In September 2011, Michael John Dalton organized a seven days training

In September 2011, Michael John Dalton organized a seven days training program on new findings that indicates a child's learning behavioral, cognitive, and fine-motor skills as a natural process that finishes up until the age of five.

(A) that indicates a child's learning behavioral, cognitive, and fine-motor skills as
Wrong. "findings" is plural ==> singular verb "indicates" is wrong.

(B) to indicate that when a child learns behavioral, cognitive, and fine-motor skills, that it is
Wrong.
- "it" refers to nothing.
- If the structure is parallel ==> there should be "and" before the second "that". ==> to indicate that...and that....

(C) indicative of a child's learning of behavioral, cognitive, and fine-motor skills as
Wrong.
- "X indicative of Y as Z" is not correct idiom. The correct one is "X indicative of Y". For example: behavior indicative of mental disorder.

(D) indicating that a child's learning of behavioral, cognitive, and fine-motor skills is
Correct.
- "indicating" is verb-ing modifier ==> modifies "findings"
- Correct idiom: indicating that X is (infinitive without "to") Y

(E) that are indicative of a child learning behavioral, cognitive, and fine-motor skills as
Wrong.
- "X that are indicative of Y as Z" is not correct idiom. The correct one is "X indicative of Y". For example: behavior indicative of mental disorder.

Hope it helps.

A) that indicates a child's learning behavioral, cognitive, and fine-motor skills as
SV Error - Indicates is singular where findings is plural

(B) to indicate that when a child learns behavioral, cognitive, and fine-motor skills, that it is
"To indicate" is incorrect here. Finding does not intention.

(C) indicative of a child's learning of behavioral, cognitive, and fine-motor skills as
finding shows 2 things - child learning is natural process and it finishes up at the age of five.
This protion is not parallel with 2nd part of statement which is not underlined.

(D) indicating that a child's learning of behavioral, cognitive, and fine-motor skills is
Correct

(E) that are indicative of a child learning behavioral, cognitive, and fine-motor skills as
finding as are indicative of 2 things - child's learning and it finishes up at the age of five. Not parallel.

IMO,

The "is" at the end of option D is the surest and fastest way to find the correct answer.

Option B also has "is" but it can be easily rejected.



Regards

Argha

can you please elaborate how by the use of IS we can come to right answer.

do share your thoughts briefly.

thanks

Perhaps what he may be referring to is the idea of "cutting the fluff" - and then examining the usage of the word IS.

In (B), if we "cut the fluff" - it becomes:

"to indicate that when [X], that it is.."

For (D), we have

"indicating that [x] is..."

Between the two - (D) is much better. B has the problem with "that it is..."

For more on how to "cut the fluff" to simplify seemingly complex sentences into ones that are super easy to understand, please check out:

how-to-cut-the-fluff-and-speed-through-sc-156485.html

Shouldnt this be "A Seven Day" program?

I did pick C but I rejected A for a different reason.

shouldn't indicates refer to "training program" as we are supposed to disregard the prep phrase after the noun?

relative pronouns(THAT/WHICH) always refer to closest noun
it is not true that if you have a preposition phrase then it(THAT/WHICH) will modify farther noun..
which/THAT always modifies closest noun....except in few cases.

the rule is:
Relative Pronouns Modify closest nouns UNLESS
– The phrase between modified entity and modifier provides additional
information about modified entity
– The phrase cannot be placed anywhere else
– The phrase does not create any ambiguity in meaning

few examples:
I killed the snake,which lived in the burrow behind my house.==>which clearly modifies....SNAKE.

I killed the snake with scales ,which lived in the burrow behind my house.===>here which modifies snake and not the scales...because....above conditions follow here....scales is describing snake....you cannot place anywhere else to make sense correctly.....it doesnot create any ambiguity means.....==>this means scales live behind my house....this doesnt makes sense....

now take other example.:
i killed the snake with eggs ,which lay in burrow behind my house......==>here you can see that there is ambiguity....both EGGS and SNAKE can lay in burrow...hence this version of which is wrong....

HOPE IT HELPS

It does help, thank you.

So indicates (in the incorrect singular form) refers to findings because "that" is closes to findings? Is this correct?

NEW FINDINGS ==>this is closest noun HENCE THAT refers to NEW FINDINGS.

In September 2011, Michael John Dalton organized a seven days training program on new findings that indicates a child's learning behavioral, cognitive, and fine-motor skills as a natural process that finishes up until the age of five.

(A) that indicates a child's learning behavioral, cognitive, and fine-motor skills as. Incorrect. Problem with parallelism. 'training program' and 'indicates'

(B) to indicate that when a child learns behavioral, cognitive, and fine-motor skills, that it is. Incorrect. No referent for 'it'

(C) indicative of a child's learning of behavioral, cognitive, and fine-motor skills as. Incorrect. Wrong idiom. 'as' in the end is not correct.

(D) indicating that a child's learning of behavioral, cognitive, and fine-motor skills is. Correct

(E) that are indicative of a child learning behavioral, cognitive, and fine-motor skills as. Incorrect. Again wrong idiom. use of 'are' is incorrect.

Can we say for sure that THAT modfies the closest noun unless the noun is used to provide additional information?
Here is a link to bb's thought. He mentioned that " there is no rule which object/noun is modified by THAT - there may be 1, 2, 3, etc nouns modified by THAT. What matters on the gmat is that the sentence is clear and has proper style. "
i-am-a-bit-confused-about-the-use-of-that-and-would-76375.html

I think the reason provided above is correct and the answer should be A .Training program and indicates both are singular and agree in number.
Experts please clarify.

The first reason to eliminate A is:
The usage "Indicate X as Y " is idiomatically wrong. (... that INDICATES skills AS a natural process... wrong)

The second reason to eliminate A is:
The relative pronoun "that" refers to "findings". (A relative clause modifier refers to the noun it touches). Therefore "that" is plural. Again "that" is the subject of the verb "indicates". Hence subject ("that") is plural, but the verb ("indicates") is singular.

Therefore A can be eliminated safely.

I got stuck between A and D: A is tempting, but there is a SV error, idiom mistake ( indicatee X as Y), and " child's learning behavioral, cognitive, and fine-motor" modifiing skills is wordy
D is better: a learning of skills

(B) to indicate that when a child learns behavioral, cognitive, and fine-motor skills, that it is
"To indicate" is incorrect here. Finding does not intention//

Can somebody explain it more briefly
TIA

In September 2011, Michael John Dalton organized a seven days training program on new findings that indicates a child's learning behavioral, cognitive, and fine-motor skills as a natural process that finishes up until the age of five.

(A) that indicates a child's learning behavioral, cognitive, and fine-motor skills as

(B) to indicate that when a child learns behavioral, cognitive, and fine-motor skills, that it is

(C) indicative of a child's learning of behavioral, cognitive, and fine-motor skills as

(D) indicating that a child's learning of behavioral, cognitive, and fine-motor skills is indicating modifies the findings

(E) that are indicative of a child learning behavioral, cognitive, and fine-motor skills as

A is incorrect in "findings that indicates"
In B, "to indicate" suggests a causal relationship, which isn't the case here. More problems in B with later parts of the sentence.
C is awkard in "new findings indicative of a child's learning of..."
E lacks the possessive form in "child" and is thus, incorrect.
D is the best answer choice.

A has a SV disagreement between ‘findings’ and ‘indicates’. B is incorrect because there is nothing for ‘it’ to refer to. C has a slightly more complex flaw. It is unidiomatic, and so is E. That means D is the correct answer.