Fossils of the arm of a sloth found in Puerto Rico in 1991, and dated

KARISHMA315, the issue here is that in (B), (C), and (E), we have the noun modifiers ("relative pronouns", if you like grammar jargon) "which" and "that." With rare exceptions, these modifiers will point to the immediately preceding noun. So if we look at (B), (C), and (E) very strictly and literally, the sentences are saying that the sloth was found. And that doesn't make sense, unless you think that sloths live for millions of years.

When participles (often an "-ed" or "-ing" word, such as "found" or "making" or "including") are used as modifiers -- and that's exactly what "found" is doing in (A) and (D) -- they're much more forgiving in terms of their placement. It's fine for the participle "found" to modify the entire phrase that precedes it. So the phrase beginning with "found" can modify "fossils of the arm of a sloth", and not necessarily just the sloth.

I hope this helps!

Fossils of the arm of a sloth found in Puerto Rico in 1991, and dated at 34 million years old, made it the earliest known mammal of the Greater Antilles islands.

A. sloth found in Puerto Rico in 1991, and dated at 34 million years old, made it the earliest known mammal of

B. sloth, that they found in Puerto Rico in 1991, has been dated at 34 million years old, thus making it the earliest mammal known on

C. sloth that was found in Puerto Rico in 1991, was dated at 34 million years old, making this the earliest known mammal of

D. sloth, found in Puerto Rico in 1991, have been dated at 34 million years old, making the sloth the earliest known mammal on

E. sloth which, found in Puerto Rico in 1991, was dated at 34 million years old, made the sloth the earliest known mammal of

Option A :
Construction : "comma + and" requires an Independent clause. However, "dated" has no subject

Fossils of the arm of a sloth found in Puerto Rico in 1991, and dated at 34 million years old, made it the earliest known mammal of the Greater Antilles islands.

Analysing the original sentence,

1. FOUND can be a VERB or a VERB-ED modifier. As sloth is present next to found, it seems "found" is the verb for sloth. But, sloth cannot do this action of finding. Thus, found is not the verb for sloth. Similarly, found is not even the verb for arms as well as fossils.

2. Found as a VERB-ed MODIFIER can modify any of these 3 : fossils; arm; sloth. But the portion after "and", dated clears this confusion. As dated cannot modify sloth or arm.

3. The COMMA before AND is not making sense. Since its only a list of two items. For a list of more than two items, we place a COMMA before AND.

4. The pronoun "it" is ambiguous. As it can refer to the arm as well as the sloth.

A. sloth found in Puerto Rico in 1991, and dated at 34 million years old, made it the earliest known mammal of
INCORRECT for the reasons mentioned above.

B. sloth, that they found in Puerto Rico in 1991, has been dated at 34 million years old, thus making it the earliest mammal known on
"They" refers to whom?? ALso, Has been dated indicates the PRONOUN NUMBER AGREEMENT ERROR as the SUBJECT fossils is plural. The pronoun "it" can refer to the sloth as well as the arm. Therefore, INCORRECT.

C. sloth that was found in Puerto Rico in 1991, was dated at 34 million years old, making this the earliest known mammal of
The usage of relative pronoun "that" next to sloth changes the intended meaning. It implies that the sloth was found in Puerto Rico in 1991. "that" cannot refer to the fossils because the verb after "that" is singular (was found AND even was dated) and not plural. "Was Dated" indicates the PRONOUN NUMBER AGREEMENT ERROR as the SUBJECT fossils is plural. Usage of the Demonstrative Pronoun "THIS" is also wrong here.

D. sloth, found in Puerto Rico in 1991, have been dated at 34 million years old, making the sloth the earliest known mammal on
CORRECT. For the following reasons,
1. PRONOUN NUMBER AGREEMENT ERROR : is resolved as have been dated correctly refers to the fossils.
2. Making (the VERB-ing modifier) refers correctly to the subject ("fossils") of the preceding clause.
3. PRONOUN AMBIGUITY ERROR : Here, the pronoun "it" is correctly replaced by the sloth.

E. sloth which, found in Puerto Rico in 1991, was dated at 34 million years old, made the sloth the earliest known mammal of
Here, the relative pronoun "which" refers to sloth, making the sentence sound illogical. As it appears "the sloth was dated at...". Usage of WHICH without a preceding comma or a preposition is also incorrect. The overall structure of this option is awkward and hence, INCORRECT. The VERB-ed modifier ("made") is also dangling as its not clear actually what it is modifying as VERB-ed modifiers can modify the preceding noun only.

1. FOUND can be a VERB or a VERB-ED modifier. As sloth is present next to found, it seems "found" is the verb for sloth. But, sloth cannot do this action of finding. Thus, found is not the verb for sloth. Similarly, found is not even the verb for arms as well as fossils.

2. Found as a VERB-ed MODIFIER can modify any of these 3 : fossils; arm; sloth. But the portion after "and", dated clears this confusion. As dated cannot modify sloth or arm.

(A) Fossils of the arm of a sloth found in Puerto Rico in 1991, and dated at 34 million years old, made it the earliest known mammal of the Greater Antilles islands.

(D)sloth, found in Puerto Rico in 1991, have been dated at 34 million years old, making the sloth the earliest known mammal on

GMATNinja egmat VeritasPrepKarishma




Is this one of few rare occasions in which coma+verb-ing modifier (coma + making) makes
more sense with subject of the earlier clause - a sloth - than the verb - made in (A)

In (D), the coma+making modifies complete earlier clause and the subject of earlier clause is: Fossils of the arm of a sloth

Can you elaborate why is there a pronoun ambiguity in :
Fossils of the arm of a sloth found in Puerto Rico in 1991, and dated at 34 million years old,made it the earliest known mammal of the Greater Antilles islands.

Is there any significant distinction between usage of pronoun on / of after mammal?

A. sloth found in Puerto Rico in 1991, and dated at 34 million years old, made it the earliest known mammal of
E. sloth which, found in Puerto Rico in 1991, was dated at 34 million years old, made the sloth the earliest known mammal of

Hi experts



I did not pick them up because i think it is illogical to say fossils can make some opinions, while the found of fossils can make some opinions

Would you please confirm ?

Thanks in advance

Have a nice day
>_~

Hey,

I've a question regarding the last part of answer D:

"D. sloth, found in Puerto Rico in 1991, have been dated at 34 million years old, making the sloth the earliest known mammal on"

So, "making" modifies "Fossils of the arm of a sloth". Isn't the placement a bit far away? I thought the modifier should be placed as close as possibile.

Cheers

I’ve always had a soft spot for this question, just because it has such a wide variety of issues and errors. It also has an interesting little verb tense thing that really doesn’t matter at all: you could easily fixate on the difference between "was dated" (past tense) and "has/have been dated" (present perfect tense), but you don't have to choose between them at all. There are plenty of other issues to worry about instead.


The “it” (which presumably refers back to the sloth) is the first thing that jumps out at me. “Fossils of the arm of a sloth… made [the sloth] the earliest known mammal…” Huh? That makes no sense. How the heck would the fossils of a sloth make the sloth the earliest known mammal of the Greater Antilles?

The much smaller issue is that I see no real need for that first comma, but that’s unlikely to ever be a deciding factor on a GMAT question. But the nonsensical main clause is enough to wipe out (A).


This time, the pronoun “they” is the first thing that catches my eye. Who the heck is “they”? The fossils?

Plus, we have a subject-verb problem: “fossils… has been dated” is spectacularly wrong. (B) is gone.


Subject-verb fail again: “fossils… was dated.” Nope.

But there’s more: the phrase “that was found in Puerto Rico in 1991” seems to modify the sloth itself, and that makes no sense. Unless you think that the sloth had actually been alive for 34 million years. Maybe moving really slowly helps you live longer?

Finally, the word “this” is used as a singular pronoun, and that’s an unacceptable use of the word “this” on the GMAT. I’ve only ever seen “this” used as an article on the GMAT (“this week” or “this magnificent GMAT forum”), but never as a pronoun.

So we have lots of good reasons to eliminate (C).


This one looks pretty good. The subject-verb agreement works: “fossils… have been dated at 34 million years old…” Cool. The modifier “found in Puerto Rico in 1991” is nicely set apart with commas, so it seems to refer to the entire phrase “fossils of the arm of a sloth”, and not just the sloth itself, as we saw in (C).

And the last part of the underlined portion (“making the sloth the earliest known mammal…”) actually names the sloth instead of using a pronoun, and that adds a bit of extra clarity. It might not be strictly necessary, but it’s nice. We can keep (D).



Thanks to the modifier “which”, which typically modifies the immediately preceding noun, it really sounds like the sloth itself was found in Puerto Rico in 1991, and that makes no sense. (I also can’t make much sense of the comma placement in that part of the sentence, but again, comma placement isn’t really a major emphasis on GMAT SC.)

We also have the same problem that we had in (A): “fossils… made the sloth the earliest known mammal…” That’s nonsense, too.

So we can ditch (E), and (D) is our answer.

Hi, Ninja.
I actually did one question about the use of date.
Actually, date can not be used as "have dated at " or "have been dated at..' since" past perfect implies that this is not the case anymore.
So I eliminated D at once....This one is really made me mad!! Tense is also an absolute judgement to eliminate answers.

GMATNinja

Thank you for your kind explanation.

However, I'm a little bit confused for a part of your explanation.

In explanation for choice A , you mention that the phrase "Fossils of the arm of a sloth… made [the sloth] the earliest known mammal…" makes no sense.

But, In choice D , you accept that the pharse" making the sloth the earliest known mammal on" is correct.

Those two explanations seem quite contradict.

Please help me clarify the issue.

Thank you so much.

Hi,

@empowergmat verbal in this question in option D and E; the phrases "have been dated at", "was dated at" are in comma pairs why didn't we omit these? also is it like the information in non essential phrases always acts as a modifier and when it doesn't then it is not considered as a non-essential phrase?

I’ve always had a soft spot for this question, just because it has such a wide variety of issues and errors. It also has an interesting little verb tense thing that really doesn’t matter at all: you could easily fixate on the difference between "was dated" (past tense) and "has/have been dated" (present perfect tense), but you don't have to choose between them at all. There are plenty of other issues to worry about instead.


The “it” (which presumably refers back to the sloth) is the first thing that jumps out at me. “Fossils of the arm of a sloth… made [the sloth] the earliest known mammal…” Huh? That makes no sense. How the heck would the fossils of a sloth make the sloth the earliest known mammal of the Greater Antilles?

The much smaller issue is that I see no real need for that first comma, but that’s unlikely to ever be a deciding factor on a GMAT question. But the nonsensical main clause is enough to wipe out (A).


This time, the pronoun “they” is the first thing that catches my eye. Who the heck is “they”? The fossils?

Plus, we have a subject-verb problem: “fossils… has been dated” is spectacularly wrong. (B) is gone.


Subject-verb fail again: “fossils… was dated.” Nope.

But there’s more: the phrase “that was found in Puerto Rico in 1991” seems to modify the sloth itself, and that makes no sense. Unless you think that the sloth had actually been alive for 34 million years. Maybe moving really slowly helps you live longer?

Finally, the word “this” is used as a singular pronoun, and that’s an unacceptable use of the word “this” on the GMAT. I’ve only ever seen “this” used as an article on the GMAT (“this week” or “this magnificent GMAT forum”), but never as a pronoun.

So we have lots of good reasons to eliminate (C).


This one looks pretty good. The subject-verb agreement works: “fossils… have been dated at 34 million years old…” Cool. The modifier “found in Puerto Rico in 1991” is nicely set apart with commas, so it seems to refer to the entire phrase “fossils of the arm of a sloth”, and not just the sloth itself, as we saw in (C).

And the last part of the underlined portion (“making the sloth the earliest known mammal…”) actually names the sloth instead of using a pronoun, and that adds a bit of extra clarity. It might not be strictly necessary, but it’s nice. We can keep (D).



Thanks to the modifier “which”, which typically modifies the immediately preceding noun, it really sounds like the sloth itself was found in Puerto Rico in 1991, and that makes no sense. (I also can’t make much sense of the comma placement in that part of the sentence, but again, comma placement isn’t really a major emphasis on GMAT SC.)

We also have the same problem that we had in (A): “fossils… made the sloth the earliest known mammal…” That’s nonsense, too.

So we can ditch (E), and (D) is our answer.

Hi honchos.

A is wrong because of the comma.

A) Fossils of the arm of a sloth found in Puerto Rico in 1991, and dated at 34 million years old, made it the earliest known mammal of the Greater Antilles islands.
The green part is modifier that should be blocked off both sides by commas. However, there is only a comma on the right, not on the left. Grammatically, this is wrong structure.

D). sloth, found in Puerto Rico in 1991, have been dated at 34 million years old, making the sloth the earliest known mammal on
The modifier is blocked off perfectly both sides by two commas. Hence, D is a correct sentence.

Hope it's clear.

Can we reject (A) and (B) because of the use of "it" referring to a sloth. As in, the sentence is trying to say that a particular sloth was the earliest known mammal and not the whole species. To represent the whole species, the phrase the sloth should be used. Honestly I didn't realise the meaning on the basis of fossils and rejected (A) and (B) because of the difference between a sloth and the sloth. Can someone please tell me if this strategy or POE is correct?