Sixty-five million years ago, according to some scientists, an asteroi

AnthonyRitz
It's hard for me to comprehend the highlighted part! Could you explain it a bit with example (pure sentence)?
Thanks

What if in the first example one of the options is, "......slammed into N.A., causing plant and animal extinctions that mark.....

Would this version be correct @GMATNina ?

This one isn't too awful, compared to some of the QOTDs we'll inflict on you later this week. For the most part, this is a nice story about straightforward uses of "that" and "which" modifiers, with some meaning stuff thrown in.

The uses of "that" and "which" can get nastier, though. Check out last Monday's YouTube webinar for more on the various uses of "that" on the GMAT... and we'll feature the other examples from the webinar as QOTDs later this week.


"Which" can only modify "North America" here, and that makes no sense at all: "North America, which... marks the end of the geologic era"?! The placement of the "-ing" modifier doesn't seem great, either. Eliminate (A).


Again, the modifier beginning with "which" is modifying "North America" again, and that makes no sense: "North America, which caused the plant and animal extinctions..." Eliminate (B).


I'm OK with the use of "that" here, but the parallelism doesn't work. The parallelism marker "and" is followed by "causing plant and animal extinctions", and I can't find anything in the sentence that could possibly be parallel to "causing." (C) is gone.


The last part of the underlined portion makes me hesitate: "it" could refer to "event", I guess. So "...an event that caused plant and animal extinctions, and the event marks the end of the geologic era..." That's not awful, but I really don't understand why we're starting a whole new clause there, with "event" as the subject. It makes a whole lot more sense when the end of the sentence says "... marks the end of the geologic era..." function as a modifier for "extinctions" -- and that's exactly what (E) does.

Since "it" is the subject of the second clause, you could also argue that it refers back to the subject of the first clause: "an asteroid bigger than Mount Everest." But that wouldn't really make much sense, either: the asteroid marks the end of the geologic era? Hm, not so sure about that one. But either way: even if you're OK with the pronoun, (E) does a much better job of conveying the meaning of the sentence.

Incidentally, there's another version of this answer choice in the verbal guide (any edition): "an event that caused plant and animal extinctions, which marks..." Clearly, that's wrong for a different reason: "extinctions... marks" is a clear subject-verb error.

Either way, (D) is gone.


(E) has two "thats", and they're both perfectly fine. The event caused the plant and animal extinctions, and the extinctions mark the end of the geologic era. Nice and clear. (E) wins.

GMATNinja - boss, can you please explain why in option E we should not have "that marked" the end of ... ? Is it correct to have "that mark" ?

I am solving the Verbal Review Offical 2019 and the option D is different. It is : "an event that caused plant and animal
extinctions, which marks"

How is this wrong and one would pick E over this ?

A&B - which modifies North America. That doesn't make sense
C- Parallelism error for and:
D- it refers to asteroid and not the event. The sentence loses its meaning.
E- correct answer

One question from my end - for parallelism is same tense necessary. In option D, are 'asteroid slammed' and 'it marks' parallel.

Thanks in advance!

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I am solving the Verbal Review Offical 2019 and the option D is different. It is : "an event that caused plant and animal extinctions, which marks"

I agree with wps002 and AndrewN: option D has not been correctly reproduced here. Requesting a review.

Bunuel

Hello experts
KarishmaB AndrewN sayantanc2k AjiteshArun

Can we eliminate option D for following reason?
1. An event that caused plant and animal extinctions is modifier and modifying previous clause but after , AND we have independent clause. now we have modifier AND clause , which is not parallel .

Thanks and regards.

Option D is now changed to
D. an event that caused plant and animal extinctions, which marks

and all the answers has option D as
D. an event that caused plant and animal extinctions, and it marks

In the OG the SC04344 the option is the 1st one, I just want to understand why is D wrong as, which is correctly modifying the event that marked.

Thanks in advance!

and all the answers has option D as
D. an event that caused plant and animal extinctions, and it marks

I just want to understand why is D wrong as, which is correctly modifying the event that marked.