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15 Apr 2022, 22:35
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waytowharton
My only problem with (A) is that modifier 'reducing...' is referring to ancestors instead of 'the event'.
It uses a parenthetical expression with an em dash. It is allowed. A parenthetical expression is something said as an aside - to give more info about what was said just before it. A parenthetical expression can be a phrase, clause or word.
The real issue with (A) is that the ing clause at the end with a comma will modify either the subject or the entire previous clause. But the action of reducing was actually done by the event so it should modify 'the event'.
Option (B) corrects this by saying 'an event that greatly reduced their numbers...'
Options (C) and (D) have a parallelism problem:
"their numbers were greatly reduced and thus our genetic variation."
is incomplete. What happened to our genetic variation?
The point is that the event greatly reduced our numbers and thus (greatly reduced) our genetic variation.
In (E), if we use 'that', we should use it at the beginning of the parenthetic. After 'some time in the past', it makes no sense. Also they did not suffer an event with the intention of reducing our numbers (this is implied by 'so as to' - it suggests 'purpose')
Note: 'at some time in the past' is an adverbial prepositional phrase which has the liberty to move around in the sentence. If it comes at the beginning, it is usually followed by a comma. But none of the options except (E) give it and (E) is certainly wrong. So we find that (B) is the best of the lot.
15 Apr 2022, 22:42
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waytowharton
By the way, don't look for 'rules'. It all depends on context and that is why it makes you think afresh every time.
For your point 2, I would say that I prefer (a) over (b). (b) is confusing and you have to run through the entire sentence to make sense of what is being said.
16 Apr 2022, 05:46
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KarishmaB
I will second this advice not to create rules. You might find it more useful to approach SC in a "Popper-ian" mindset (link for further reading); namely, the more you observe a certain feature or issue in a correct or incorrect answer choice, the greater your degree of confidence can be in the correctness of that feature. However, you never want to close your mind to the possibility that a new question could add a different layer of meaning to your understanding.
Speaking directly to the question you asked, I have seen no SC sentences in which an independent clause acts as a subject on its own. An independent clause is, by definition, complete, so there would be no reason to add an extra verb to it in an attempt to turn it into a subject. Where I think people get confused is when a noun clause acts as a subject, but that noun clause could not stand on its own, with a period at the end.
- That GMAT Club is the best forum for GMAT preparation is not a complete sentence (unless dialogue is allowed to enter the picture, and that is a completely different conversation).
- In the sentence, What I said is that he ought to work harder, neither the subject, the noun clause what I said, nor the subject complement, that he ought to work harder, can act as an independent clause.
I have combed through just about every official SC question that has been released, and I have seen zero exceptions to what I have outlined above. Nevertheless, I am open to the possibility that if I do come across one that seems to bend the so-called rules, I will need to revise my views.
Thank you for thinking to ask, and good luck with your studies.
- Andrew
