Between 14,000 and 8,000 b.c. the ice cap that covered northern Asia,

Old Ice Cap



First glance

The opening words in each choice indicate that something is going on with verb tense and meaning: began or would begin? And then what form should the sentence use for the word melt?

Issues

1) Verb / Meaning: to uncover

Meaning: by melting; after melting; through melting

Verb: are

The opening split between began and would begin turns out to be a red herring; both versions can be used in this context. The melting part, however, is faulty in some choices. Choices (A) and (B) both have melt(ing) as part of the main verb, while choices (C), (D), and (E) move the word into a prepositional phrase placed after the main verb. What difference does this make?

Answer (D) has the biggest problem: the ice cap didn’t begin to uncover new areas only after it melted; rather, the act of the ice melting uncovered these areas. The meaning is illogical. For similar reasons, answers (C) and (E) are less preferable. The point of the sentence is that the ice caps began to melt (or began melting) and therefore the new lands were uncovered. Answers (C) and (E) seem to imply that the point is that the ice cap began to uncover new areas…with the melting as an afterthought. Eliminate choices (C) and (E) for ambiguous meaning and (D) for outright illogical meaning.

Answer (B)’s began melting construction is fine, but the usage of to uncover is problematic. When an infinitive verb is used right after a conjugated (or tensed) verb, the implication is that intent is involved. You began studying (in order) to get a good GMAT score. The ice cap, though, did not begin melting (in order) to uncover vast new areas. The ice cap does not have any intent; rather, that second event just happened as a result of the first. Eliminate choice (B) for faulty meaning.

Finally, while examining answer (D), you might have thought that the are verb sounded funny. While it is possible that the migrating peoples have not yet moved northward and will be doing so soon, the melting ice caps took place so far in the past (and humans have covered so much of the earth today!) that it is extremely unlikely that these areas are to be occupied sometime in the future. This probably already occurred in the past.

The Correct Answer

Correct answer (A) uses a comma –ing modifier to convey what happened as a result of the ice caps beginning to melt.

Note: Some people might be tempted to eliminate choice (A) due to the were to be occupied language. This verb tense can be used to indicate something that took place at a later point in the past than some other event. In this case, the sentence talks about the time when the ice cap began to melt; from the point of view of that timeframe, the new areas were (later in the past) to be occupied by the migrating peoples.