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Researchers in Germany have unearthed 400,000-year-old wooden spears

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SiddyVR46
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Re: Researchers in Germany have unearthed 400,000-year-old wooden spears [#permalink] New post   26 Jul 2016, 11:23
VeritasPrepKarishma wrote:
Quote:
Researchers in Germany have unearthed 400,000-year-old wooden spears from what it appears was an ancient lakeshore hunting ground as stunning evidence of human ancestors who systematically hunted big game much earlier than believed.

A. it appears was an ancient lakeshore hunting ground as stunning evidence of human ancestors who
B. it appears had been an ancient lakeshore hunting ground and stunning evidence that human ancestors
C. appears was an ancient lakeshore hunting ground and is stunning evidence that human ancestors
D. appears to be an ancient lakeshore hunting ground, stunning evidence that human ancestors
E. appears that it is an ancient lakeshore hunting ground, stunning evidence of human ancestors who


Could you please help us with this question ?

I am still not clear - how "stunning evidence" in (D) is modifying "spears"-a noun which is far away from the modifier...



'stunning evidence ... ' in (D) is an absolute phrase. An absolute phrase is a group of words that modifies an independent clause as a whole.
What is the evidence? It is that "400,000-year-old wooden spears have been unearthed from an ancient hunting ground". The entire clause is the evidence. It's something similar to appositive.



I am unable to understand how 'stunning evidence ... ' in (D) works as an absolute phrase. If we consider 'stunning evidence ... ' in (D) as appositive then it will modify the noun preceding the appositive and hence modifying "an ancient lakeshore hunting ground" and not the whole phrase in front of it.

Can you please clarify on it.
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KarishmaB
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Re: Researchers in Germany have unearthed 400,000-year-old wooden spears [#permalink] New post   27 Jul 2016, 00:46
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SiddyVR46 wrote:
VeritasPrepKarishma wrote:
Quote:
Researchers in Germany have unearthed 400,000-year-old wooden spears from what it appears was an ancient lakeshore hunting ground as stunning evidence of human ancestors who systematically hunted big game much earlier than believed.

A. it appears was an ancient lakeshore hunting ground as stunning evidence of human ancestors who
B. it appears had been an ancient lakeshore hunting ground and stunning evidence that human ancestors
C. appears was an ancient lakeshore hunting ground and is stunning evidence that human ancestors
D. appears to be an ancient lakeshore hunting ground, stunning evidence that human ancestors
E. appears that it is an ancient lakeshore hunting ground, stunning evidence of human ancestors who


Could you please help us with this question ?

I am still not clear - how "stunning evidence" in (D) is modifying "spears"-a noun which is far away from the modifier...



'stunning evidence ... ' in (D) is an absolute phrase. An absolute phrase is a group of words that modifies an independent clause as a whole.
What is the evidence? It is that "400,000-year-old wooden spears have been unearthed from an ancient hunting ground". The entire clause is the evidence. It's something similar to appositive.



I am unable to understand how 'stunning evidence ... ' in (D) works as an absolute phrase. If we consider 'stunning evidence ... ' in (D) as appositive then it will modify the noun preceding the appositive and hence modifying "an ancient lakeshore hunting ground" and not the whole phrase in front of it.

Can you please clarify on it.


An absolute phrase modifies an entire clause.
Check here: https://www.gmatclub.com/forum/veritas-prep-resource-links-no-longer-available-399979.html#/2014/09 ... -the-gmat/
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Re: Researchers in Germany have unearthed 400,000-year-old wooden spears [#permalink] New post   16 Jun 2021, 06:18
VeritasKarishma wrote:
Quote:
Researchers in Germany have unearthed 400,000-year-old wooden spears from what it appears was an ancient lakeshore hunting ground as stunning evidence of human ancestors who systematically hunted big game much earlier than believed.

A. it appears was an ancient lakeshore hunting ground as stunning evidence of human ancestors who
B. it appears had been an ancient lakeshore hunting ground and stunning evidence that human ancestors
C. appears was an ancient lakeshore hunting ground and is stunning evidence that human ancestors
D. appears to be an ancient lakeshore hunting ground, stunning evidence that human ancestors
E. appears that it is an ancient lakeshore hunting ground, stunning evidence of human ancestors who


Could you please help us with this question ?

I am still not clear - how "stunning evidence" in (D) is modifying "spears"-a noun which is far away from the modifier...



'stunning evidence ... ' in (D) is an absolute phrase. An absolute phrase is a group of words that modifies an independent clause as a whole.
What is the evidence? It is that "400,000-year-old wooden spears have been unearthed from an ancient hunting ground". The entire clause is the evidence. It's something similar to appositive.


How do we know that one is an absolute modifier and one is an ing modifier? I thought stunning was an ing modifier.
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Re: Researchers in Germany have unearthed 400,000-year-old wooden spears [#permalink] New post   03 Jan 2022, 23:39
can expects please clarify that in D "stunning evidence of human ancestors who.." modifies the whole clause "Researches in germany " though the agent of this clause is word
"researchers" which doesn't correlate with "stunning evidence". then the placement of this modifier "stunning evidence .." is wrong ?
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Researchers in Germany have unearthed 400,000-year-old wooden spears [#permalink] New post   Updated on: 05 Oct 2022, 21:20
ok for people who don't know what are absolute phrases here are my 2cents on how to solve this one :

A: appear was is a red flag, it still is perhaps, also evidence of is unidiomatic
B: Appears it had been and stunning evidence that : this is problematic because the "And" here just disturbs the meaning altogether
C: "Appear was" : same error as A
D: hold , can't find a mistake
E : Evidence of unidiomatic

D It is : and stunning evidence modifies the clause before the comma so yeah

Originally posted by Jatin108 on 03 Apr 2022, 11:36.
Last edited by Jatin108 on 05 Oct 2022, 21:20, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Researchers in Germany have unearthed 400,000-year-old wooden spears [#permalink] New post   04 Oct 2022, 11:43
Appears verb is referring to which subject? Is from what resulting in inverted sentence structure?
Please help

@VeritasKarishma GMATNinja
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Re: Researchers in Germany have unearthed 400,000-year-old wooden spears [#permalink] New post   09 Nov 2022, 10:07
how do I identify here that 'stunning' is not ing verbal but part of absolute phrase

I thought ing verbal is incorrectly used here.
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Re: Researchers in Germany have unearthed 400,000-year-old wooden spears [#permalink] New post   16 Jan 2023, 21:22
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nikitathegreat wrote:
Appears verb is referring to which subject? Is from what resulting in inverted sentence structure?
Please help

@veritaskarishma GMATNinja

This is construction certainly isn't wrong, but it's funky and pretty unusual. "What" is basically functioning as a stand-in (a pronoun) for "the thing that":

    "Researchers in Germany have unearthed 400,000-year-old wooden spears from the thing that appears to be an ancient lakeshore hunting ground..."

And how do we know whether it should be "appear" or "appears"? Well, it depends on what comes after "to be":

  • "Researchers have found what appears to be an ancient hunting ground." - Since "an ancient hunting ground" is singular, we need a singular form of the verb ("appears"). Notice also that you can replace "what" with "the thing that" ("the thing that appears to be...").
  • "Researchers have found what appear to be ancient fishing hooks." - Since "ancient fishing hooks" is plural, we now need a plural verb (appear). Now the "what" means "the things that".

But again, this isn't something you're likely to see very often, so don't lose too much sleep over it.

I hope that helps!
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Re: Researchers in Germany have unearthed 400,000-year-old wooden spears [#permalink]
16 Jan 2023, 21:22
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