OFFICIAL EXPLANATIONProject SC Butler: Sentence Correction (SC2)
THE PROMPTThe belief that whales were terrestrial mammals that transitioned into the ocean is supported by evidence of whale fossils with legs and knees. THE OPTIONSQuote:
A) The belief that whales were terrestrial mammals that transitioned into the ocean is supported by evidence of whale fossils with legs and knees.
• I do not see any errors
Quote:
B) The belief about whales being terrestrial mammals which transitioned into the ocean was supported by whale fossils having legs and knees.
•
which should be
that (
that and
which are not interchangeable)
→
which introduces non-essential material and should be set off by a comma or commas, whereas
that introduces essential material and should not be set off by commas
•
The belief about whales being is at best awkward and at worst ungrammatical.
•
was should be
is.
→ GMAT follows the convention wherein if a thing is still true, we use the present tense even if part of the sentence is in the past tense.
Correct: In 1905, Einstein proposed that light is composed of particles.
ELIMINATE B
Quote:
C) The belief about whales as terrestrial mammals transitioning into the ocean have been supported by evidence of whale fossils with legs and knees.
• the plural verb
have does not agree with the singular subject
belief.
ELIMINATE C
Quote:
D) The belief that whales were terrestrial mammals that made the transition into the ocean is supported by evidence of whale fossils with legs and knees.
• This option is grammatical and nearly identical to option A—but not as concise as option A
→
made the transition is not as crisp as the muscular verb in option A,
transitioned→ yes, sometimes the difference between a correct and incorrect answer is a few words.
If two options say exactly the same thing, choose the shorter version, especially if concision involves a verb
ELIMINATE D
Quote:
E) Whale fossils with legs and knees is evidence supporting the belief of whales as once being terrestrial mammals.
• This sentence is horrible. Truly awful. It sounds like babble.
→
belief of whales as once being terrestrial mammals is nonsensical and poorly phrased
Whales did not believe anything. (Well, they might have believed things, who knows, but they did not believe that their fossils were evidence of something.)
Compare to A:
The belief that whales were terrestrial animals is far superior to "belief of whales as . . ."
• the singular verb
is does not agree with the plural subject
fossils.ELIMINATE E
The best answer is A.• NOTESAntrikshR , you wrote:
Quote:
The belief (N1)
that whales(N2) were (V2)terrestrial mammals
that transitioned into the ocean (Restrictive Clause)
is supported (V1) by evidence of whale fossils with legs and knees.
--'whale fossils' is too concise IMO, fossils of the whale would have been much better.
-- Land Mammals that transitioned into ocean itself?
Do you mean : 'terrestrial mammals that transitioned into the ocean mammals' / 'terrestrial mammals that transitioned into those of the ocean'.
Or
'Land mammals that made a transition from Land to Ocean'?
-- I found this sentence a little ambiguous.
generis I need enlightenment
AntrikshR , nice catch. (Except you're wrong about "fossils of the whale," or even "fossils of whales." The phrase "whale fossils" is better—it's standard usage.)
Transition implies change from one stage or process to another stage or process.
You wrote:
Quote:
Do you mean : 'terrestrial mammals that transitioned into the ocean mammals'
Well, I don't "mean" or intend to say anything; I don't write these questions.
(Writing these questions is really hard. You all should try to write one. I'm completely serious.)
But yes, the author meant "terrestrial mammals that transitioned into [being] ocean mammals." The latter phrasing would have been better.
The whales did not change from "stage: terrestrial mammals" into "stage: ocean." The whales did not become a body of water.
On the other hand, I should not be encouraging you to argue with the correct answer.
Our goal is to eliminate the four worst answers, not to find one nearly perfect answer.
On yet another hand, this question is not official, and the phrasing you flagged is not great. As I said, nice catch.
I suppose that balance is key: move quickly to find indisputable errors that will help you eliminate options.
At the same time,
keeping time in mind, be on the lookout for subtle errors that might be decisive factors between two close options.
Although I don't think you can argue successfully that another option is better, you have good insight: phrasing in the best answer is a bit murky.
Open D suffers from the same murkiness as that in option A.
....whales were terrestrial mammals that made the transition into [being ocean mammals] -- not into [being] the ocean.
I hope that answer helps.
COMMENTSPlease be sure to ask yourself whether another aspirant would understand your explanation.
These explanations range from passable to excellent. Be safe, everyone.