Fossils of the arm of a sloth found in Puerto Rico in 1991, and dated

To me in option E"making the sloth ....." adverbial modifier making same sense with subject 'fossils of the arm of sloth' like in option A, 'fossils of arm sloth made sloth...' .please correct me if i am wrong.

I’ve always had a soft spot for this question, just because it has such a wide variety of issues and errors. It also has an interesting little verb tense thing that really doesn’t matter at all: you could easily fixate on the difference between "was dated" (past tense) and "has/have been dated" (present perfect tense), but you don't have to choose between them at all. There are plenty of other issues to worry about instead.

The “it” (which presumably refers back to the sloth) is the first thing that jumps out at me. “Fossils of the arm of a sloth… made [the sloth] the earliest known mammal…” Huh? That makes no sense. How the heck would the fossils of a sloth make the sloth the earliest known mammal of the Greater Antilles?

The much smaller issue is that I see no real need for that first comma, but that’s unlikely to ever be a deciding factor on a GMAT question. But the nonsensical main clause is enough to wipe out (A).

This time, the pronoun “they” is the first thing that catches my eye. Who the heck is “they”? The fossils?

Plus, we have a subject-verb problem: “fossils… has been dated” is spectacularly wrong. (B) is gone.

Subject-verb fail again: “fossils… was dated.” Nope.

But there’s more: the phrase “that was found in Puerto Rico in 1991” seems to modify the sloth itself, and that makes no sense. Unless you think that the sloth had actually been alive for 34 million years. Maybe moving really slowly helps you live longer?

Finally, the word “this” is used as a singular pronoun, and that’s an unacceptable use of the word “this” on the GMAT. I’ve only ever seen “this” used as an article on the GMAT (“this week” or “this magnificent GMAT forum”), but never as a pronoun.

So we have lots of good reasons to eliminate (C).

This one looks pretty good. The subject-verb agreement works: “fossils… have been dated at 34 million years old…” Cool. The modifier “found in Puerto Rico in 1991” is nicely set apart with commas, so it seems to refer to the entire phrase “fossils of the arm of a sloth”, and not just the sloth itself, as we saw in (C).

And the last part of the underlined portion (“making the sloth the earliest known mammal…”) actually names the sloth instead of using a pronoun, and that adds a bit of extra clarity. It might not be strictly necessary, but it’s nice. We can keep (D).


Thanks to the modifier “which”, which typically modifies the immediately preceding noun, it really sounds like the sloth itself was found in Puerto Rico in 1991, and that makes no sense. (I also can’t make much sense of the comma placement in that part of the sentence, but again, comma placement isn’t really a major emphasis on GMAT SC.)

We also have the same problem that we had in (A): “fossils… made the sloth the earliest known mammal…” That’s nonsense, too.

So we can ditch (E), and (D) is our answer.

GMATNinja egmat

Dating of the fossils is not an ongoing process + it is a thing of past else it wont make sloth earlies known mammal, can you please help me understand taking into consideration this as to why the usage of "have been" correct

Also, as per GMATNinja - The “it” (which presumably refers back to the sloth) is the first thing that jumps out at me. “Fossils of the arm of a sloth… made [the sloth] the earliest known mammal…” Huh? That makes no sense.

My view : It is just saying that particular evidence made the sloth the earliest know mammal? What is wrong with the usage of "it" referring to sloth? How else to put this?

GMATNinja egmat

Dating of the fossils is not an ongoing process + it is a thing of past else it wont make sloth earlies known mammal, can you please help me understand taking into consideration this as to why the usage of "have been" correct

Also, as per GMATNinja - The “it” (which presumably refers back to the sloth) is the first thing that jumps out at me. “Fossils of the arm of a sloth… made [the sloth] the earliest known mammal…” Huh? That makes no sense.

My view : It is just saying that particular evidence made the sloth the earliest know mammal? What is wrong with the usage of "it" referring to sloth? How else to put this?

GMATNinja egmat

Dating of the fossils is not an ongoing process + it is a thing of past else it wont make sloth earlies known mammal, can you please help me understand taking into consideration this as to why the usage of "have been" correct

Also, as per GMATNinja - The “it” (which presumably refers back to the sloth) is the first thing that jumps out at me. “Fossils of the arm of a sloth… made [the sloth] the earliest known mammal…” Huh? That makes no sense.

My view : It is just saying that particular evidence made the sloth the earliest know mammal? What is wrong with the usage of "it" referring to sloth? How else to put this?

I’ve always had a soft spot for this question, just because it has such a wide variety of issues and errors. It also has an interesting little verb tense thing that really doesn’t matter at all: you could easily fixate on the difference between "was dated" (past tense) and "has/have been dated" (present perfect tense), but you don't have to choose between them at all. There are plenty of other issues to worry about instead.

The “it” (which presumably refers back to the sloth) is the first thing that jumps out at me. “Fossils of the arm of a sloth… made [the sloth] the earliest known mammal…” Huh? That makes no sense. How the heck would the fossils of a sloth make the sloth the earliest known mammal of the Greater Antilles?

The much smaller issue is that I see no real need for that first comma, but that’s unlikely to ever be a deciding factor on a GMAT question. But the nonsensical main clause is enough to wipe out (A).

This time, the pronoun “they” is the first thing that catches my eye. Who the heck is “they”? The fossils?

Plus, we have a subject-verb problem: “fossils… has been dated” is spectacularly wrong. (B) is gone.

Subject-verb fail again: “fossils… was dated.” Nope.

But there’s more: the phrase “that was found in Puerto Rico in 1991” seems to modify the sloth itself, and that makes no sense. Unless you think that the sloth had actually been alive for 34 million years. Maybe moving really slowly helps you live longer?

Finally, the word “this” is used as a singular pronoun, and that’s an unacceptable use of the word “this” on the GMAT. I’ve only ever seen “this” used as an article on the GMAT (“this week” or “this magnificent GMAT forum”), but never as a pronoun.

So we have lots of good reasons to eliminate (C).

This one looks pretty good. The subject-verb agreement works: “fossils… have been dated at 34 million years old…” Cool. The modifier “found in Puerto Rico in 1991” is nicely set apart with commas, so it seems to refer to the entire phrase “fossils of the arm of a sloth”, and not just the sloth itself, as we saw in (C).

And the last part of the underlined portion (“making the sloth the earliest known mammal…”) actually names the sloth instead of using a pronoun, and that adds a bit of extra clarity. It might not be strictly necessary, but it’s nice. We can keep (D).


Thanks to the modifier “which”, which typically modifies the immediately preceding noun, it really sounds like the sloth itself was found in Puerto Rico in 1991, and that makes no sense. (I also can’t make much sense of the comma placement in that part of the sentence, but again, comma placement isn’t really a major emphasis on GMAT SC.)

We also have the same problem that we had in (A): “fossils… made the sloth the earliest known mammal…” That’s nonsense, too.

So we can ditch (E), and (D) is our answer.

Still option D suggest that the fossil made the Sloth The earliest known mammal

egmat- I had a follow up query to this question.

I rejected option D, since the the "doer of the clause modified with verb-ing phrase should make sense with the verb-ing clause. "
Here the doer is unknown due to the passive nature of the tense.
Thinking about the framework " Who/Whose actions resulted in Verb-ing modifier?", the fossils do not fit the mold.
This is similar to examples such as: "Joe became the CFO of the company, increasing his pay significantly"

Can you please elaborate a little further on why the rule does not apply here?

egmat - I also have this same question. For comma + verb -ing modifier, shouldn't the subject be the doer of the action? Here Fossils are not the doer of the action.
I can understand that other options have deterministic errors and that this modifier provide the result of the pervious clause.

I am struggling to understand the doer part.
Regards,
Arup

I’ve always had a soft spot for this question, just because it has such a wide variety of issues and errors. It also has an interesting little verb tense thing that really doesn’t matter at all: you could easily fixate on the difference between "was dated" (past tense) and "has/have been dated" (present perfect tense), but you don't have to choose between them at all. There are plenty of other issues to worry about instead.

The “it” (which presumably refers back to the sloth) is the first thing that jumps out at me. “Fossils of the arm of a sloth… made [the sloth] the earliest known mammal…” Huh? That makes no sense. How the heck would the fossils of a sloth make the sloth the earliest known mammal of the Greater Antilles?

The much smaller issue is that I see no real need for that first comma, but that’s unlikely to ever be a deciding factor on a GMAT question. But the nonsensical main clause is enough to wipe out (A).

Hi GMATNinja

Thanks for this. Is my understanding correct that IT in A is wrong, because a personal pronoun's antecedent cannot be part of a prepositional phrase, like it is here, and should always refer to the head noun in such a case? Would this always be the case on the GMAT?

Hello TargetMBA007,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, there is no reason why a personal pronoun cannot refer to a noun that is part of a prepositional phrase.

The error in Option A is one of meaning; as we explain it, Option A incorrectly places information that is vital to the core meaning of the sentence- the fact that the fossils were dated at 34 million years old - between two commas; as a result, Option A forms the clause "Fossils of the arm of a sloth...made it the earliest known mammal of the Greater Antilles islands", illogically implying that the fossils made the sloth the earliest known mammal on the Greater Antilles islands; the intended meaning is that the act of dating the fossils at 34 million years old made the sloth the earliest known mammal on the Greater Antilles islands; please remember, information that is vital to the core meaning of the sentence must not be placed between commas.

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

Can you please explain how the usage of "have been" is correct in D?