HOT Competition 2 Sep/8PM: With temperatures at minus 88 degrees Fahre

KOMP:
There are two grammatically viable choices; thus, much of the debate will be about which one makes more sense. Let’s first eliminate other choices though:

A. Siberia has always been considered cold, and with a continuous ice sheet stretched as…

1. both “stretching” and “stretched” can be adjectives.
The difference: “an ice sheet stretching from north of Spitsbergen to the Netherlands” means that ice sheet itself stretches from A to B.
However, “an ice sheet stretched from north of Spitsbergen to the Netherlands” means that someone by force stretches the ice sheet. The latter is nonsensical. We need the first.
2. we need the first because “with…” starts a modifier that cannot have a working verb. If we accept “stretched” as a verb, as in B and D, then it isn’t compatible with the modifier “with…”. On the other hand, if we accept “stretched” as an adjective, it will work with “with…” but results in nonsense. Therefore, we need “with a continuous ice sheet stretching”.
3. even if we had a correct modifier “with…” with a correct adjective “stretching” in it, this modifier isn’t parallel with the clause preceding a parallel marker “and”. After “and” we need either a verb or a clause.


C. Siberia has always been considered cold, and has a continuous ice sheet stretched as…

1. “Siberia… has a continuous ice sheet stretched” – since “has” is already a verb here, “stretched” can only be an adjective. As I have abovementioned, “an ice sheet stretched from north of Spitsbergen to the Netherlands” means that someone by force stretches the ice sheet.
2. “Siberia… has a continuous ice sheet stretching” would work.
3. “has a continuous ice sheet… during much of the Pleistocene Ages” – here “during” is an adverbial modifier that needs a verb to refer to. the closest verb is “has” that is in the Present tense. However, “has (present time) during the Pleistocene Ages (ice ages, many centuries ago)” doesn’t make sense.
Of course, “during” may refer to “stretched”, but most probably a reader might relate it first to “has” and only after a couple of rereads to “stretched”.


E. Siberia has always been considered cold, and as having continuous ice sheet stretched as

1. “as having” tries to incorrectly refer to “consider”. The correct version would be “considered to have”.
2. “having” is already an action here, and thus “stretched” can only be an adjective. As I have abovementioned, “an ice sheet stretched from north of Spitsbergen to the Netherlands” means that someone by force stretches the ice sheet.
3. “ice sheet stretching” would work.


B. Siberia has always been considered cold, and a continuous ice sheet stretched as an impossible barrier across the whole width of Canada during much of the Pleistocene Ages.

D. Siberia has always been considered cold, and its continuous ice sheet stretched as an impossible barrier across the whole width of Canada during much of the Pleistocene Ages.

Let's juxtapose B and D:
Note that Pleistocene Ages is another name for Ice Age that took place million years ago. Back then, ice sheets covered huge parts of the world, and an ice sheet in Siberia stretched to Canada. Now, Siberia’s ice sheet stretching to Canada has already disappeared and no more exists. Its ice sheets exist only in Russia now. With this in mind, let’s take a look at B without its modifiers:

- Siberia has always been considered cold, and a continuous ice sheet stretched across the whole width of Canada.

Here, “and” seems to introduce two unrelated piece of information: first, the Siberia is cold, and second, an ice sheet existed in Canada during the Ice age. “a continuous ice sheet” talks about an ice sheet that existed in Canada back then; We cannot deduce that this was Siberia’s ice sheet, which stretched to Canada, because these days no such ice sheet exists. As written, the sentence makes no sense because why the heck to adjoin two unrelated piece of information with “and”?

I think the sentence intends to say that Siberia was cold and so cold that its ice sheet stretched to Canada. To make clear that it was Siberia’s ice sheet, not any other ice-sheet in Canada, we need to add “its”, as in D:

- Siberia has always been considered cold, and its continuous ice sheet stretched across the whole width of Canada


Hence D

Posted from my mobile device

EVERYONE, please.
Slow down.
There are hundreds of you. There are a few of us.

According to GMAT Whiz, the OA is B.

I disagree. The comma placement is unfortunate.

The better answer is D.

Answer C? Not a chance.
1) we do not put a comma between a subject and the second verb in a compound predicate (one subject that is followed by two verbs)
2) The sentence is nonsensical. The second has should say had—and even in that case, the sentence would be quite jarring.

Siberia has always been considered cold , and HAS a continuous ice sheet stretched as an impossible barrier across the whole width of Canada during much of the Pleistocene Ages.
Siberia HAS an ice sheet NOW that is stretched across the whole width of Canada DURING THE PLEISTOCENE AGES? NO!!!!!

Take a look JonShukhrat 's answer, here: https://gmatclub.com/forum/hot-competit ... l#p2610240

Option B is the official answer.
People who chose B and explained got kudos from me because gmatwhiz designated B.
If you have a problem, send a message (a polite one, please), to gmatwhiz.
Those of you who chose D also got kudos from me.

Highlight: wow. Chutzpah. Or something.

Mizar18, I may not understand your question.
If my answer does not help, please ask again but try to explain what you mean a little more.

Stretched is a verb.

Verb tenses can shift in sentences, especially in those joined by a conjunction.


I have been trying to figure out how I can post my Butler questions on time, and I am concerned that I will be late in doing so.

Why do we need to know the highlighted portion to understand and solve a sc question ?

With auxiliary verb it make sense to say stretch is acting as a verb
But as per the original -stretched seems to act as a verb-Ed modifier ...

Posted from my mobile device

What you wrote is no clearer than before.

I don't know what "as per" means.
As per the "original" WHAT? Prompt?
No.

Let me try one more time.

This material is from the original prompt:
(1) Siberia has always been considered cold,
AND
(2) its ice sheet stretched . . .

No auxiliary verb exists in the second independent clause.
Siberia is the subject of the first clause.
Siberia's ice sheet is the subject of the second clause. No auxiliary verb exists in the second clause.

ShankSouljaBoi ,

You don't.
You need to know that a comma should not separate a subject from the second verb in a compound predicate except in extraordinary circumstances. This question does not fall in the latter category.

Hi friends ShankSouljaBoi, MayankSingh, and Anki2609

I can feel your resentment. These are not official problems, so… you know what I mean.

Note that C is also flawed for the illogical modification of “ice sheet”.

If I say “someone should already fix the blue chair broken during the fight between two colleagues”, then you understand that the chair did not break itself, but was broken by someone else. So, someone else broke it.

If, instead, I said “…the blue chair broking during the fight…”, then that would be nonsense because the chair is not breaking itself.

On the other hand, “he has an enormous yacht extending almost 150 meters” logically implies that the yacht itself extends so many meters.

However, “…has an enormous yacht extended almost 150 meters” would be illogical because no one is extending his yacht. It itself extends.


Similarly, as an adjective, “stretched” means that someone stretches, whereas “stretching” means that the thing itself stretches. Now let’s take C:

C) Siberia… has a continuous ice sheet stretched as an impossible barrier…

Since choice C already has a verb “has”, we cannot have another verb without any conjunction. Hence, as you said, “stretched” has to be a modifier / adjective describing “ice sheet”.

As a modifier, though, “stretched” doesn’t make sense because “ice sheet stretched” means that someone else stretches the ice sheet. That’s nonsense. Ice sheet is not from a gum. Rather, ice sheet itself stretches to Canada, and hence we need to use “stretching”, not” stretched”.

A similar construction:

- Only a few feet wide but spanning a continent, the railroad changed the history. (“spanned” would be wrong)


Here are official problems that test the conception:

https://gmatclub.com/forum/advanced-sc- ... 97101.html

https://gmatclub.com/forum/scientists-h ... -9394.html

https://gmatclub.com/forum/the-growth-o ... 75679.html


After completing all the links, I hope you will be able to discern why C is wrong.


Edit:
Here are some examples from science journals:

- At such times, there was a contiguous ice sheet stretching from north of Spitsbergen to the Netherlands and from the Norwegian Sea to the Taimyr Peninsula

- An ice sheet stretching into the distance.

- ...ice sheet stretching as long as 20 kilometres.

- …except for the presence of a large ice sheet stretching from Alaska across the Bering Strait to most of eastern Siberia.

This example makes sense, but the one in this question focuses on the subject “Siberia” and then uses the conjunction “and” to connect an independent clause regarding a past action about its continuous sheet. That connection gives no sense to the first independent clause, so there’s no point to use “and”, logically speaking.

In addition, we can argue whether “stretched” is acting as a verb or as a modifier, and there is no point on arguing since this is not an official question.

Best

Posted from my mobile device

Hi Mizar18

My friend, I think you cannot eliminate an answer choice for the reason you mentioned.
We cannot expect to see an absolute phrase and cross off the choice just because none shows up.
As far as there is a viable construction that makes sense, we are fine.

D) Siberia has always been considered cold, and its continuous ice sheet stretched across the whole width of Canada…

There are two independent clauses:
- Siberia has always been considered cold
- Its continuous ice sheet stretched across the whole width of Canada…

Those two sentences are parallel and correctly connected by a comma + coordinate conjunction “and”. So, we have “independent clause, and independent clause” that is perfectly fine.

Note that “stretched” is a verb here. Similar sentences from Cambridge dictionary:

- A huge cloud of dense smoke stretched across the horizon.
- The Andes stretch for 7,250 km along the west coast of South America.
- Unsettled weather will stretch from the middle Mississippi Valley to the southern Middle Atlantic States.
- The refugee camps stretch as far as the eye can see.

The reason for which the OE eliminates C and D is just… you know what I mean friend.
You are right that this one is designed after the official problem about Jupiter’s moon Europa. I think this was done deliberately in the hope that we will be expecting an absolute phrase and thus lose much time, looking around for one. A good trap.

That actually is the difference between B and D. Take a look at the sentence below:

- Samsung has always been one of the most innovative companies, and a “folding screen” patent brought all-time record 17 billion dollars in 2018.

How do we know that “folding screen” patent belongs to Samsung? As written this sentence talks about two unrelated events. First, Samsung is innovative. Second, someone’s patent brought him billions of dollars. B does exactly the same thing. If so, why the heck we need to connect two unrelated peice of information with “and”? This sentence doesn’t much differ from “Apple has unveiled iphone 12, and a Russian hen can give 2 eggs a day”.


Now:

- Samsung has always been one of the most innovative companies, and its “folding screen” patent brought all-time record 17 billion dollars in 2018.

Now we know for sure that two pieces of information don’t just appear side by side. They both talk about Samsung. So we are fine. That’s what D does.


That’s the reason why generis prefers D to B. I don’t doubt her genius.

Thank you so much for the great explanation JonShukhrat !

But I still have a question on B and D.

Did you consider “stretched” as a past simple verb?

Why I’m asking about this is; when we parallel two noun, normally we don’t put comma in front of ‘and’. Because putting comma in front of ‘and’ means that the author connected two sentences, since comma signifies indentation.

Therefore, B and D should be considered as two sentences are connected. So if “stretched” is just an adjective, “(B) a continuous ice sheet stretched ~” has sentence fragment issue because a verb is missing. So does (D).

So like I asked above, I’m curious that you considered “stretched” a verb.

Thank you in advance!

Yes, you have to consider "stretched" as a simple past verb to make it work (D). Indeed in B) you also have two indepent clauses as in D), but the possesive determiner "its" relates the noun of the second indepent clause to "Siberia", that is why D) is better than B). However, starting with a preposition "With temperatures at minus 88 degrees Fahrenheit in winter", is totally nonsense to connect an independent clause talking about an action in the past regarding "its ice sheet" to the fact that Siberia "has always been considered cold".

Do not lose time on this one and try the official one and you will see how "clean" the connection is made between an independent clause and an absolute phrase.: https://gmatclub.com/forum/with-surface ... 96119.html

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