An archaeological excavation at what might have been a workshop where

If Tim eats what might have been a hamster, he's eating an animal and there's a chance that this animal was a hamster. Not a terribly appetizing thought, but not illogical either.

If Tim eats a possible hamster, it suggests that Tim actually ate a hamster, and this hamster happens to have the characteristic of "possible." This is nonsense. The hamster either exists or it doesn't!

Same deal here. If an excavation takes place at what might have been a workshop, it means there's a structure that could have been a workshop, but we don't know for sure. That's fine. Keep (B).

If an excavation takes place at a possible workshop, it means the structure was, in fact, a workshop, and this workshop was of the "possible" variety. This is nonsense. Kill (C).

I hope that helps!

Hi AjiteshArun ,

Including is a preposition also. Is it because of comma before 'including', it is considered here as present participle ?

Thanks

perseverance2021

"Including" is never a preposition. Prepositions are relational words like of, in, by, around, etc. Like most -ing words, it is typically a present participle. Some -ing words can also be gerunds (nouns), but that doesn't work here.

I'm curious what issue you're seeing, though, since no one mentioned participles in their explanation. Is there a usage that's bothering you?

Hi perseverance2021,

That's an interesting question. Although it is a word derived from a verb (and in some cases it retains some properties of verbs and even coordinators), including is used almost exclusively as a preposition. Any good dictionary (1, 2, 3, 4...) will also classify including as a preposition.

We can look at other ways of using including, but as far as the GMAT is concerned, we should generally not expect including to follow the rules that apply to structures like present participles. You could also go through this discussion on including [1:42:40]:



TL;DR: We should not look at including as a normal "comma -ing" on the GMAT.

Hi DmitryFarber,

Is there a reason you prefer to analyse including as a present participle rather than as a preposition? I would think that the use of including as a present participle is extremely limited compared to its use as a preposition.

To be honest, it just never occurred to me that the common uses of "including" would lead people to categorize it as a preposition. I can see the reasoning, and I bow to the sources cited, so I will stand corrected here. However, I'm not sure the classification changes anything about the reasoning required to reach the answer.

Fair enough. I think most test takers know how to use including, but being told that including is a present participle could cause some confusion, because test takers may try to apply what they've learnt about present participles to words like including (my point is not specific to this question).

Thank you for clarifying your position.

An archaeological excavation at what might have been a workshop where statues were reproduced yielded 1,532 fragments of human figures, including 7 intact statues.

Option Elimination -

(A) what might have been a workshop where statues were reproduced yielded 1,532 fragments of human figures, including - " what might have been a workshop" is a noun clause acting as an object of a preposition "at." The usage of present perfect "have been" is correct as the "speculation" of this place being a workshop started in the past and continuous to the present. Comma + including can modify the clause and, more importantly, the nearest noun, as GMATIntensive has also pointed out. Here, "including" modifies the "human figures" and it doesn't make sense to say that fragments included "intact statues." Wrong.

(B) what might have been a workshop where statues were reproduced yielded 1,532 fragments of human figures and - ok

(C) the site of a possible workshop where statues were reproduced yielded 1,532 fragments of human figures and - We can say "digital workshop," "Gen AI workshop," "foundry workshop," but there is nothing like "possible workshop," or "impossible workshop." - Wrong.

(D) the site of a possible workshop where statues were reproduced yielded 1,532 fragments of human figures, including - the same issue as of C and comma + including.

(E) the site of a possible workshop where statues might have been reproduced yielded 1,532 fragments of human figures, including- the same issue as of C and comma + including.