The new image of Stone Age people as systematic hunters of large anima

Great! Thank you so much, that helped me a lot.

One quick question for you however about "Which".

It says it should only refer to the closest noun, tkae this sentence as an example.

The neighborhood of the south, which is really expensive, has seen a substantial increase in crime.

this sentence is incorrect since "Which" refers to the closest noun which is south, but in fact modifies "neighborhood" so it is not correct.

This sentence is correct actually. It conveys two things:

i) neighborhood (of the south) has seen a substantial increase in crime.
ii) South is really expensive

It is incorrect to say that which always refers to closest noun; a more accurate description would be that which always refers to the nearest grammatically eligible noun.

p.s. Our book EducationAisle Sentence Correction Nirvana discusses usage of which, its application and examples in significant detail. If someone is interested, PM me your email-id, I can mail the corresponding section.
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2 concepts tested here...

1) S-V agreement (its easy to spot has vs have , Although i got it wrong at my first attempt)
2) Pronoun .....

C - That ---> Ambiguous reference
D - Which ---> Germany (wrong reference)
E - Modifier Including correctly refer to the subject in first clause.

Kudos pls ..... Its my food ...do feed me :D

I have a query -

In Option E, including should ideally be used to represent the result of previous clause and/or refer back to the main subject - the new image. But in this case it is used to modify tools. Can someone help to understand that part?

Also, as per knowledge 'which' in option D cannot jump over a verb and modify tools. Is that correct?

A present participle modifier refers to an entire clause not just to depict the result of the clause. The modifier may modify in some other way as well, such as depicting how the action in the previous clause is done.

Steffi won Wimbledon, defeating Sabatini.

In option E the present participle (including...) does not depict the result of the previous clause. You may consider it a means to have the new image that stone age people are systematic hunters.

In option D, there is no verb between "which" and "tools" - "found" is a past participle modifier of "tools". The reason that D is wrong is as follows: in GMAT it is often awkward (except some exceptions) to have two modifiers one after the other (without a conjunction in between) to refer to the same noun.

The first part of the explanation: the phrase after comma offers some additional information about the sentence as a whole. In this case, it talks about tools? Question is can it offer information about a part of the sentence and not the main idea in general. I got an explanation that 'including' works in a different way as opposed to verb-ing form.

Can you further explain this sentence please? ---> in GMAT it is often awkward (except some exceptions) to have two modifiers one after the other (without a conjunction in between) to refer to the same noun

In D, the modifiers "found in Germany" and "which includes..." both refer to "tools". There is no conjunction between them. Such usage ( two modifiers one after the other (without a conjunction in between) to refer to the same noun) is often considered awkward.

Hi,
I have two doubts. Can u please advise.

Doubt 1:
The verb+ing modifier suggests:
1. HOW aspect of the preceding clause
2. RESULT aspect of the same

But the meaning here intents to state about the types of tools that was examined. Doesnt specify the HOW/RESULT part.

Doubt 2 : Also "which" can jump the prepositional phrase( "in Germany") and refer to "tools". So why option D is wrong?

"Including", unlike all other present participle modifier, is an exception. It follows a list, an incomplete list.

The striking differences between the semantic organization of Native American languages and that of European languages, including grammar and vocabulary, has to think about the degree to which differences in language may be correlated with non-linguistic differences.

Here, "grammar and vocabulary" is not a complete list of the differences, but some of those.



Yes, it can. But, in that case, you need "include" and not "includes" - because "tools" is plural.
Refer this official question: https://gmatclub.com/forum/for-many-rev ... 60640.html

Hi shoumodip, I believe you're referring to the usage of including in option E. Actually including is not in strict sense a verb+ing modifier. It is a preposition (and not an adjective, as present participles normally are). Hence, we cannot apply the normal rules of present participles to including.


Notice that D says: which includes three wooden spears...

Since the verb is includes (a singular verb), which can only refer to singular noun. Hence, which cannot refer to tools (a plural noun).

p.s. Our book EducationAisle Sentence Correction Nirvana discusses this exception of the usage of including. Have attached the corresponding section of the book, for your reference.

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We’ve got an X rather than Y comparison structure. We’re going to have to figure out what the X is and that will indicate what form we need to choose for the Y. (You may decide to jot down X rather than Y to remind yourself to address this issue.)

Time to Read the sentence! What’s it saying?

Strip that down to the core:

The new image of (some) people as X, rather than Y, have emerged from the examination (of tools).

What do you notice?

Wait a sec: there’s an error in the core sentence! You can choose to stick with the original comparison issue, or you can switch gears and Work on the subject-verb issue first. I’m going to do the latter:

The new image have emerged.

No way! Image is singular, so it should say the new image has emerged. Say goodbye to answers (A) and (B).
Answers (C) through (E) are all okay on this point, so now loop back around. Luckily, we’ve already identified the second potential issue: that comparison.

The new image of (some) people as systematic hunters of large animals, rather than Y, have emerged from the examination (of tools).


X is hunters (of large animals), so Y should be in the same noun form. This is another reason to get rid of (A) and (B), but (C) through (E) all use the proper match, scavengers.

Aside: I’m not thrilled with mere meat scavengers in (C). I’d prefer mere scavengers of meat, as in (D) and (E). But there isn’t a strong grammatical reason why I couldn’t use mere meat scavengers, so I’m going to ignore that and look for something else. Loop around again!

Now, when you’re down to a small number of choices, compare the remaining answers, looking for differences. There are a couple, but they’re all actually part of a big modifier, so I recommend looking at them as one big chunk:
“(C) … from examining tools found in Germany that includes
“(D) … from the examination of tools found in Germany, which includes
“(E) … from the examination of tools found in Germany, including”

The three structures at the end are used for three types of modifiers.

That includes, in (C), signals an essential noun modifier: the modifier must be included in the sentence or the basic meaning of the core sentence will be nonsensical.
Further, the noun should be as close as possible to the modifier. In this case, the noun Germany is right before the comma. Logically, the modifier should refer to tools. In certain circumstances, it is possible to have a short separation of the noun and the modifier—but is it okay in this case to say that the that includes modifier refers back to tools, with a short found in Germany modifier in between?

Try it out:

… from the examination of tools that includes …
Oops. No, it’s not possible in this case because tools is plural and includes is singular. Logically, the modifier points to tools, but structurally it points to the singular Germany (or maybe even the singular examination?). None of these works; eliminate (C).
Can you use the same reasoning to eliminate either (D) or (E)?

Yes! Answer (D) changes the modifier to the non-essential structure comma which includes, and this modifier has the same problem: includes would have to be plural in order to point to tools. Eliminate (D).

But wait a second. Answer (E) doesn’t seem to be doing what it’s supposed to be doing either. It uses a comma –ing modifier:

The new image of (some) people as X, rather than Y, has emerged from the examination of tools found in Germany, including (some spears).

A comma –ing modifier refers back to the entire preceding clause, but is it really the case that the three spears refer back to the image has emerged from the examination?

We’ve just uncovered one of the few exceptions to the general comma –ing rule: when using the word including, the sentence really can just be giving examples of something (usually a noun) that was named shortly before the comma. Unlike the modifiers in answers (C) and (D), the including modifier in (E) does not contain a verb that needs to match the noun tools, so there are no problems with the construction.

I think EducationAisle has the best explanation for why "including" does not behave like a normal verb-ing modifier. It is because "including" is actually a preposition rather than a present participle.

Definitions of "including":
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/including
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dic ... /including

yanleman



This is a valid question, and is in fact one of the key concepts being tested in the above question as well. The word "which" modifies the immediately preceding noun phrase/idea. Now how is this different from simply the previous noun? What you have to look out for is that several words can be used to express a single idea. "Neighbourhood of the South" is 4 words, but it refers to a single idea, and that idea is about a neighbourhood, not so much the direction (in fact, 'of the South' merely adds descriptive value to the neighbourhood).

In this question, "the examination of tools found in Germany" is a single noun phrase, despite being very long. Had the sentence gone on to say "which includes forensic analysis", D would have been fine, because the noun phrase being referred to by "which" was the examination of the tools.

Since we are talking about tools themselves, we need the noun idea being referred to to be those specific tools, and this is only present in E.
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EducationAisle

I chose D because in E comma + including is right after Germany. In my notes and in your book it says "To summarize, including can modify the Noun or Noun-Phrase (whichever makes sense) immediately before the participle including".

Isn't "including" in E wrongly modifies "Germany" instead of "tools"? Please shed a light on how "including" modifies nouns and can it actually jump over nouns immediately preceding it?

THANKS!

Hi! Reiterating:

including can modify the Noun or Noun-Phrase (whichever makes sense) immediately before including

In option E, noun phrase (tools found in Germany) makes sense. So, including will modify tools.

Note that D cannot be the answer in any case, because of the construct which includes. Here, which is intended to modify tools (plural) and so, at the very least, the correct verb would be include (and not includes).
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EducationAisle

Can you elaborate what a noun phrase is? "the examination of tools found in Germany" here there are 2 prepositions "of tools" and "in germany". However in here you took "tools in germany" as a noun phrase. I am confused. Is a preposition + noun - a noun phrase?

Thanks

More specifically the portion immediately after the preposition is a noun phrase.

In fact, a preposition is followed by a noun/noun-phrase.
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The new image of Stone Age people as systematic hunters of large animals, rather than merely scavenging for meat, have emerged from the examination of tools found in Germany, including three wooden spears that archaeologists believe to be about 400,000 years old.

(A) merely scavenging for meat, have emerged from the examination of tools found in Germany, including "scavenging for meat" is not parallel to "hunters of large animals". Plural "have" incorrectly used for singular "image". Eliminate.

(B) as mere scavenging for meat, have emerged from examining tools found in Germany, which include Same parallelism error as in (A). Also, "which" incorrectly refers to "Germany" - it should refer to "tools". Eliminate.

(C) as mere meat scavengers, has emerged from examining tools found in Germany that includes "that" incorrectly refers to "Germany" - it should refer to "tools". Eliminate.

(D) mere scavengers of meat, has emerged from the examination of tools found in Germany, which includes "which" incorrectly refers to "Germany" - it should refer to "tools". Eliminate.

(E) mere scavengers of meat, has emerged from the examination of tools found in Germany, including Correct answer.

Hope this helps.
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Shouldn't ", + including" modify the preceding clause and not any noun in particular. I have read that a comma+ing verb is always used to modify the preceding clause by presenting the how or result aspect of the action that has taken place in the preceding clause.