Higher education in the United States has undergone radical changes ov

IMO A.
having correctly modifies 'change"
'that' refer to system
from..to...

No issues with original sentence

B. "and" it joins two phases and changes the meaning
C. "with" changes the meaning
D. Use of "which" & "in" wrong
E. Use of "Which had" wrong

How I approached this question -

The only option that logically makes sense, given that the statement is talking about evolution, is A..
The idiom 'from (something) to (something)' is correct.

Option B incorrectly uses 'and', which changes the meaning
Option C incorrectly uses 'with' before one
Options D & E incorrectly use 'which' which seems to modify the 'past centuary'

Hope this helps.

Posted from my mobile device

Option A is my answer.

A) having evolved from a system that consisted primarily of rote memorization of classics to one covering
-> "having evolved" (present perfect)correctly modifies Higher Education and idiom "from A to B" is the correct form as well. No problems with this

B) having evolved from a system consisting primarily of rote memorization of classics and one that covers
-> "having evolved"(present perfect) is the correct usage and correctly modifies Higher Education. "from A and B" is incorrect.

C) having evolved from a system consisting primarily of classics' rote memorization with one covering
-> "having evolved"(present perfect) is the correct usage and correctly modifies Higher Education. "from A with B" changes the meaning.

D) which has evolved from a system consisting primarily in rote memorization of classics to one covering
-> "which" would modify the the word immediately preceding it. In this case, which would modify "past century" and this is incorrect.

E) which had evolved from a system consisting primarily of rote memorization of classics to one that covers
-> "which" would modify the the word immediately preceding it. In this case, which would modify "past century" and this is incorrect.

Higher education in the United States has undergone radical changes over the past century, having evolved from a system that consisted primarily of rote memorization of classics to one covering a vast number of disciplines.

POE:
There is 2/3 split in answers.
Eliminate (D), (E) - which is modifying century but it is not subject here. Hence, incorrect.
A comparison is happening between two things.
Eliminate (B), (C) - 'and', 'with' are not comparison words.

A) having evolved from a system that consisted primarily of rote memorization of classics to one covering - CORRECT

B) having evolved from a system consisting primarily of rote memorization of classics and one that covers

C) having evolved from a system consisting primarily of classics' rote memorization with one covering

D) which has evolved from a system consisting primarily in rote memorization of classics to one covering

E) which had evolved from a system consisting primarily of rote memorization of classics to one that covers

Higher education in the United States has undergone radical changes over the past century, having evolved from a system that consisted primarily of rote memorization of classics to one covering a vast number of disciplines.

* Subject Verb Pair [ Higher education - has] - Corrects
* Tense [ Present & Past - Conveys proper meaning ] - No issues in that
* If -then condition - Not used - so nothing to worry
* Subjunctive verb - Not used
* Pronoun - no error
* Modifier [ "having evolved from a system that consisted primarily of rote memorization of classics to one covering a vast number of disciplines" - correctly modifies "Higher Education System"]
* Parallelism [ from "a system that consisted primarily of rote memorization of classics" to "one covering a vast number of disciplines" ] - correctly used
* Comparison - No error
* Idioms [ From....To ....] - used correctly



A) having evolved from a system that consisted primarily of rote memorization of classics to one covering

1. "having evolved" correclty modifies the " Higher Education system "
2. correct idiomatic usage "from ....to...."
3. No parallelism error

- Correct

B) having evolved from a system consisting primarily of rote memorization of classics and one that covers

- Idiomatic error [ "from"...."and"....]

- Incorrect


C) having evolved from a system consisting primarily of classics' rote memorization with one covering

1. wrong idiomatic usage [ "from"......"with"....]
2. parallelism error

- Incorrect

D) which has evolved from a system consisting primarily in rote memorization of classics to one covering

- modifier error , "which" incorrectly modifies " past century" in spite of " Higher education"

- Incorrect

E) which had evolved from a system consisting primarily of rote memorization of classics to one that covers

1.modifier error , "which" incorrectly modifies " past century" in spite of " Higher education"
2. usage of "had" - changed the meaning
3. Parallelism error

- Incorrect

IMO(A)

Higher education in the United States has undergone radical changes over the past century, having evolved from a system that consisted primarily of rote memorization of classics to one covering a vast number of disciplines.


A) having evolved from a system that consisted primarily of rote memorization of classics to one covering Correct

B) having evolved from a system consisting primarily of rote memorization of classics and one that covers Incorrect. The correct idiom is "... from x .... to Y..."

C) having evolved from a system consisting primarily of classics' rote memorization with one covering Incorrect. The correct idiom is "... from x .... to Y..."

D) which has evolved from a system consisting primarily in rote memorization of classics to one covering Which incorrectly refers to the noun / noun phrase before the comma (past century in this case)

E) which had evolved from a system consisting primarily of rote memorization of classics to one that covers Which incorrectly refers to the noun / noun phrase before the comma (past century in this case)

GMATNinja generis
Can someone please explain why in answers D and E the "which" CANNOT modify the "higher education".
It is true that if is to modify the previous entity is obviously wrong according to "touch rule" and the intended meaning of the stem, but how can i be sure that which is not referring back to original subject so as for the option to make sense?
To be more precise,GMATNinja i'm confused about what you have said in a videos of yours -about pronouns and their ambiguity- that "whenever we see a pronoun we can substitute to it all the possible references and see whether it makes sense or not."
Correct me if i'm mistaken.

Need your cents please!

Thank you in advance.

In this question what i felt is instead of getting entangled with parallelism of "consisting/covering" use POE. First POE should be with relative clause "which". "Which" should not be used as it's modifying subject is not clear " higher education" /"united states " /past century. So D and E are eliminated. Now in A,B & C check from correct ideom " from to" instead of "from with" or "from that"

This is a cause-effect type question, so the correct one needs the "verb+ing" form. Eliminate D and E.

The correct idiom is "from X to y". Eliminate B and C.

Correct answer: A