Shipwrecks are more likely to be found undisturbed at great depths tha

I kind of hate this question, and that’s exactly why we chose it for the QOTD. We’re trying to emphasize the tougher ones these days, questions that revolve around more than just cut-and-dried grammar rules. (Did you notice my use of a clunky absolute phrase there? I never use them in real life, but the GMAT likes them.) All of the 2017 QOTDs are available here.


This one is pleasantly easy to eliminate. “…which exposes archaeological remains…” is trying to modify “shallow coastal waters”, and that doesn’t work: “shallow coastal waters… exposes… and makes…” Subject-verb fail. (A) is out.


The first part of the underlined portion looks great: “where remains are exposed to turbulence” modifies “shallow coastal waters.” The parallelism “are exposed… and are accessible” is fine, too.

But woah, WTF is going on with that mess at the end? “… anyone in scuba gear, whether archaeologist, treasure hunter, or sport diver.” That sounds like hot, hot garbage.

Trouble is, I can’t tell you that it’s wrong. As you’ve probably read, “sounding bad” isn’t a crime on SC.

And now that I think about it, I guess it makes decent sense: “anyone in scuba gear, whether archaeologist, treasure hunter, or sport diver.” It would sound better to me if it said “whether they are archaeologists, treasure hunters, or sport divers”, but the meaning seems fine the way they wrote it – and again, “sound” doesn’t matter. Sure, it’s a weird, archaic-sounding turn of phrase, but it’s not illogical.

Crap, I guess we have to keep (B). I’ll be annoyed if it’s the right answer.


The last part of the sentence doesn’t seem quite right, because the examples introduced by “including” would have to be plural, and they aren’t (“archaeologist, treasure hunter, or sport diver”).

More importantly, they’ve mixed a couple of different comparison idioms together, and it simply doesn’t work: “Shipwrecks are more likely to be found undisturbed at great depths as opposed to shallow waters…” Lol, wut? “…more likely as opposed to…” No way. It’s “more likely than,” not “more likely as opposed to.” (C) is gone.


The “which” catches my eye. “Which” could refer to “the coast”, but that wouldn’t make any sense: “the coast… exposes archaeological remains to turbulence.” No, the remains are exposed because the waters are shallow.

OK, so what if the “which” reaches back behind the preposition, and modifies the entire phrase “shallow waters along the coast”? (See our article on “that” for more on these sorts of situations.) Trouble is, the subject-verb agreement wouldn't work: “shallow waters… exposes…”

I’m also not crazy about the use of “instead of” or the fact that the examples of people in scuba gear are all singular. (D) is definitely out.


The “it” has absolutely no referent at all, since there are no singular nouns earlier in the sentence. (E) is gone.

Holy poop on a stick, we’re left with (B). If you relied on your ear on this one, you probably got it wrong. But if you stayed disciplined and looked for DEFINITE errors first, you probably got rid of the other answer choices in a big hurry. Sure, the right answer is a stinking turd of a sentence, but it’s still the right answer.