Hi,
First of all, here is the question with all answer choices.
The new image of Stone Age people as systematic hunters of large animals, rather than
merely scavenging for meat, have emerged from the examination from the examination of tools found in Germany, including three wooden spears that archaeologists believe to be above 400,000 years old.
A. merely scavenging for meat, have emerged from the examination from the examination of tools found in Germany, including
B. as mere scavenging for meat, have emerged from examining tools found in Germany, which include
C. as mere meat scavengers, has emerged from examining tools found in Germany that includes
D. mere scavengers of meat, has emerged from the examination of tools found in Germany, which includes
E. mere scavengers of meat, has emerged from the examination of tools found in Germany, including
eybrj2 wrote:
Q1) Is it ok not to use "as" after than in the context of the sentence above?
(This is the reason that I picked C)
Q2) Does "from examining tools" have a problem?
If it have, what is it?
Answer to your first question: Yes, it is alright to not repeat “as” after “rather than” because it is implied or understood. “As” already appears once in the sentence. Another thing that we need to note in Choice C is parallelism. In the parallel list, the first entity is “hunters of large animals” and the second one is “meat scavengers”. Now, it is not always necessary for the entities in the parallel list to be absolutely parallel. However, in this case, it is possible. We can write “meat scavengers” as “scavengers of meat” that will make the entities absolutely parallel. So go for it.
Answer to your second question: Yes, “examining tools” have a little problem. Here “examining” is now an adjective that is modifying “tools”, suggesting that the “tools” are used for examining things. It no longer conveys that the new image has emerged from the examination of the tool.
Let’s take these sentences:
The smile of the baby is beautiful. (smile is beautiful)
The smiling baby is beautiful. (baby is beautiful)
So be careful of the change in the words in the original choice. They might change the meaning of the sentence.
Hope this helps.
Thanks.
Shraddha
I have two doubts. Can u please advise.
1. HOW aspect of the preceding clause
2. RESULT aspect of the same
But the meaning here intents to state about the types of tools that was examined. Doesnt specify the HOW/RESULT part.
Doubt 2 : Also "which" can jump the prepositional phrase( "in Germany") and refer to "tools". So why option D is wrong?