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shelrod007
Joined: 23 Jan 2013
Last visit: 16 Sep 2016
Posts: 99
Given Kudos: 41
Concentration: Technology, Other
Schools: Berkeley Haas
GMAT Date: 01-14-2015
WE:Information Technology (Computer Software)
20 Aug 2013, 07:13
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I generally find it very hard to split the scentence into IC's and DC's , as a result i falter on questions .
" Fossils of the arm of a sloth found in Puerto Rico in 1991 , and dated at 34 million years old , made it the earliest known mammal of the greater Antilles Islands . "
Step 1 : Understand the meaning
a ) Fossils of the arm of a sloth were found in Peuto Rico in 1991 ,
--- 34 million years old .
As a results the sloth is now the earliest known mammal of the Greater Antilles Islands .
STEP 2 : Here is the problem with me breaking the sentences into clauses
1) Fossils of the arm of a sloth found in Puetro Rico in 1991 ,
2) and dated at 34 million years old ,
3) made it the earliest known mammal of the greater Antilles Islands .
My Analysis :
S-V : Recognizing the subject/ verb is a herculean task for me
In the sentence the Subject is Fossils , but i guess we dont have any verb ?
Am i right on this since i guess dated is a verb -ed modifier and made is not a verb .
Pronoun error : "it " refers to the fossils which would not make sense in this context since fossils cannot be oldest mammals .
I guess there are the only two errors in this sentence , kindly let me know if i am correct in my above analysis also how can i improve my sentence split , i really find it hard to do so .
" Fossils of the arm of a sloth found in Puerto Rico in 1991 , and dated at 34 million years old , made it the earliest known mammal of the greater Antilles Islands . "
Step 1 : Understand the meaning
a ) Fossils of the arm of a sloth were found in Peuto Rico in 1991 ,
--- 34 million years old .
As a results the sloth is now the earliest known mammal of the Greater Antilles Islands .
STEP 2 : Here is the problem with me breaking the sentences into clauses
1) Fossils of the arm of a sloth found in Puetro Rico in 1991 ,
2) and dated at 34 million years old ,
3) made it the earliest known mammal of the greater Antilles Islands .
My Analysis :
S-V : Recognizing the subject/ verb is a herculean task for me
In the sentence the Subject is Fossils , but i guess we dont have any verb ?
Am i right on this since i guess dated is a verb -ed modifier and made is not a verb .
Pronoun error : "it " refers to the fossils which would not make sense in this context since fossils cannot be oldest mammals .
I guess there are the only two errors in this sentence , kindly let me know if i am correct in my above analysis also how can i improve my sentence split , i really find it hard to do so .
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20 Aug 2013, 12:14
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shelrod007
Dear Shelrod007,
I'm happy to help.
This is a very tricky sentence. The subject has a couple prepositional phrase vital noun modifiers ----- "Fossils of the arm of a sloth" --- essentially, that whole "chunk" is the subject. See this blog for more on vital noun modifiers:
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2012/gmat-gramm ... modifiers/
Then there are two participial phrase in parallel, modifying the subject.
// found in Puerto Rico in 1991
and
// dated at 34 million years old
See this blog for participial phrases:
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2012/participle ... -the-gmat/
See this blog for parallelism:
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2013/parallelis ... orrection/
Then we get to the main verb of the sentence --- "made". Since this is a past tense verb, S-V agreement is not an issue. S-V agreement is an issue in the present test (he makes, they make), but not in the past tense. See this blog for more on agreement:
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2013/subject-ve ... orrection/
The pronoun "it" is correct --- it refers to the "sloth". Fossils are not mammals ---they are collections of dead bones. Sloths are mammals. See this blog on pronoun problems:
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2013/gmat-pronoun-traps/
Finally, notice there's a sophisticated idiom in this sentence --- to make P Q. For example,
to make TR the youngest president
to make her novel a best seller
to make the walrus my new pet
You may find our free idiom ebook helpful:
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2013/gmat-idiom-ebook/
This sentence has a boatload of modifying phrases, but there is not a single dependent clause in the entire sentence. The commas are a little funky, but other than that, I don't believe there's any grammatical flaw with the sentence.
Now, as to your more general question: you may have gotten the idea that the Magoosh free blog is dense with valuable articles about GMAT SC. I would highly recommend reading through the articles on this blog. The more you understand the various possible grammatical structures, the easier it becomes to dissect a long sentence.
Does all this make sense?
Mike
amitbharadwaj7
Joined: 01 Sep 2012
Last visit: 23 Aug 2014
Posts: 39
Own Kudos:
Given Kudos: 60
Status:Joining Cranfield Sep 2014
Concentration: Technology, General Management
Schools: WBS '16 Cranfield '16 (I)
GMAT 1: 530 Q50 V14
GMAT 2: 630 Q48 V29
WE:Engineering (Energy)
Products:
20 Aug 2013, 13:01
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shelrod007
I think you should attend E-GMAT Sentence Correction Free Session. Your approach is in the same line as they teach. I appreciate your approach and, my suggestion is to go to this link fossils-of-the-arm-of-a-sloth-found-in-puerto-rico-in-80744.html for more details
