Australian embryologists have found evidence that suggests that the el

Why option D is not parallel??
We can make two parallel sentences IMO:

Australian embryologists have found evidence to suggest that
1) the elephant had descended from an aquatic animal

and

2) its trunk originally evolved as a kind of snorkel.

Also in option E, first sentence is in passive and other one is in active voice, so I guess Parallelism is broken here.

Please share your insight.
Thanks

Whether "is descended from" is correct? Should not it be " is descendent of" ?

Hello abhishekmayank,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, both phrases are correct and convey the same meaning.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
Experts' Global Team
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Check out this post and let us know if you still have questions!
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HAD descended from - > may suggest it doesn't anymore. R had descended from Y. But not anymore?
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Not sure what understanding you have of parallelism, but please don't write just anything here.

"descended" and "evolved" are parallel, and everything else is clear. (How is that??, the verbs are "is descended" and "Evolved" , and there's a that and that parallelism with two independent clauses parallel to each other, both with their individual sub-verb pair, Elephant (Sub)- Is descended (verb) and Its Trunk (sub) - evolved (verb)

which is right as per meaning basis because the "Elephant is descended from an aquatic animal" is a fact and should be written in simple present tense as written, while clause 2 tells about evolution of trunk, which is already completed so simple past tense is used.

Hello experts,
So, can we directly say that the format ''x THAT y (verb) THAT'' is always wrong in GMAT?
Thanks__
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Hi!
Thank you for the the 'is descended/ has descended distinction'. Faltered majrly because of this.
Have another query- Doesn't 'to suggest' alter meaning here?

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.

Option Elimination -

(A) that suggests that the elephant is descended from an aquatic animal, and its trunk originally evolving - We need "that" after "and" - "that its." Before "and" we have a clause, and after "and" we have a phrase as evolving is just an ING modifier. So, we need the verb "evolved."

(B) that has suggested the elephant descended from an aquatic animal, its trunk originally evolving - "has suggested" is incorrect. The idea of suggesting has not been concluded. It still suggests. Moreover, "descended" in the past tense is wrong. The elephants of today still descend from an aquatic animal. "its" refers to what? "an aquatic animal" or "the elephant." Wrong.

(C) suggesting that the elephant had descended from an aquatic animal with its trunk originally evolved - "had descended" - past perfect. Where is another past action? Evolved? But that's in the prepositional phrase starting with "with." Here, "evolved" acts as a verbal. Moreover, "with its trunk originally evolved" modifies "an aquatic animal."

(D) to suggest that the elephant had descended from an aquatic animal and its trunk originally evolved - "had descended" in the past tense is wrong. The elephants of today still descend from an aquatic animal. So we need "is descended." We need "that" after "and" - "that its."

(E) to suggest that the elephant is descended from an aquatic animal and that its trunk originally evolved - ok. We have "that" and "that" parallelism. "is descended" correctly modifies that it still descends. Evolved correctly shares that in the past, the trunk was used as a snorkel to breathe when in water.

Doesn't the use of "to suggest" give the meaning that - In order to suggest something, embryologists found the evidence. But I think the intended meaning is that - they first found the evidence, analysed it, and came to the conclusion.
Please let me know what am I missing here?

Thank you!

That's being pretty rigid about the definition of "to". Sure, "to" can mean "in order to", but it can be used in a ton of other contexts. For example, "Tim wants to eat a burrito" is not the same thing as "Tim wants in order to eat a burrito."

That said, it's good that you're noticing and thinking about those differences But because there are no strict rules governing the definition or usage of "to", you'll want to be pretty conservative with this sort of thing. If you want to consider that a small vote against (E), that's fine, but the issues with other choices (as described throughout the 5 pages of this thread) are more significant factors.

I hope that helps!
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GMATGuruNY KarishmaB AjiteshArun ScottTargetTestPrep MartyMurray GMATNinja

I do not like this question and I absolutely do not think either of the choices makes sense! Please please help.

Okay, my first split was to bin suggesting, that suggests, and to suggest (this is to filter out any meaning problem that this question may have)
Now, "to suggest" did not make sense to me. Why?

Did the Australian embryologists find evidence with a purpose to suggest something? May be or may be not. I think they found an evidence that somehow suggested something. That sounded more reasonable to me. But it seems my first split served me completely wrong!
How do I understand the intent of using "to"? Is "to suggest" correct or incorrect?

I selected E for the sole reason that "suggesting" occurred most suitable to me. Plus, although this is not the perfect choice, it seemed better than the rest. I did not see a problem in "had descended". But in fact, my second split was to filter out options that have "is descended".

Now, after reading through the discussions, I do understand that there is more that 1 reason why E is correct. "that...that" construction (Thanks to Daagh), and "is descended", although, shouldn't this be "has descended" - given the process of descending / evolution is still ongoing?

Summarizing questions:
- How do I understand the intent of using "to"? Is "to suggest" correct or incorrect?
- How is "is descended" correct?

Thank you in anticipation.

This, I thought, was a good example among many others to understand the concept of using "to". But I see I applied it wrong.
https://gmatclub.com/forum/in-recent-ye ... 28059.html

Here is the 'is descended/has descended' discussion:
https://gmatclub.com/forum/australian-e ... l#p3175782
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Hi Engineer1,

1. We shouldn't expect to to always refer to an intention ("in order to"). There are other ways to use to in English.

2. Apart from evidence + to + {plain form of verb}, there's another phrase that uses evidence to: evidence to the contrary.

3. In addition to evidence to and evidence that, evidence for is also possible.
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