Strictly speaking, even without knowing perfect infinitives, the correct answer can be arrived at, through process of elimination.

equipped to is the right idiom and so, A and E are out. C and D use paths, but since the sentence refers to the Neanderthals collectively as a species, the use of paths is incorrect.

Nevertheless, knowledge of perfect infinitives can come in handy on GMAT, because they can indeed be tested and are very flexible: They can act either as present perfect, past perfect or (in some rare cases) as simple past, and always indicate that the action in the perfect infinitive happened before the action of the main verb of the clause.

p.s. Our book EducationAisle Sentence Correction Nirvana discusses perfect infinitive, its application and examples in significant detail. If someone is interested, PM me your email-id, I can mail the corresponding section. In fact, it’s interesting that our book actually refers to this very official question in the section on perfect infinitives.
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hi Naina1,


what is this question testing....
1) appear as vs appear to...
appear as someone/something eg.. moon appears as a ball from earth...
appear to be... as in this case, appear to have been equipped is correct..
2) appear vs appeared..
as we are talking of future in past ('could' shows future of a past event ).... and also we are talking in present about a past incident.. appear wins over appeared..
3) a small point .. in most cases you will find infinitive form equipped to face better than equipped for facing..

lets see choice C if paths is changed to path..
(C) appear as equipped to face any obstacle the environment could put in their paths,

as you can see appear as is not appropriate here .. appear to is better used here..
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Combining enormous physical strength with higher intelligence, the Neanderthals appear as equipped for facing any obstacle the environment could put in their path, but their relatively sudden disappearance during the Paleolithic era indicates that an inability to adapt to some environmental change led to their extinction.

(A) appear as equipped for facing any obstacle the environment could put in their path, - usage of as is incorrect - As is used for comparison , to denote simultaneous action , role and reason . Usage of "for facing" is also incorrect here as it fails to present the intent of being equipped.
(B) appear to have been equipped to face any obstacle the environment could put in their path, - Correct
(C) appear as equipped to face any obstacle the environment could put in their paths, - usage of as is incorrect ;The use of paths is incorrect since the sentence refers to the Neanderthals collectively as a species
(D) appeared as equipped to face any obstacle the environment could put in their paths, - usage of as is incorrect ; Simple present is needed as the sentence presents some general facts about Neanderthals.
(E) appeared to have been equipped for facing any obstacle the environment could put in their path, - Usage of "for facing" is also incorrect here as it fails to present the intent of being equipped. Simple present is needed as the sentence presents some general facts about Neanderthals.

Answer B
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In my opinion, "path" is OK. It is not meant that each Neanderthal had a different path. As a group they had a path, though "paths" would also be alright.

Combining enormous physical strength with higher intelligence, the neanderthals appear as equipped for facing any obstacle the environment could put in their path, but their relatively sudden disappearance during the paleolithic era indicates that an inability to adapt to some environmental change led to their extinction.

(A) appear as equipped for facing any obstacle the environment could put in their path
- "as equipped for facing" = INCORRECT. should be "appeared TO face"

(B) appear to have been equipped to face any obstacle the environment could put in their path,
- correct as is

(C) appear as equipped to face any obstacle the environment could put in their paths,
- "paths" should be "path"

(D) appeared as equipped to face any obstacle the environment could put in their path,
- "appeared" should be "appear" to maintain //ism with verb outside of underline "indicates"

(E) appeared to have been equipped for facing any obstacle the environment could put in their path,
- same as "A" ("for facing" error). same as "D" ("appeared" error)

tricky problem. key takeaways:
> "appeared FOR facing" = incorrect structure; "appeared TO face" = ideal structure
> LOOK OUTSIDE OF SENTENCE TO GAUGE VERB TENSE (i.e. spot "indicates" -- means sentence is PRESENT TENSE...therefore, "appeared" = INCORRECT)

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Why is "appear to have been equipped" in Option C better than "appeared to have been equipped" in Option D?

It is talking about past; why is "appeared" incorrect?

Thanks
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Ron's answer -

by default, "appear" is in the present tense, since we're talking about the way these things appear to present-day observers.

if there were a context that would place "appear" in the past, then you could use the past tense. for instance: to nineteenth-century observers, they appeared to have been equipped...
but, absent such a context, you should go with the present, for simplicity (the default assumption is that this "appears" to be the case to present observers).

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

in this case, you've also got parallelism between "appear" and "indicates", two descriptions that both describe observations made in the present.
since "indicates" is not underlined, that determines the tense context. so your other observation, which is made at the same time, should be parallel to it.


-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

"to have VERBed" is a type of infinitive that refers to actions in a timeframe previous to the timeframe of the sentence itself. this is actually the only kind of infinitive that can do this, so it will take the same form regardless of the tense of the main clause.

so, if you write
"the students seem to have cheated"
then
* the sentence itself is in the present ("seem"). so, the sentence is talking about the way things appear to a present observer.
* according to that present observer, it seems to be the case that the students cheated at some point in the past.


if you write
"the students seemed to have cheated"
then
* the sentence itself is in the past ("seemed"). so, the sentence is talking about the way things appeared to a past observer.
* according to that past observer, it seems to be the case that the students cheated at some point earlier in the past.

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
Mitch's answer

In English, we have two infinitive tenses: the present infinitive (TO + VERB) and the perfect infinitive (TO + HAVE + PAST PARTICIPLE).

The present infinitive expresses CONTEMPORANEOUS action (an action happening AT THE SAME TIME as the main action):
John IS proud TO BE president.
Here, John IS proud (in the present) TO BE president (also in the present).

The perfect infinitive expresses PRIOR action (an action that happened PRIOR to the main action):
John IS proud TO HAVE BEEN president.
Here, John IS proud (in the present) TO HAVE BEEN president (in the past).

One definition of to appear is to seem.
The intention of the SC above is to discuss WHAT SEEMS TO BE TRUE about the Neanderthals.
The Neanderthals appear to have been equipped to face any obstacle..
Here, the Neanderthals APPEAR (in other words, they SEEM -- right now, in the present) TO HAVE BEEN EQUIPPED (in the past).
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Combining enormous physical strength with higher intelligence, the Neanderthals appear as equipped for facing any obstacle the environment could put in their path, but their relatively sudden disappearance during the paleolithic era indicates that an inability to adapt to some environmental change led to their extinction.

(A) appear as equipped for facing any obstacle the environment could put in their path,

(B) appear to have been equipped to face any obstacle the environment could put in their path,

(C) appear as equipped to face any obstacle the environment could put in their paths,

(D) appeared as equipped to face any obstacle the environment could put in their path,

(E) appeared to have been equipped for facing any obstacle the environment could put in their path,

Hello @e-gmat / daagh -

Could you please explain the usage of have been in choice B. -
I understand that "appear" needs to be preferred over "appeared" because the act of appearing did not happen in the past.
Also, the verb equipped is an adverb here (modifying the verb appear). So we need to convey the meaning in a way so that it is clear that the act of appearing is of the present
but we are eventually talking about past. In short , we need to bring in a flavor of past tense here.
so in choice B - we are doing this with present perfect (in passive voice) - My question is why present perfect . Shouldn't we be using past tense here. I believe,
we can use present perfect on below conditions -
1> event over in recent past but has effect till now
2> there is a continuity in event and it is still continuing,
3> event in past but we don't have any timeline.

Now i know - we can't use (appear as "verb form") . Correct usage is (appear as noun) / (appear to be verb). With "appear to be ..." - i am not sure how can we use a past tense. So B is the best choice but i am not able to find a grammatical reasoning for this. Please help.