imaru wrote:
The global-warming effect of ocean white caps are one of the many aspects of the ocean environment that are not yet incorporated in any detail into the computer models used for predicting how rising greenhouse gas concentrations could affect climate.
(A) The global-warming effect of ocean white caps are one of the many aspects of the ocean environment that are not yet incorporated in any detail into the computer models used for predicting
(B) The effect of ocean white caps on global warming are one of the many aspects of the ocean environment that are not yet incorporated in any detail into the computer models, which they use to predict
(C) The effect of ocean white caps on global warming is one of the many aspects of the ocean environment that are not yet incorporated in any detail into the computer models used to predict
(D) That ocean white caps have an effect on global warming is one of the many aspects of the ocean environment not yet having been incorporated in any detail into the computer models used for predicting
(E) That ocean white caps have an effect on global warming is one of the many aspects of the ocean environment not yet being incorporated in any detail into the computer models, which they use to predict
What does the sentence tell us?
That ‘the global-warming effect of ocean white caps’ is an aspect of the ocean environment. It is one of many aspects that are not incorporated into the computer models used to predict ‘something’ If we look at just the structure of the sentence,
‘A’ is one of the many aspects of ‘B’ that are not yet incorporated in any detail into ‘C’ used to predict something.
A – The effect of ocean white caps
B – ocean environment
C – Computer models
Breaking it down:
‘A’ is one of the many aspects of ‘B’ - Main Clause (Subject ‘A’, singular verb ‘is’)
that are not yet incorporated in any detail into ‘C’ used to predict something - Relative Clause in which ‘that’ refers to ‘the many aspects of B’ since it is these aspects that are not incorporated into the models.
The subject ‘A’ is singular in every option. In both ‘the global-warming effect of ocean white caps’ and ‘the effect of ocean white caps on global warming,’ we are talking about the singular ‘effect.’
‘That ocean white caps have an effect on global warming’ is a noun clause and when clauses are used as subject, they are singular.
(A) The global-warming effect of ocean white caps are one of the many aspects of the ocean environment that are not yet incorporated in any detail into the computer models used for predicting
(B) The effect of ocean white caps on global warming are one of the many aspects of the ocean environment that are not yet incorporated in any detail into the computer models, which they use to predict Options (A) and (B) use plural ‘are’ with the singular subject in the main clause and hence we can eliminate them.
(B) The effect of ocean white caps on global warming are one of the many aspects of the ocean environment that are not yet incorporated in any detail into the computer models, which they use to predict
(E) That ocean white caps have an effect on global warming is one of the many aspects of the ocean environment not yet being incorporated in any detail into the computer models, which they use to predict‘used for predicting’/’used to predict’ are past participle modifiers for computer models. We know that GMAT prefers ‘used to predict’ but we cannot eliminate based on that because ‘used for predicting’ is acceptable too though less common. But, ‘which they use to predict,’ a relative clause modifying ‘computer models’ is not correct because it uses the pronoun ‘they’ which has no antecedent in our sentence. Hence options (B) and (E) are not correct.
(D) That ocean white caps have an effect on global warming is one of the many aspects of the ocean environment not yet having been incorporated in any detail into the computer models used for predicting The use of a relative clause - ‘that are not yet incorporated …’ to modify ‘many aspects’ is correct.
Option (D) is incorrect in its use of the perfect participle ‘having been incorporated.’ Perfect participle shows an event that happened before another but we don’t have two events here.
(C) The effect of ocean white caps on global warming is one of the many aspects of the ocean environment that are not yet incorporated in any detail into the computer models used to predict Option (C) is correct and preferable in all respects.
Answer (C)