Contrary to the scholarly wisdom of the 1950’s and early 1960’s that

Dear Friends,

Here is a detailed explanation to this question-

Concepts tested here: Verb Forms + Redundancy/Awkwardness

• The "would + simple present tense verb" construction is used to refer to hypothetical future actions.
• The simple present continuous tense is used to refer to actions that are currently ongoing and continuous in nature.

A: Correct. This answer choice correctly uses the "would + simple present tense verb ("undermine" in this sentence)" construction to refer to a hypothetical future event. Further, Option A is free of any awkwardness or redundancy.

B: This answer choice incorrectly uses the infinitive verb form (“to + base form of verb” - “to + be” in this sentence)” to refer to a hypothetical future action; please remember, the "would + simple present tense verb" construction is used to refer to a hypothetical action in the future. Further, Option B uses the needlessly wordy phrase “be a gradual undermining of it”, leading to awkwardness.

C: This answer uses the needlessly wordy phrase “be a gradual undermining of ethnicity”, rendering it awkward and needlessly redundant.

D: This answer choice incorrectly uses the infinitive verb form (“to + base form of verb” - “to + be” in this sentence)” to refer to a hypothetical future action; please remember, the "would + simple present tense verb" construction is used to refer to a hypothetical action in the future. Further, Option D uses the needlessly wordy phrase “be a gradual undermining of it”, leading to awkwardness.

E: This answer choice incorrectly uses the simple present continuous tense verb “undermining” to refer to a hypothetical future action; please remember, the "would + simple present tense verb" construction is used to refer to a hypothetical action in the future, and the simple present continuous tense is only used to refer to actions that are currently ongoing and continuous in nature.

Hence, A is the best answer choice.

To understand the concept of "Simple Continuous Tenses" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~1 minute):



All the best!
Experts' Global Team

in A, the OA, "it" pronoun appear before it noun. this case is called forward reference to differentiate with bacward case, in which noun appears before pronoun.

Excuse me, but I have to firmly disagree with this sentence as a whole, including the answer choices.

Contrary to the scholarly wisdom of the 1950’s and early 1960’s that predicted the processes of modernization and rationalization would gradually under mine it, ethnicity is a worldwide phenomenon of increasing importance

"it" here clearly refers to ethnicity and it doesn't make sense, therefore it's incorrect. All the answer choices either repeat the same ambigous use of "it" or create redundancy by using "ethnicity" twice ,so to be correct the sentence would have to be rewritten in some other way.

Of course you can say that the only way for this sentence to make sense, given the answer choices provided, is to assume that "it" refers to the following "ethnicity" but come on, in this case the SC becomes subjective to one's interpretation of the meaning, following this logic you can discuss the meaning of virtually any SC question. There have to be objective reasons to consider a choice correct.

Here, the way I see it, the question given is not written in a good way to test SC skills and creates the "wrong" type of difficulty. Instead of testing objective knowledge it tests subjective interpretation of the meaning.

What you guys think? I am I missing some exotic rule here? For a 600+ question there shouldn't be any though.

Yes, even in the correct option A, the use of "it" is questionable. Moreover "that" is missing after "predicted".

I solved this SC by moving phrases around:

Ethnicity is a worldwide phenomenon of increasing importance contrary to the scholarly wisdom of the 1950’s and early 1960’s that predicted the processes of modernization and rationalization would gradually undermine it.

(A) would gradually undermine it --> CORRECT. By moving phrases around, we can see that there's no ambiguity and sentence makes sense as it currently stands.
(B) to be a gradual undermining of it
(C) would be a gradual undermining of ethnicity
(D) to gradually undermine ethnicity
(E) gradually undermining it

What is the Subject here, isn't it scholarly wisdom? Then how come it refers to Ethnicity. Can someone help me understand this answer.

Scholarly wisdom is not the subject of the sentence. The main subject is actually ethnicity. However, in general, a pronoun can refer to things other than the subject. For example:

Although he had received a good score on his last attempt, he was not happy with it.

The it refers to a good score (by meaning, as it could also refer to his last attempt).

Something just popped up in my mind that is there any rule related to the use of a pronoun before prior mention of its antecedent?

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If you're asking whether it's forbidden to have a pronoun come before its referent, the answer is no. Here, have an example:

"Because he had neglected to read the assembly instructions, Mike produced a terrible monstrosity when he put together his daughter's dollhouse."

Here, the first "he" comes before "Mike," but that's fine - there's no other noun that "he" could possibly refer to. In other cases, introducing the pronoun first could potentially lead to confusion. Just bear in mind that pronoun ambiguity is one of the last issues you'd want to consider. (More on that in this video.)

I hope that helps!

Aren't both phrases independent?
Isn't it a comma splice; experts please help. I'm really confused.

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himanshu216 , no the first clause is a dependent clause. When dependent clauses come first, the two clauses are separated by a comma (no conjunction).

"Contrary to" is a subordinator. The first clause makes no sense standing alone.

Contrary to the scholarly wisdom... that predicted [that] X and Y would undermine ethnicity.

What is contrary? What happened?

That sentence does not express a complete thought. Neither does this one:
Contrary to the belief that the world is flat.

Hope that helps.

Can you please help with any theory article on how to identify dependent and independent clauses!?

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EDIT:
himanshu216 , I found another source. This article is a simple introduction: "Identifying Independent and Dependent Clauses," HERE

Another article titled "GMAT Grammar: “On a White Bus” with Subordinate Conjunctions," by Mike McGarry, is HERE.

Contrary to the scholarly wisdom of the 1950’s and early 1960’s that predicted the processes of modernization and rationalization would gradually undermine it, ethnicity is a worldwide phenomenon of increasing importance.

Not sure how no one has commented on the fact we are concerned with the relative clause and I don't think I'm missing anything here.
The relative clause is attached to "the scholarly wisdom".

When we predict we make a statement about the future . The sequence of tenses here is such that a prediction "I will do X" was made in the past, so "would" is more logically suited to capture this tense in the past.
Next, and more importantly, most of the answer choices delete the verb of that relative clause.
(B) to be a gradual undermining of it
(C) would be a gradual undermining of ethnicity
(E) gradually undermining it

The fact of the matter is: a prediction was made about an action that had a likelihood of occuring in the future.
The prediction, "I will do <something>", is what we refer to. Since the prediction has already been made, and since we are referring to this prediction now, not when the prediction was made, its better to use "would" as Would is the past tense of "will".

(A) would gradually undermine it

D really doesn't make much sense..
The scholarly wisdom that predicted x and y to gradually undermine ethnicity

How does that make sense? What's the effect of "scholarly wisdom" on undermining the ethnicity? It's not apparent or clear whatsoever with D.

To add to this.

Its probably easier to understand that the first clause is dependent.

Shouldn't there be a "that" after "predicted"?

I predicted he will come to the office tomorrow- isn't correct.

You are right. Reporting words (such as predict, said, announce etc) are generally followed by that. However, (like most other rules in GMAT), this is not an absolute rule.

Mercifully, this sentence doesn't really test you on this concept, since predicted is in the non-underlined portion.

Few official questions that do have a significant potential to trip students:

Trans World Entertainment Corporation, which owns the Record Town and Saturday Matinee retail chains, announced it was closing up to one fourth of its stores because of poor sales.
- announced is not followed by that

At one time, the majestic American chestnut was so prevalent that it was said a squirrel could jump from tree to tree without once touching the ground between New York State and Georgia.
- said is not followed by that.