Pottery existed before the rise of stone buildings and urban architect

The last one is incorrect!
Pottery existed....... has represented ....... ( There are two verbs for the subject 'Pottery' and they are not connected by any linker. It's a run on sentence.)

The question tests the concept of verb usage and tenses.

One of the rules of tenses is the consistency of tenses. The entire sentence has to represent a consistent time-frame. For example, if one part of the sentence contains a verb in the past tense, the other part of the sentence must also contain a verb in one of the past tenses. However, if the two parts of a sentence represent two different time frames, the two verbs can be in two different tenses.

The underlined portion of the sentence begins with a verb, which must then be in a tense that is consistent with ‘existed’ but must also convey the meaning intended by the sentence.

The sentence gives us two pieces of information about pottery:
“Pottery existed before the rise of stone buildings and urban architecture”

and

“has represented traces of cultural evolution dating back from early village life to at least 1600 BC in the southern Maya region up to the abandonment of urban centers at the time of Spanish conquest.”

The last part of the sentence tells us that pottery represents cultural evolution over a period of time – “dating back from early village life to at least 1600 BC in the southern Maya region up to the abandonment of urban centers at the time of Spanish conquest.”

Since the two parts of the sentence are joined by the conjunction ‘and’, the underlined portion must begin with a verb in order to complete the second clause. ‘Representing’ in Option E is a participle and therefore, changes the construction of the sentence. Option E is incorrect.

The past perfect tense is used to convey an action that took place before another action in the past. Option C contains the past perfect tense – ‘had represented’. This would convey the idea that pottery had represented cultural evolution before it existed, giving rise to a distortion of the sentence. So, Option C is also incorrect.

The present perfect tense – has represented - is used to link the past with the present. But this sentence does not refer to the present time. So, Option A is also incorrect.

Since the last part of the sentence tells us that pottery represents evolution over a period of time, conveying a generalized statement, the simple present tense should be used. Option D contains the verb ‘represent’, which would cause a subject-verb agreement error, because the subject is ‘pottery’.

Therefore, B is the most appropriate option.

Jayanthi Kumar.

Hi MentorTutoring

Can you help in understanding why choice B is right?

Sure thing, gmat1393. Whenever I get these long-winded sentences, I like to pare them down to their essentials to make it easier to follow the meaning. In this case, we get,

Pottery existed... and [blank] from A to B.

With this construct in mind, we can shave off a few answer choices by the first word or couple of words alone:

To be clear on why I am axing these options, choice (C), by adopting the past perfect, indicates that pottery no longer represents something, only that it had in the past, and the entire sentence seems to suggest otherwise. Choice (D) adopts a plural verb agreement when the subject of the sentence is singular, pottery. Choice (E) turns what should be a parallel verb (in X and Y, existed... and [verb]) into a phrase modifier that does not make sense. All of these are easy eliminations.

Between the remaining two options, take a look at the differences and ask yourself which is the harder to argue against:

Although the present perfect has represented in choice (A) could be used in a sentence that adopted a different, more open-ended timeline, such as has represented... since, it is unnecessary and incorrect here. The placement of the phrase dating back in each answer makes more sense in (B), where it links to a date. Finally, although I would not use up in up to as sole grounds for dismissal, you should always ask yourself when you see even a single extra word whether it adds anything in the way of clarity of meaning. In this context, the idiom from A to B functions perfectly well without the extra baggage. Taken together, we have a few reasons to favor (B) over (A), so (B) wins out.

I hope that helps. If you have further questions, feel free to ask. Thank you for tagging me.

- Andrew

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