Complex human traits such as artistic talent or social skill are likel

Question

Complex human traits  such as artistic talent or social skill are likely to be shaped by thousands, if not tens of thousands, of the 80,000 or so  genes in the human genome.

(A) such as artistic talent or social skill are likely to be shaped by thousands, if not tens of thousands, of the 80,000 or so
(B) such as artistic talent or social skill are likely shaped by thousands, if not tens of thousands, of 80,000 or so of the
(C) such as artistic talent or social skill is likely to be shaped by thousands, if not tens of thousands, of 80,000 or so of the
(D) like artistic talent or social skill is likely to be shaped by thousands, if not tens of thousands, of the 80,000 or so
(E) like artistic talent or social skill are likely shaped by thousands, if not tens of thousands, of the 80,000 or so

https://www.nytimes.com/2000/08/22/science/do-races-differ-not-really-genes-show.html

By contrast with the tiny number of genes that make some people dark-skinned and doe-eyed, and others as pale as napkins, scientists say that traits  like intelligence, artistic talent and social skills are likely to be shaped by thousands, if not tens of thousands, of the 80,000 or so  genes in the human genome, all working in complex combinatorial fashion.

DisciplinedPrep · Accepted Answer

(A)   such as   artistic talent or social skill   are   likely to be shaped by thousands, if not tens of thousands,   of the 80,000 or so {genes}  
(B) such as artistic talent or social skill are likely shaped by thousands, if not tens of thousands, of 80,000 or so   of the  
(C) such as artistic talent or social skill   is   likely to be shaped by thousands, if not tens of thousands, of 80,000 or so   of the  
(D)   like   artistic talent or social skill   is   likely to be shaped by thousands, if not tens of thousands, of the 80,000 or so
(E)   like   artistic talent or social skill are likely shaped by thousands, if not tens of thousands, of the 80,000 or so

Correct answer is Option A.

Skywalker18 · Answer

Complex human traits  such as artistic talent or social skill are likely to be shaped by thousands, if not tens of thousands, of the 80,000 or so  genes in the human genome.

(A) such as artistic talent or social skill are likely to be shaped by thousands, if not tens of thousands, of the 80,000 or so- Correct
(B) such as artistic talent or social skill are likely shaped by thousands, if not tens of thousands, of 80,000 or so of the- incorrect structure - 'thousands of 80,000 or so of the'
(C) such as artistic talent or social skill is likely to be shaped by thousands, if not tens of thousands, of 80,000 or so of the - subject-verb agreement issue - 'traits' is plural and thus needs the verb 'are'; incorrect structure - 'thousands of 80,000 or so of the'
(D) like artistic talent or social skill is likely to be shaped by thousands, if not tens of thousands, of the 80,000 or so- usage of like to present examples is incorrect; subject-verb agreement issue - 'traits' is plural and thus needs the verb 'are'
(E) like artistic talent or social skill are likely shaped by thousands, if not tens of thousands, of the 80,000 or so - usage of like to present examples is incorrect

Answer A

Avoid repeated-word constructions such as X THAT Y THAT Z or X OF Y OF Z.
in fact, if you see one of these constructions, you can pretty much trust that it's wrong. GMAT test writers will switch to lesser idioms, which they wouldn't normally use, in order to avoid these constructions.

1. Normally, you would say "evidence that suggests...". 
however, in order to avoid "evidence THAT suggests THAT...", one official problem contains the idiom "evidence TO suggest THAT..."

2. Normally, you would say "it was said that..."
however, you don't want "...so prevalent THAT it was said THAT..."
so you can get around this by killing the second "that".

3. if you see something like "extent OF the shift OF light...", you can be 99.9% sure that it's incorrect.

pa1deep91 · Answer

1. Use of ' such ' over ' like '
2. ' traits ' will be in agreement with ' are '
3. ' likely to be shaped ' is correct use.

Hence, A

AbhishekDhanraJ72 · Answer

why not B, IIsm should be maintained??

CrackverbalGMAT · Answer

Hi Abhishek

The main problem with answer option (B) comes towards its end. Let us plug in option (B) in the question and analyse:

(B) Complex human traits  such as artistic talent or social skill are likely shaped by thousands, if not tens of thousands, of 80,000 or so of the  genes in the human genome.

Let us remove the non-essential modifiers and look at the second half closely:

...are likely shaped by thousands  of  80,000 or so  of the  genes in the human genome.

This is saying that the genes shaping complex traits are "1000s of 80,000 of the genes". In other words, total genes in the human genome are more than 80,000, of which there is a random selection of 80,000 of which 1000s shape the complex human traits. This is contrary to the intent in the main question, which caps the number of genes in the human genome at ~80,000. Due to this meaning change as well as an illogical selection of a random subset of 80,000, option (B) is incorrect.

Hope this helps.

lakshya14 · Answer

But "to be" in (A) seems like it is yet to to shaped, whereas in it has already been shaped?

MartyTargetTestPrep · Answer

Good catch. (A) doesn't really make sense because of that issue.

mohitprabhat · Answer

I'm confused wrt Option C.
For "or", isnt the rule that Verb has to agree with the nearest noun?
Since social skill is singular, shouldn't the verb be "is" ? Pls help...  GMATNinja   MartyTargetTestPrep

MartyTargetTestPrep · Answer

Hi mohitprabhat.

You have the rule right, but that rule doesn't apply here.

To see why, let's review the (C) version.

Complex human traits  such as artistic talent or social skill is likely to be shaped by thousands, if not tens of thousands, of 80,000 or so of the  genes in the human genome.

Notice that "such as artistic talent or social skill" presents examples of "traits," and that "traits" is the subject of "is," as we can more clearly see in this simplified version of the sentence.

Complex human traits  ... is likely to be shaped by thousands, if not tens of thousands, of 80,000 or so of the  genes in the human genome.

So, the (C) version is incorrect because the subject "traits" does not agree with the verb "is."

SolankiDas · Answer

Is the use of "to be" i.e. infinitive form of verb correct here?
we dont need infinative form here

RonTargetTestPrep · Answer

Both versions work. The resulting meanings are different, but they're both reasonable.

'X is likely shaped by Y" means the same thing as "X is probably shaped by Y"—it's what the writer thinks is probably true about thing X  in general .

"X is likely  to be  shaped by Y" as a statement about what's likely  to happen in the future . (The grammar here is the same as in "Your order is  ready to be  picked up"—in which the pickup is something else that will happen in the future, if it happens at all.

vv65 · Answer

"Likely to be" does not always indicate something that is likely to happen in the future.

The phrase can also indicate something that is probably true at present (as in this GMATPREP sentence) or something that was probably true in the past.

Some examples (from the New York Times): 
- Patients with diabetes are also more  likely to be  described as noncompliant, according to large studies of medical records.

- These genes do not determine intelligence, however. Their combined influence is minuscule, the researchers said, suggesting that thousands more are  likely to be  involved and still await discovery.

- Q. Why do some of us get bitten by mosquitoes while others go free?
A. ... But new research suggests that the basis for the difference is  likely to be  inborn and genetic.

- Schools with large shares of non-English speaking students and those with the lowest math scores were also more  likely to be  closed.

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mahantakash · Answer

Please help to eliminate Option B, Even after going through all the posts, WHy Option B is wrong.

vv65 · Answer

This is the core sentence in (A):
 Complex human traits are likely to be shaped by thousands of   the   80,000 or so genes in the human genome .

The  THE  before 80,000 is required. Otherwise the sentence does not sense. The missing  THE  makes Answer Choice (B) wrong. I'll try to explain why.

The phrase  THE SIX RESIDENTS  means  ALL SIX RESIDENTS .

The phrase  'THE 80,000 OR SO GENES'  refers to  ALL THE GENES , and the it tells us that there are about 80,000 genes.

See these examples: 
 1. Four employees in the office are overworked. 
2. The four employees in the office are overworked.

Both sentences are grammatical and both make sense. But the meanings are different. As per the first sentence, four of the employees in the office are overworked. The  THE  in the second sentence tells us that the office has four employees. As per the second sentence, the office has four employees and all four are overworked.

Back to your question: 
Choice (B) is something like this: 
 HR warned four of twenty or so employees in the office. 
The sentence does not make sense.

Choice (A) is something like this: 
 HR warned four of   the   twenty or so employees in the office.

The addition of the  THE  tells us that the office has twenty or so employees. 
This is the meaning of the sentence: The office has twenty or so employees, and four of them were warned.

Hope this helped

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RonTargetTestPrep · Answer

The most straightforward basis on which to eliminate B is provided by " thousands, if not tens of thousands,  OF    80,000 or so  OF THE  genes in the human genome ".

Think about the meaning here for a sec—it doesn't make sense. Let's break it down into 2 steps:

• " 80,000 or so  OF THE  genes in the human genome "
...Means exactly what it says. 
This purple phrase represents approximately 80,000 genes—and that's it. According to this phrasing, the TOTAL number of human genes remains unspecified.

Now complete the phrasing:
• color=#39b54a]thousands, if not tens of thousands,  OF    the apprx. 80,000 genes mentioned above "
Well... That just leaves us with  thousands, if not tens of thousands,  OF   ALL THE HUMAN GENES. In this phrasing, the ≈80,000 figure has absolutely no significance at all. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 
GMAC will NEVER specify things that are meaningless, so, this interpretation is nonsense.

Contrast this with the correct meaning, in which the figure of ≈80,000 represents the TOTAL number of genes in the human genome.

Beingstoic · Answer

Hi ron, 
As you said that "likely to be" is a future tone. 
However do you think that this sentence require a present tense to make complete sense?

louisinau · Answer

vv65  Hi Thanks for explainning the usage of "likely to be" 
Could you please explain what is the difference between "likely to be done" and "likely done" ?

vv65 · Answer

In 'likely done', the word LIKELY works just like PROBABLY. It indicates that something is probable but not certain.

For example,
The work is done by the assistant. vs The work is likely done by the assistant.
The cake was eaten by the cat. vs The cake was likely eaten by the cat.

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ExpertsGlobal5 · Answer

Hello  louisinau ,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, "likely to be done" and "likely done" must both be used with an active verb.

"likely to be done" refers to an action that takes place at a later point in time from what the helping verb refers to.

For example, "I was likely to be made team captain." - here, "likely to be made" refers to an action that takes place after the action "was", but before the present.

"I am likely to be made team captain." - here, "likely to be made" refers to an action that takes place after the simple present tense verb "am", meaning it simply refers to future tense action.

By contrast, "likely done" refers to an action that takes place at an earlier point in time from what the helping verb refers to.

For example, "This was likely made in China." - "likely made" refers to an action that takes place further in the past from the simple past tense verb "was".

"Dinner is probably cooked." - "probably cooked" refers to an action that takes place before the simple present tense verb "cooked".

Please note that this construction can only refer to past actions.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
Experts' Global Team

Complex human traits such as artistic talent or social skill are likel

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