One of the first hints that yet another fungal disease could devastate

Question

One of the first hints that yet another fungal disease could devastate wildlife was emerging in Canada came in 2006 with a report that an isolated winter den of rattlesnakes in Nova Scotia was suffering a population crash.

(A) One of the first hints that yet another fungal disease could devastate wildlife was emerging in Canada came in 2006 with a report that an isolated winter den of rattlesnakes in Nova Scotia was suffering a population crash.
 
(B) One of the first hints that yet another fungal disease that could devastate wildlife was emerging in Canada came in 2006 with a report that an isolated winter den of rattlesnakes in Nova Scotia had suffered a population crash.
 
(C) With a report in 2006 that an isolated winter den of rattlesnakes in Nova Scotia have suffered a population crash, one of the first hints that yet another disease that could devastate wildlife was emerging in Canada.
 
(D) With a report in 2006 that an isolated winter den of rattlesnakes in Nova Scotia were suffering a population crash, one of the first hints that yet another disease that could devastate wildlife had emerged in Canada.
 
(E) With a report in 2006 that an isolated winter den of rattlesnakes in Nova Scotia was suffering a population crash, one of the first hints that yet another disease could devastate wildlife were emerging in Canada.

BillyZ · Accepted Answer

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION FROM VERITAS PREP 
Any sentence correction problem with so much underlined takes much longer to assess, particularly when the primary issues are meaning and subtle sentence construction differences. To start, consider the differences between (A) and (B), as they both contain similar overall structures. The important difference, which is easily overlooked, is that (A) states “fungal disease could devastate…” and (B) states “fungal disease that could devastate.” To see which is correct use the slash-and-burn technique to consider the broader sentence: (A) states “One of the first hints  that another fungal disease could devastate wildlife  was emerging CAME…” This is clearly a sentence correction error as there are two verbs directly beside each other.

In (B) you have “One of the first hints that another fungal disease THAT could devastate wildlife was emerging came..” Start by first using slash-and-burn to get rid of the middle “that” modifier: “One of the first hints that another fungal disease  THAT could devastate wildlife  was emerging came…” Next, use slash-and-burn to remove the first “that” modifier to see that (B) has a correct structure: “One of the first hints  that another fungal disease…was emerging  came…” (B) states correctly that “one of the first hints came in 2006 with a report…” while (A) incorrectly states that “one of the first hints was emerging came in 2006 with a report…”

Now examine (C), (D), (E) in comparison to (B). While (C), (D), and (E) all contain several meaning and sentence construction errors, they are best eliminated by a simple subject-verb agreement error. (C) incorrectly uses the plural “have suffered” with the singular subject “den” and (D) incorrectly uses the plural “were suffering” with the singular “den”. (E) incorrectly uses the plural verb “were emerging” with the singular subject “one”.

Only (B) uses proper sentence construction to convey a logical meaning and logical timeline.

akshata19 · Answer

Omitted A and B for awkward construction

I chose C
But caught the mistake 'have' should be 'had' so that the sequence of events with tense are correct

So yes it should be B

Posted from my mobile device

Saurabhminocha · Answer

Why is A incorrect? Was suffering vs had suffered. It has to do with the timeline of the report and the event I suppose. Experts please explain. Thank you

Posted from my mobile device

arvind910619 · Answer

Imo B

A is wrong as we need that after disease .There are two events first there was population crash and after that the report came so we have to use had .
B is correct 
C is absolute disaster as we do not have object for the clause starting with " with " .Subject verb error den is singular 
D is wrong modifier again subject verb mismatch .
E Again subject verb error but this time disease is singular but were is used .
B is the best answer .

BillyZ · Answer

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/20/science/snakes-fungus.html

SCIENCE 
 Researchers Warn of a Spreading Fungus Deadly to Snakes 
By JAMES GORMANDEC. 20, 2017

One of the first hints that yet another fungal disease that could devastate wildlife was emerging in the United States came in 2006 with a report that an isolated winter den of timber rattlesnakes in New Hampshire had suffered a population crash.

Those snakes were on the far northern edge of their species’ habitat, and showed signs they had suffered from inbreeding. But they also had skin lesions, often called hibernation blisters or hibernation sores, that caught the attention of scientists.

Similar cases popped up in Massachusetts, said Jeffrey Lorch, a microbiologist at the United States Geological Survey’s National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wis. Then rattlesnakes in Illinois, called massasaugas, began to suffer.

“People started being on the lookout,” he said. The health center started getting a lot of calls.

By 2009, Ophidiomyces ophiodiicola, the fungus that causes the lesions, had been named. And it has been found to infect more than two dozen species of snakes in this country.

Sometimes the snakes recover quickly, but sometimes the fungus is fatal. “I’ve seen it go really, really rapidly,” said Frank Burbrink, a curator at the American Museum of Natural History in New York and an author of a new report on the disease published Wednesday in Science Advances.

“If it were a human, it would be one day Grandpa had a sore on his face and the next day it’s like ‘Night of the Living Dead.’”

Ophidiomyces ophiodiicola, the fungus that has been infecting snakes, found on a broad-headed snake in Australia. The extent of the damage to snake populations so far is unclear; some individuals can survive the infection by shedding their skin. Credit Sigler L, Gibas C
Dr. Burbrink, Dr. Lorch and Karen Lips, a conservation biologist at the University of Maryland, collaborated on an analysis that concluded that any species of snake, anywhere, could be vulnerable.

Based on a mathematical analysis of the evolutionary relationships of 23 wild-infected species in the United States and two in Europe, the research found that nothing distinguished these species from most other snakes.

What is the trait that makes a species susceptible? The trait is being a snake,” Dr. Burbrink said.

He described the paper as “a call to arms” for intense monitoring of an infection that has the potential to be as devastating to snakes as white nose syndrome has been to bats, and other fungal diseases to frogs and salamanders.

He emphasized that the new fungus may not be as bad as those other infections. But the potential is there, he said, and now is the time to get ahead of the disease.

“We know so little,” he said, including how severe the fungus may be, about its origins, about how it affects different snakes.

But it is already clear, he added, that this is “another emerging fungal disease that has really broad host ranges.”

Other fungal infections that have hit wildlife recently fuel the sense of urgency among snake biologists. Since 2007, white nose syndrome, a fungal disease that seems to have come from Europe, has killed millions of bats in 31 states and Canada.

Chytrid fungi have killed millions of frogs since the late 1990s, devastating some populations. And a number of salamander species have been banned from import because a chytrid fungus threatens them, as well.

The extent of the damage to snake populations so far is unclear. Dr. Burbrink and others say that’s because snakes are often hidden and not well studied, and the disease is new. Some individual snakes survive the fungus well, shedding their skin. But the fungus can get beneath the skin and become fatal.

Matthew Allender, a veterinarian and epidemiologist at the University of Illinois who has published with his colleagues more than a dozen papers on the fungal disease, said he agreed with the paper’s call for greater monitoring and study.

“I was glad to see that somebody took a new approach to quantify what we’ve been seeing in the field,” said Dr. Allender, who did not take part in the new research. “We see it in just about everything.” That includes snakes that live in all habitats, he said: on land, in water, in forests and on beaches, and even among burrowing snakes.

The history of the fungal disease is not known. “We really just don’t know the answers to many of these questions,” Dr. Lorch said.

It is likely that the fungus can live in the soil, at least for a short time, he said, and reports in the scientific literature of lesions that resemble the fungal infection go back at least to the 1950s. Evidence of the disease itself in captive snakes, he said, goes back to around 1980.

The fungus may be native to North America, but it has also been found in wild snakes in Europe.

It may be, Dr. Lorch said, “that what we’re looking at is the tip of the iceberg of this disease.” The new analysis “supports the notion that no species is safe.”

It may turn out that snakes are more resistant to this infection than bats or frogs have been to the fungal diseases that have devastated their populations. But additional monitoring of snake populations and research on the disease itself is necessary, he added.

“Let’s start doing our homework,” he said, “so if the sky does start falling, we can respond quickly.”

lary301254M7 · Answer

(B)  One of the first hints  that yet another fungal disease that could devastate wildlife was emerging in Canada  came in 2006  with a report that an isolated winter den of rattlesnakes in Nova Scotia had suffered a population crash.

rattlesnake population crash happened first, therefore past perfect is required.

2nd "that" gives us more information about fungal disease "fungal disease ... was emerging in Canada"

B is the correct answer

priyaxsharma · Answer

Question) In options C, D and E "fungal" disease has not been mentioned. Does this change the meaning of the sentence and can this be used to reject the options? (even if those options are correct grammatically)

DmitryFarberMPrep · Answer

priyaxsharma  Generally, there has to be something actively wrong before we can safely eliminate a choice. As long as the meaning is clear, we may not need the word "fungal." What's safe to say is that if the GMAT leaves the word out in the right answer, it wasn't considered necessary. However, sometimes odd changes will show up in the wrong answers, even if those odd changes aren't the best way to eliminate those answers.

LoneSurvivor · Answer

I think we need "had" which is why B is a better option than A

Shivam1809 · Answer

VeritasPrepHailey   DmitryFarber  
Since the construction '  one of the Xs that ' is plural, shouldn't, Option E,  one of the hints that .....were emerging  be right ?

HaileyCusimano · Answer

Hi  Shivam1809 ! So the use of this construction depends on the meaning and placement. It is absolutely true that when we have the construction:

"one of the ___ that/who (verb), the verb included in the relative clause refers back to the plural noun being modified with the clause. So, for instance, if the sentence were to read something like:

"one of the first hints that  were  guiding wildlife experts" - we would use the plural "were" to complete the relative clause "that were guiding wildlife experts" to modify the noun "hints."

Here, however, the modifying clause at hand is "that yet another disease could devastate wildlife." The were no longer falls within the modifying clause. So, if we took out the modifying clause, we would have a sentence that reads:

"one of the first hints  that yet another disease could devastate wildlife  were emerging in Canada.

So,  one  of the first hints  was  emerging.

Basically, because the verb in question does not fall within the clause modifying "hints," its agreement should fall with the subject of the sentence rather than the term before the "that."

I hope this helps!

Shivam1809 · Answer

Oh! ok, understood ! Missed that nuance. Thanks for helping out

Posted from my mobile device

HaileyCusimano · Answer

Sure thing! It's a tricky distinction, but an important one. It always helps to keep in mind that even when you commit grammatical rules to memory, logic and meaning should be at the root of those rules.

SiffyB · Answer

The correct choice:

(B) One of the first hints that yet another fungal disease that could devastate wildlife was emerging in Canada came in 2006 with a report that an isolated winter den of rattlesnakes in Nova Scotia   had suffered   a population crash.

Uses past perfect tense 'had suffered'. This means that 'had suffered' is the earlier of the two events that took place in the past.
What is the other event that happened in the past?

Thanks in advance!

VerbalBot · Answer

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One of the first hints that yet another fungal disease could devastate

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One of the first hints that yet another fungal disease could devastate

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