Egyptian archaeologists have discovered an ancient burial site that

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION

THE PROMPT

THE OPTIONS

• I see no issues. The archaeologists believe that they will find artifacts.
KEEP


• Huh? We have a meaning problem.
The burial site was discovered. As in, it had not been found before.
How could the thus-far-unknown site be "believed to yield" anything?
This answer suggests that the archaeologists had foreknowledge.

The fact that (B) changes the meaning of (A) is okay.
Option A does not determine intended meaning.
But option A is more logical.

Hmm. I suppose that this site might resemble others.
But "believed to yield" and "believe will yield" aren't the same the thing.
In the first case, the site is already yielding something, but the experts don't know what that something is.
In the second case, the site will yield something fairly predictable: artifcats.
KEEP, but I don't like this one as much as (A)


• Run-on. Two sentences are "stuck" together.
• You cannot stick two independent clauses together without a [comma + conjunction].
Sentence #1: Egyptian archaeologists have discovered an ancient burial site
Sentence #2: They believe it will yield important artifacts.
Option C just sticks the two sentences together without punctuation to separate the clauses and without a conjunction
ELIMINATE C


• same run-on problem as that in (C)
• same meaning problem as that in (B), and
• the phrasing is off. ". . . is to yield . . ." is not correct. To speak about the future in English, we use will.
ELIMINATE D

• this option is babble. The babble is so bad that it's hard to explain.
• what is the pronoun "it" doing? Nothing. Making a mess.
ELIMINATE E

Between options A and B, the call is easy.
But if I cannot eliminate an answer the moment I am finished reading it, I keep the option and move on.
Aspirants, I would spend no more than 3 seconds trying to decide whether to keep an option.
If you cannot decide, keep the option and move on.
Practice getting to that speed as far as decisionmaking goes.

Option B is logically kinda weird.
I have to suppose all kinds of facts not in evidence (such as that other nearly identical sites exist) in order to accept (B).
Option A present no such problems.

The best answer is A.

Notes

The word "to" does not always signal intention, though I know people are often taught this not-rule.
These sentences use to and do not involve intention:
She sent the package to his house.
To err is human.

It is true that [verb + TO] frequently signals intention. Just not always. We'll tweak that layer of understanding just a little.

COMMENTS

Sarkar93 and Codebug4it , welcome to SC Butler.

These answers are mostly outstanding.
A few wobbles here and there? Good!
No wobbles, no learning.
And others will have thought exactly the same somewhat wobbly thing.
They will feel relieved to see that aspirants who preceded them made the same small errors.

Nicely done. Kudos to all.