ",and" structure. Because here after 'and' also we have sub & verb which makes it independent clause.

And according to me, to separate 2 ICs, we need comma before 'and'.

Please help

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snigdha wrote


First thing is that what you assume as ICs are not ICs indeed. You seem to have ignored the subordinate conjunction 'that in front of both the clauses. You know well that when you place a subordinate conjunction in front of an IC, it becomes a DC. In fact, what you have on either side of the parallel marker 'and' are only two DCs.
A comma before 'and' is not the prerogative of an IC. Even in a list that contains more than two items,one uses comma plus 'and' even though the items of the list may not be ICs. Eg -Tom, Dick, and Harry - here we have three nouns but a comma plus and.
Similarly when there are two short ICs joined by a conjunction, we may not use a comma before 'and'
I went to the US last Monday and Trump went to Iceland on the same day. In this case, even though what follows and is an IC, still we do not use the comma.

The structure of a sentence is a primary prerequisite and the foundation of SC.
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Thank you so much for the clarification sir

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Notwithstanding the verb tense issues
What helped me see the answer more clearly before I pulled the trigger is realising that the evidence led the scientists to discover two distinct things:
1. Elephant descended from WA
2. Trunk originally evolved as X
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GMATNinja daagh.

I have a very basic query here. My thought process went this way.

I found evidence to suggest that earth is big.
Meaning:- I already know that the earth is big and was looking for evidence to suggest the same.

I found evidence that suggested that earth is big,
Meaning :- Evidence did the act of suggesting and I may or may not have any opinion about the size of the earth.

Is "evidence to suggest" correct with this line of thinking?

I think the most important thing to remember here is parallelism. Evidence suggests 2 things and E clearly defines the 2 things by having that in parallel

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ArtVandaley

If I have understood your query in the right perspective, both 'evidence to suggest' and 'evidence that suggests' mean the same thing. In both cases 'evidence' is the agent that is the doer of the action that follows in the form of either an infinitive 'to suggest' or a relative clause 'that suggests/suggested'. In essence, the noun 'evidence' is the object of the verb 'found' and the rest is all a modifier phrase that modifies the noun 'evidence'.

We can see a large number of examples of these kinds of infinitive usage

Jill advised Jack not to dance on the mountain trail.

Kohli asked the fieldsmen to hit the stumps with every ball they stopped.

Judge Bonham denied a motion to allow members of the jury to go home at the end of each day rather than be confined to a hotel (official example)
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100% agreement with the incomparable daagh here. Neither construction ("to suggest" or "that suggests") gives us a clear indication of what the person/people who found the evidence knew or believed prior to finding the evidence, so I wouldn't use that as a decision point at all (for more on that point, check out this post).

Choice (A) has a parallelism issue, so we can rule it out without worrying about "to suggest" vs "that suggests." And that's pretty typical of the GMAT: you might see a choice between two different constructions, but that's doesn't mean that one is right and the other is wrong. Sometimes, both are acceptable, and you'll want to look for other things.

I hope this helps!
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Australian embryologists have found evidence that suggests that the elephant is descended from an aquatic animal, and its trunk originally evolved as a kind of snorkel.
A. that suggests that the elephant is descended from an aquatic animal, and its trunk originally evolved 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 evolving D. to suggest that the elephant has 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 please explain why "A" is wrong

HI GMATNinja, EMPOWERgmatVerbal, generis, jennpt, egmat VeritasPrepErika, GMATRockstar, TestPrepUnlimited , MentorTutoring

Can you throw some light on evolved and evolving? Are evolved and evolving both correct this context as the trunk is already evolved.
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To me, it's as simple as this question: what do I think the GMAT wants me to notice?

"and" is such a common marker for Parallelism. Let's look at the structure of (A):

SUBJECT - VERB - NOUN - THAT - VERB - THAT - NOUN - VERB.... AND.... NOUN (its trunk)
Australian embryologists have found evidence that suggests that the elephant is descended from an aquatic animal, and its trunk originally evolving...

So...let's highlight the other NOUNS that could be parallel with "its trunk":

SUBJECT - VERB - NOUN - THAT - VERB - THAT - NOUN - VERB - THAT - VERB.... AND.... NOUN...
Australian embryologists have found evidence that suggests that the elephant is descended from an aquatic animal, and its trunk originally evolving...

This first option would have the meaning that embryologists found two things: EVIDENCE and ITS TRUNK. That's silly. They didn't find a trunk!

The second option would have the meaning that suggests "the trunk originally evolving". This verb doesn't make sense. We cannot say, "The evidence suggests the elephant IS DESCENDED....and its trunk EVOLVING. These are not parallel verb tenses!! We know that "is descended" is simple present tense. To be parallel, we would need "evolving" to ALSO be present-tense. Perhaps, "is evolving" or "evolves."

Neither of the potential interpretations make logical sense, because "its" clearly refers to "the elephant". We cannot achieve parallelism in (A), either through NOUNS or VERBS, so we know that (A) cannot be correct, because there is no way to reconcile it with the rest of the sentence and make it parallel and have a clear, logical meaning.

Also, if I wanted to use the word "that" to create parallelism, we would need to use the idiom THAT X AND Y, or the idiom THAT X and THAT Y. It doesn't work here.

In (E)... THAT the elephant descended...and THAT its trunk evolved... is nicely parallel. Both have a nice NOUN-VERB structure preceded by the relative pronoun "that" and both use past tense. It also uses the "THAT X...and THAT Y" idiom that is so often correct on the GMAT.

(E) works on every level: grammar, meaning, and style.
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Hello, NandishSS. Although (A) and (B) are easy to eliminate on other grounds, it is not the inclusion of evolving alone that seals the deal for either option. Simply put, the former answer joins two items together using and but places a comma before the conjunction, the construct used when joining two independent clauses. There is no second independent clause, however, since evolving is not acting as a verb. Choice (B) is the more interesting of the two, in my eyes, since an its phrase can be used to modify the noun of the main clause. The problem in this particular sentence is that its appears to refer to the aquatic animal just before the comma, rather than to the earlier elephant. Consider the following sentence, though, in which the preposition with could or could not appear at the head of the sentence:

[With] its mainsail flying away in a sudden gust of wind, the ship drifted asea for hours before striking the rocks of the shoreline.

I just wanted to point out that an its + verb-ing construct is not incorrect by default. But here, in the sentence about the elephant, neither answer with such an element works.

I hope that helps shed a little more light on the situation. Thank you for thinking to tag me.

- Andrew

The person who posted this question, thank you so much. It would be great if you can correct the Option D. It should be "has" instead of "had" as it confuses the viewers why the had option is wrong until they see the explanation and find out that the option itself is different from ask. TIA
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GMATNinja

Can you please provide some clarification on the use of the second "that" and whether it is need to maintain parallelism? I have seen contradictory responses in this thread as well as multiple other threads on this site.

For example: [I] suggest that [he does X] and that [he does Y].

Is the second "that" only necessary when the object is repeated? Thanks!

Hi egmat,

Could you please tell me how is there a Parallelism error in A.

that suggests that the elephant is descended from an aquatic animal, and its trunk originally evolved

Is it because of a comma before and which makes it an Independent clause but in reality we need Parlaalism and show that both are parallel to each other?

Please advise.

i have eliminated choice D and E straight away bcoz they used "to verb" and "to verb" denotes intention.Here i dont think the sentence meant that embryologists had any intention "to suggest". it was just that they found evidence which suggested something.
Please help me where i went wrong?