Including lots of evidence supporting their claims the scientists

Hello, everyone. I meant to post a full analysis of this question a few days ago, when I came across it, but, you know, life took over. What makes the question difficult, I suspect, is that it does a great job disguising the main clause. There is also a technical point that pops up later on that we will need to discuss. I will use an image I have prepared to launch into the analysis.


Choice (A) fails because there is a subject-verb agreement issue in the main clause, not to mention some pretty awful phrasing at the tail-end of the underlined portion. First, there is some debate in grammar circles over whether an introductory phrase should be followed by a comma if it exceeds five words, but the seven-word including lots of evidence supporting their claims may be close enough, and by no means is this five-word limit a rule. I think the sentence would benefit from a comma to clearly separate the phrase from the main clause, but we cannot alter the non-underlined portion anyway. In any case, stick to fundamentals when you evaluate a sentence. You should be able to put a finger on the main clause. Cross off the grammatical components that are serving as modifiers, and you will expose some fatal flaws here:

Including lots of evidence supporting their claims the scientists' presentation on the issues related to microbes that survive on the exteriors of space vehicles are expected that they will catalyze changes in standard operating procedures.

Hmm, the scientists' presentation are expected? That is game over. A presentation is a singular noun. If you needed further persuading, just consider how much clearer the main clause would be if it said, expected to catalyze changes instead of this horrendous that they will. All things considered, we can confidently cross out (A).

Choice (B) fails because it creates a nonsensical main clause. Follow the same process as before, with an eye on the essential parts of the main clause only:

... the scientists presented on the issues related to microbes that survive on the exteriors of space vehicles are expected that they will...

Rather than the presentation being the subject, we now get the scientists front and center, but scientists presented are expected that they will is, well, untenable. We could have parallel actions with the insertion of a conjunction, as in, scientists presented... and are expected, but even then, we would have to confront the same that they will as before. Get rid of this one and do not look back.

Choice (C) fails because the main clause never resolves. The commas surrounding the phrase in the middle allow for an easy check of the sentence. Just skip over the part that is roped off by commas—the scientists... which are expected to catalyze changes... This is SC 101. A which clause subordinates the information that follows until you hit a verb once that clause has resolved. (For example, you might see, The table, which was in the middle of the room, was red.) (C) is out of contention.

Choice (D) works because the main clause is perfectly comprehensible and grammatical: the scientists' presentation... is expected to catalyze changes... No problems there. Of course, there is a popular misconception, a so-called rule, floating around that a possessive noun and a possessive pronoun cannot pair up on the GMAT™, and here, we see their claims plus the scientists' presentation. What gives? Well, it turns out that there are official SC questions that fly in the face of this misconception. See this question on Emily Dickinson and her letters, for instance. You cannot argue with official questions... even if you do not particularly care for them. This answer choice looks fine.

Choice (E) fails because, once again, we are left with nothing more than a fragment. I suspect the underlined portion was created to snare the unwitting test-taker who had developed a keen eye for parallelism, but -ing conjugations of verbs are not verbs without some form of auxiliary verb (e.g., are helping). The main clause in (E) never resolves:

the scientists presenting the issues related to microbes that survive on the exteriors of space vehicles and expecting to catalyze changes...

There is no action, no verb, that follows the scientists. The parallel -ing words, presenting and expecting, would be adjectives modifying those scientists. This should prove another easy elimination.

In the end, only (D) holds up to scrutiny. Be careful in these long-winded sentences not to get bogged down in the details. Learn to identify the components of a main clause: subject, verb, and possibly object. Nothing more than a focus on fundamentals is required to answer this question with confidence.

I hope my analysis proves useful to the community. Good luck with your studies.

- Andrew