I think differently

"dated" in choice A is right. it is non tense verbal, a form of verb which, by definition, show action but dose not show time of the action because we do not want to know the tense. doing and do-ed is non tense verb forms which use a lot .choice A is wrong for the reason by Ninja expert.

choice A is wrong because an action , dating, make the sloth the earliest mammal . an object, fossil , can not make the sloth the earliest mammal.

a noun can refer to an object or an action. in our sentence, a noun can show an action. consider
the dating of the fossil at 35 milion year old make the sloth the earliest mammal
this is correct. what I say is both clause and noun can be the agent of action "making" provided that it show action.

Fossils of the arm of a sloth found in Puerto Rico in 1991, and dated at 34 million years old, made it the earliest known mammal of the Greater Antilles islands.

The first thing that should jump right away is the use of it in this sentence. If we try to find antecedent of "it", "it" will refer to a sloth and not the sloth. So, the use of it is totally wrong here.

(A) sloth found in Puerto Rico in 1991, and dated at 34 million years old, made it the earliest known mammal of
(B) sloth, that they found in Puerto Rico in 1991, has been dated at 34 million years old, thus making it the earliest mammal known on
(C) sloth that was found in Puerto Rico in 1991, was dated at 34 million years old, making this the earliest known mammal of - This cannot be used as pronoun in GMAT. It should always be used as an adjective.
e.g. This finding is helpful. or This statistic is perfect.
(D) sloth, found in Puerto Rico in 1991, have been dated at 34 million years old, making the sloth the earliest known mammal on - Makes perfect sense
(E) sloth which, found in Puerto Rico in 1991, was dated at 34 million years old, made the sloth the earliest known mammal of - Why is there a comma after which. Modifiers within a modifier? Awkward and (D) is always a better choice than (E)

Can we reject (A) and (B) because of the use of "it" referring to a sloth. As in, the sentence is trying to say that a particular sloth was the earliest known mammal and not the whole species. To represent the whole species, the phrase the sloth should be used. Honestly I didn't realise the meaning on the basis of fossils and rejected (A) and (B) because of the difference between a sloth and the sloth. Can someone please tell me if this strategy or POE is correct?

I eliminated A based on pronoun error. Since "it" to me referred back to fossil (rather than sloth) which made no sense if you read the rest of the sentence.

Is this approach right?

Posted from my mobile device

Interesting! I think you've got a point - you could make the argument that this particular sloth was, in fact, the earliest (and very lonely) mammal, but it certainly makes more sense to claim that it's the species that came first, as (D) does.

That said, I don't know if we can say that this logic is definitively wrong. It's definitely wrong to suggest that the sloth fossils somehow made the sloth the earliest mammal, as (A) does. It's the dating of the fossils that allows us to determine this; the fossils themselves don't spring to life and whisper their secrets to researchers, right?

And in (B), we have a nice concrete, subject-verb error, "fossils...has." There's not much reason to spend time thinking about anything else in (B).

Put another way: if you ever encounter logic that seems shaky, but is potentially justifiable, keep pushing until you find an error that's more concrete.

I hope that helps!
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That's not quite right: "fossils" is a plural noun, so "it" can't possibly refer back to the fossils. It's pretty clear that "it" has to refer back to the sloth.

The main issue is that (A) has a pretty significant meaning problem, as described here.

I hope this helps a bit!
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arun@crackverbal

Getting slightly confused in modifiers with regard to this question.
I know that "that", "which", etc. modify the immediately preceding noun.

Can the same concept not be applied to the modifying phrase - "found in PR in 1991"? While solving, I assumed that this phrase is modifying sloth instead of "fossils of...sloth". The explanations say otherwise.

Is there a rule that if the modifier is within two commas, it will modify the entire clause preceding it?
Also, what if the modifier was - ",which were found in PR in 1991," - enclosed between two commas but starting with "which"? Would it still modify the clause or just the noun?

arun@crackverbal - Some help needed on this one.

I think you are kind of confused on several aspects so let me solve this question again:

Fossils of the arm of a sloth found in Puerto Rico in 1991, and dated at 34 million years old, made it the earliest known mammal of the Greater Antilles islands.

(A) sloth found in Puerto Rico in 1991, and dated at 34 million years old, made it the earliest known mammal of

>> Remove the modifiers and see what is left: "Fossils of the arm of a sloth..made it the earliest known mammal..." - reject

(B) sloth, that they found in Puerto Rico in 1991, has been dated at 34 million years old, thus making it the earliest mammal known on

>> Remove the modifiers and see what is left: "Fossils of the arm of a sloth..has been dated at 34mn years..." - is fine so keep it.

(C) sloth that was found in Puerto Rico in 1991, was dated at 34 million years old, making this the earliest known mammal of

>> Remove the modifiers and see what is left: "Fossils of the arm of a sloth..was dated at 34mn years..." - is fine so keep it

(D) sloth, found in Puerto Rico in 1991, have been dated at 34 million years old, making the sloth the earliest known mammal on

>> Remove the modifiers and see what is left: "Fossils of the arm of a sloth..have been dated at 34mn years"

(E) sloth which, found in Puerto Rico in 1991, was dated at 34 million years old, made the sloth the earliest known mammal of

>> Remove the modifiers and see what is left: "Fossils of the arm of a sloth..was dated at 34mn years"

Second question to ask: is there SVA? For that we need to ask what is being dated? The sloth or the fossils? It has to be the latter so we can:

Eliminate B,C,E

Now let us compare A and D:

Were the fossils the oldest living mammal or the sloth? It is the sloth - so whenever you see 2 answer options where one of them replaces the pronoun with the right noun - there is a very good chance you are looking at pronoun ambiguity.

Therefore, D

Now I did not even use modifiers because in such questions it can get very confusing. Again, there are other errors but I am just showing you a simple way to get to the answer.

Here are some general rules:

A large section of the employees now have the choice to work from home -> WRONG


A large section of the employees now have the choice to work from home -> CORRECT

This is because in a prepositional phrase it will always be the subject of the phrase that decides the verb.

A box of toffees was kept on the table -> CORRECT

Now, let us see how it changes when we. use modifiers:

A box of toffees, which was made of caramel, was kept on the table -> CORRECT

A box of toffees, which was a gift from my friend, was kept on the table -> CORRECT

You can use this as a logic to govern adjectival modifiers such as [url=
https://gmatclub.com/forum/in-a-d-391-r ... 02162.html]appositives[/url], and "which" modifiers.


Getting to your specific queries now:



Not quite - look at the examples above. We also solve some questions in the CrackVerbal GMAT Online course which have (<- note the verb here!) this concept.



Remember: use logic to dictate the rules - not the other way around.

The sword of the Maharaja of Gaipajama, found in the ruins of his palace, was sold by Rick in his pawn store --> CORRECT



This is not a rule we ever discussed - where are you picking this stuff from?



It will always modify the noun - why would it modify the clause? What made you feel that way?

I think you are over-analyzing stuff - stick to the basics!

Arun
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Dear GMATNinja,


Your explanation for option C says that - "THAT" will modify "Slot".

However, as per my understanding, That will never modify any noun in the prepositional phrase. As a results IMO, that is modifying the plural "Fossils", therefore the same is incorrect.


Please correct me if i am wrong

Regards,
Rahul Gupta

There is nothing inherently wrong with using "that" to modify a noun in a prepositional phrase (remember, there are very few concrete, black and white "rules" that you can blindly apply to GMAT SC). For example:

"I created a cartoon of a shark that lives in the ocean." - The "that" clauses clearly modifies the "shark" (the cartoon probably doesn't live in the ocean!).

Is it possible for a noun modifier to reach behind a preposition phrase? Yes (check out this post for more on that), but noun modifiers usually point to the immediately preceding noun (as described in here).

Back to choice (C): if the "that" clause DOES refer to "fossils", then we have a subject-verb agreement error (we would need, "fossils that WERE found..."). And it doesn't make sense for the "that" clause to modify sloth (as explained in this post).

Either way, (C) has to go!
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But, (D) refers "sloth", which made the deciding factor to eliminate (A)?
Or maybe we want to say the sloth in general, whereas "it" refers back to sloth which was found? I may be incorrect.

And how (A), has a non-essential modifier "and dated back..." since it has a coordinating conjunction, it doesn't seems like a non-essential modifier?

Fossils of the arm of a sloth found in Puerto Rico in 1991, and dated at 34 million years old, made it the earliest known mammal of the Greater Antilles islands.
I have a query regarding option A, well I eliminated option A because i thought there are no verbs in this for fossils since found is a past participle and made is also a past participle is this observation and inference correct? let me know
egmat

Fossils of the arm of a sloth found in Puerto Rico in 1991, and dated at 34 million years old, made it the earliest known mammal of the Greater Antilles islands.


(A) sloth found in Puerto Rico in 1991, and dated at 34 million years old, made it the earliest known mammal of

(B) sloth, that they found in Puerto Rico in 1991, has been dated at 34 million years old, thus making it the earliest mammal known on

(C) sloth that was found in Puerto Rico in 1991, was dated at 34 million years old, making this the earliest known mammal of

(D) sloth, found in Puerto Rico in 1991, have been dated at 34 million years old, making the sloth the earliest known mammal on

(E) sloth which, found in Puerto Rico in 1991, was dated at 34 million years old, made the sloth the earliest known mammal of


"Mammal of Greater Antilles islands" sounds like this mammal is representing or a dedicated living for G.A.I.

So, A, C, and E are out!

"Mammal on Greater Antilles islands" sounds like this mammal is living or being an inhabitant of G.A.I.

B has the pronoun error.

D is the correct answer.

Fossils of the arm of a sloth found in Puerto Rico in 1991, and dated at 34 million years old, made it the earliest known mammal of the Greater Antilles islands.

(A) sloth found in Puerto Rico in 1991, and dated at 34 million years old, made it the earliest known mammal of - the major problem here is use of 'it'. What does 'it' refer to? - arm or sloth?. We know logically 'it' should refer to sloth, but this sentence doesn't convey that logical meaning clearly. Reject

(B) sloth, that they found in Puerto Rico in 1991, has been dated at 34 million years old, thus making it the earliest mammal known on - no proper referent to 'they'. Reject

(C) sloth that was found in Puerto Rico in 1991, was dated at 34 million years old, making this the earliest known mammal of - unclear referent for 'that'. Does 'that' refer to arm of a sloth or sloth? Also, fossils 'were' dated, not 'was' dated. Additionally, 'this' does not have a clear referent, a similar issue as (A) - Reject

(D) sloth, found in Puerto Rico in 1991, have been dated at 34 million years old, making the sloth the earliest known mammal on - Makes perfect sense
- Fossils have been dated at 34 million years old
- making the sloth the earliest known mammal on the island - an absolute phrase

(E) sloth which, found in Puerto Rico in 1991, was dated at 34 million years old, made the sloth the earliest known mammal of -
Is the 'sloth' dated at 34 million years old? No the 'Fossils' are. Reject
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Fossils of the arm of a sloth found in Puerto Rico in 1991, and dated at 34 million years old, made it the earliest known mammal of the Greater Antilles islands.
'Fossils... made it the earliest' is not logical; 'made it the earliest' should be predicated on the subject of the gerund action 'dating at 34 millions years old'
'It' doesn't have a clear antecedent, whether 'the arm' or 'a sloth'


(A) sloth found in Puerto Rico in 1991, and dated at 34 million years old, made it the earliest known mammal of
INCORRECT as explained above

(B) sloth, that they found in Puerto Rico in 1991, has been dated at 34 million years old, thus making it the earliest mammal known on
INCORRECT 'they' doesn't have an antecedent

(C) sloth that was found in Puerto Rico in 1991, was dated at 34 million years old, making this the earliest known mammal of
INCORRECT 'this' should come with a noun

(D) sloth, found in Puerto Rico in 1991, have been dated at 34 million years old, making the sloth the earliest known mammal on
CORRECT fix all the problems highlighted above

(E) sloth which, found in Puerto Rico in 1991, was dated at 34 million years old, made the sloth the earliest known mammal of
INCORRECT logical meaning issue. 'Fossils of the arm of a sloth.... made the sloth the earliest known mammal'

(D) sloth, found in Puerto Rico in 1991, have been dated at 34 million years old, making the sloth the earliest known mammal on

In this choice, the verb-ing modifier "making the sloth ..." is modifying either
Subject => "Fossils of the arm of the sloth" OR "Fossils"
Action => "the entire clause"

In all these cases, verb-ing modifier should make sense with the subject of the clause i.e., fossils.

But how can fossils make the sloth the earliest known mammal?

You need to be slightly nimble with your understanding Vishal.

Fossils do make the sloth the earliest known mammal, in the sense that there was something unique about these fossils (that these fossils are 34 million years old), resulting in the conclusion that the sloth (whose fossils these are) is the earliest known mammal on the Greater Antilles islands.
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