Complex human traits such as artistic talent or social skill are likel

(A) such as artistic talent or social skill are likely to be shaped by thousands, if not tens of thousands, of the 80,000 or so {genes}
(B) such as artistic talent or social skill are likely shaped by thousands, if not tens of thousands, of 80,000 or so of the
(C) such as artistic talent or social skill is likely to be shaped by thousands, if not tens of thousands, of 80,000 or so of the
(D) like artistic talent or social skill is likely to be shaped by thousands, if not tens of thousands, of the 80,000 or so
(E) like artistic talent or social skill are likely shaped by thousands, if not tens of thousands, of the 80,000 or so

Correct answer is Option A.

Complex human traits such as artistic talent or social skill are likely to be shaped by thousands, if not tens of thousands, of the 80,000 or so genes in the human genome.

(A) such as artistic talent or social skill are likely to be shaped by thousands, if not tens of thousands, of the 80,000 or so- Correct
(B) such as artistic talent or social skill are likely shaped by thousands, if not tens of thousands, of 80,000 or so of the- incorrect structure - 'thousands of 80,000 or so of the'
(C) such as artistic talent or social skill is likely to be shaped by thousands, if not tens of thousands, of 80,000 or so of the - subject-verb agreement issue - 'traits' is plural and thus needs the verb 'are'; incorrect structure - 'thousands of 80,000 or so of the'
(D) like artistic talent or social skill is likely to be shaped by thousands, if not tens of thousands, of the 80,000 or so- usage of like to present examples is incorrect; subject-verb agreement issue - 'traits' is plural and thus needs the verb 'are'
(E) like artistic talent or social skill are likely shaped by thousands, if not tens of thousands, of the 80,000 or so - usage of like to present examples is incorrect

Answer A

Avoid repeated-word constructions such as X THAT Y THAT Z or X OF Y OF Z.
in fact, if you see one of these constructions, you can pretty much trust that it's wrong. GMAT test writers will switch to lesser idioms, which they wouldn't normally use, in order to avoid these constructions.

1. Normally, you would say "evidence that suggests...".
however, in order to avoid "evidence THAT suggests THAT...", one official problem contains the idiom "evidence TO suggest THAT..."

2. Normally, you would say "it was said that..."
however, you don't want "...so prevalent THAT it was said THAT..."
so you can get around this by killing the second "that".

3. if you see something like "extent OF the shift OF light...", you can be 99.9% sure that it's incorrect.
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1. Use of 'such' over 'like'
2. 'traits' will be in agreement with 'are'
3. 'likely to be shaped' is correct use.

Hence, A

why not B, IIsm should be maintained??

Hi Abhishek

The main problem with answer option (B) comes towards its end. Let us plug in option (B) in the question and analyse:

(B) Complex human traits such as artistic talent or social skill are likely shaped by thousands, if not tens of thousands, of 80,000 or so of the genes in the human genome.

Let us remove the non-essential modifiers and look at the second half closely:

...are likely shaped by thousands of 80,000 or so of the genes in the human genome.

This is saying that the genes shaping complex traits are "1000s of 80,000 of the genes". In other words, total genes in the human genome are more than 80,000, of which there is a random selection of 80,000 of which 1000s shape the complex human traits. This is contrary to the intent in the main question, which caps the number of genes in the human genome at ~80,000. Due to this meaning change as well as an illogical selection of a random subset of 80,000, option (B) is incorrect.

Hope this helps.
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But "to be" in (A) seems like it is yet to to shaped, whereas in it has already been shaped?

Good catch. (A) doesn't really make sense because of that issue.
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I'm confused wrt Option C.
For "or", isnt the rule that Verb has to agree with the nearest noun?
Since social skill is singular, shouldn't the verb be "is" ? Pls help... GMATNinja MartyTargetTestPrep

Hi mohitprabhat.

You have the rule right, but that rule doesn't apply here.

To see why, let's review the (C) version.

Complex human traits such as artistic talent or social skill is likely to be shaped by thousands, if not tens of thousands, of 80,000 or so of the genes in the human genome.

Notice that "such as artistic talent or social skill" presents examples of "traits," and that "traits" is the subject of "is," as we can more clearly see in this simplified version of the sentence.

Complex human traits ... is likely to be shaped by thousands, if not tens of thousands, of 80,000 or so of the genes in the human genome.

So, the (C) version is incorrect because the subject "traits" does not agree with the verb "is."
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Is the use of "to be" i.e. infinitive form of verb correct here?
we dont need infinative form here

Both versions work. The resulting meanings are different, but they're both reasonable.

'X is likely shaped by Y" means the same thing as "X is probably shaped by Y"—it's what the writer thinks is probably true about thing X in general.

"X is likely to be shaped by Y" as a statement about what's likely [to happen in the future. (The grammar here is the same as in "Your order is ready to be picked up"—in which the pickup is something else that will happen in the future, if it happens at all.

"Likely to be" does not always indicate something that is likely to happen in the future.

The phrase can also indicate something that is probably true at present (as in this GMATPREP sentence) or something that was probably true in the past.

Some examples (from the New York Times):
- Patients with diabetes are also more likely to be described as noncompliant, according to large studies of medical records.

- These genes do not determine intelligence, however. Their combined influence is minuscule, the researchers said, suggesting that thousands more are likely to be involved and still await discovery. 

- Q. Why do some of us get bitten by mosquitoes while others go free?
A. ... But new research suggests that the basis for the difference is likely to be inborn and genetic.

- Schools with large shares of non-English speaking students and those with the lowest math scores were also more likely to be closed.

Posted from my mobile device
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Please help to eliminate Option B, Even after going through all the posts, WHy Option B is wrong.

This is the core sentence in (A):
Complex human traits are likely to be shaped by thousands of the 80,000 or so genes in the human genome.

The THE before 80,000 is required. Otherwise the sentence does not sense. The missing THE makes Answer Choice (B) wrong. I'll try to explain why.

The phrase THE SIX RESIDENTS means ALL SIX RESIDENTS.

The phrase 'THE 80,000 OR SO GENES' refers to ALL THE GENES, and the it tells us that there are about 80,000 genes.

See these examples:
1. Four employees in the office are overworked.
2. The four employees in the office are overworked.

Both sentences are grammatical and both make sense. But the meanings are different. As per the first sentence, four of the employees in the office are overworked. The THE in the second sentence tells us that the office has four employees. As per the second sentence, the office has four employees and all four are overworked.

Back to your question:
Choice (B) is something like this:
HR warned four of twenty or so employees in the office.
The sentence does not make sense.

Choice (A) is something like this:
HR warned four of the twenty or so employees in the office.

The addition of the THE tells us that the office has twenty or so employees.
This is the meaning of the sentence: The office has twenty or so employees, and four of them were warned.

Hope this helped

Posted from my mobile device
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The most straightforward basis on which to eliminate B is provided by "thousands, if not tens of thousands, OF 80,000 or so OF THE genes in the human genome".

Think about the meaning here for a sec—it doesn't make sense. Let's break it down into 2 steps:

• "80,000 or so OF THE genes in the human genome"
...Means exactly what it says.
This purple phrase represents approximately 80,000 genes—and that's it. According to this phrasing, the TOTAL number of human genes remains unspecified.

Now complete the phrasing:
• color=#39b54a]thousands, if not tens of thousands, OF[/color] the apprx. 80,000 genes mentioned above"
Well... That just leaves us with thousands, if not tens of thousands, OF ALL THE HUMAN GENES. In this phrasing, the ≈80,000 figure has absolutely no significance at all. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
GMAC will NEVER specify things that are meaningless, so, this interpretation is nonsense.


Contrast this with the correct meaning, in which the figure of ≈80,000 represents the TOTAL number of genes in the human genome.

Hi ron,
As you said that "likely to be" is a future tone.
However do you think that this sentence require a present tense to make complete sense?

vv65 Hi Thanks for explainning the usage of "likely to be"
Could you please explain what is the difference between "likely to be done" and "likely done" ?

In 'likely done', the word LIKELY works just like PROBABLY. It indicates that something is probable but not certain.

For example,
The work is done by the assistant. vs The work is likely done by the assistant.
The cake was eaten by the cat. vs The cake was likely eaten by the cat.

Posted from my mobile device
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Hello louisinau,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, "likely to be done" and "likely done" must both be used with an active verb.

"likely to be done" refers to an action that takes place at a later point in time from what the helping verb refers to.

For example, "I was likely to be made team captain." - here, "likely to be made" refers to an action that takes place after the action "was", but before the present.

"I am likely to be made team captain." - here, "likely to be made" refers to an action that takes place after the simple present tense verb "am", meaning it simply refers to future tense action.

By contrast, "likely done" refers to an action that takes place at an earlier point in time from what the helping verb refers to.

For example, "This was likely made in China." - "likely made" refers to an action that takes place further in the past from the simple past tense verb "was".

"Dinner is probably cooked." - "probably cooked" refers to an action that takes place before the simple present tense verb "cooked".

Please note that this construction can only refer to past actions.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
Experts' Global Team
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