Almost the whole of Yellowstone National Park is located in one of the

Question

Almost the whole of Yellowstone National Park is located in one of the world’s largest volcanic craters; the question is  if the recent increased activity of the park’s geysers and hot springs indicate that the volcano has become active.

(A) if the recent increased activity of the park’s geysers and hot springs indicate that the volcano has become active.

(B) if recently observed increases in the activity of the park’s geysers and hot springs indicate that the volcano has become active.

(C) whether recently observed increases in the activity of the park’s geysers and hot springs indicate that the volcano is becoming active.

(D) whether recently observed increases in the activity of the park’s geysers and hot springs indicate that the volcano has become active.

(E) whether recently observed increases in the activity of the park’s geysers and hot springs indicate they are becoming active.

Source:   GMAT For Dummies  
Difficulty Level:   750

tarunanandani · Accepted Answer

Almost the whole of Yellowstone National Park is located in one of the world’s largest volcanic craters; the question is  if the recent increased activity of the park’s geysers and hot springs indicate that the volcano has become active.

(A)  if  the recent increased activity of the park’s geysers and hot springs indicate that the volcano has become active. --  Incorrect  'whether' is required for a 'yes/no' question.
(B)  if  recently observed increases in the activity of the park’s geysers and hot springs indicate that the volcano has become active. --  Incorrect , same as (A)
(C)  whether  recently observed increases in the activity of the park’s geysers and hot springs indicate that the volcano  is becoming  active. --  Correct 
(D)  whether  recently observed increases in the activity of the park’s geysers and hot springs indicate that the volcano  has become  active. --  Incorrect , use of perfect tense is illogical here implying that volcano has already been active, if that 's the case then there would be no need ask question about its activity.
(E)  whether  recently observed increases in the activity of the park’s geysers and hot springs indicate  they  are becoming active. --  Incorrect , pronoun issue.

manhasnoname · Answer

It should be (D). "recently observed" => past tense. "has become" => started in the past and continuing currently.

"is becoming" => present. If something is happening NOW, then the observation can't happen in the past.

Ritudas · Answer

Yes even I went for D . Seeing "is becoming" in C, i eliminated C.

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sandaki · Answer

Easy to eliminate option A and B as they use "if" without any condition. "if" + condition+ then + result/effect

Among C,D ,and E, option E has pronoun ambiguity(they).

I choose D. "has become", which already happened and continuing.

Waiting for OE

harikrish · Answer

Almost the whole of Yellowstone National Park is located in one of the world’s largest volcanic craters; the question is if the recent increased activity of the park’s geysers and hot springs indicate that the volcano has become active.

(A) if the recent increased activity of the park’s geysers and hot springs indicate that the volcano has become active.
(B) if recently observed increases in the activity of the park’s geysers and hot springs indicate that the volcano has become active.
(C) whether recently observed increases in the activity of the park’s geysers and hot springs indicate that the volcano is becoming active.
(D) whether recently observed increases in the activity of the park’s geysers and hot springs indicate that the volcano has become active.
(E) whether recently observed increases in the activity of the park’s geysers and hot springs indicate they are becoming active.

Error Analysis:

When we are asking questions, whether should be used. If is used only in case of condition. So A and B are wrong.
D is wrong because the verb is wrongly used. has become indicates that the event is not happening at present,but volcanic eruption is continuous one. So its wrong.
Option E is wrong because it incorrectly says hot springs become active.

Therefore the answer is C.

arvind910619 · Answer

Imo C
whether is more appropriate here .
If is used for conditional .

Mick1005 · Answer

Chose D.
C-Volcano is becoming active. - I am always skeptical about verb-ing in the middle of the sentence. It means that Volcano is becoming active, like a process. It is in a process of becoming active. Don't know if that was the meaning.Never heard of it.
D sounded much more precise . That it wasn't active before but has become active now

betorocks · Answer

The original sentence states that the question is asked to check whether the volcano is active. Option C in this regard changes the meaning because according to option C the activation process is still continuing. I prefer ans D because it conserve the original meaning and corrects the errors in the original. Someone please help

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jch103020 · Answer

I agree that the best option is D.

In my opinion, the "active" state is binary - a volcano is either active or inactive.

Kchaudhary · Answer

Hi  jch103020

D is wrong because it changes the meaning. D says ....'the volcano has become active'. It means volcano became active sometime in past and it is active since then even now, and If this will be the case then there is no question remains to ask whether ....bla bla.

Hope it helps.

globaldesi · Answer

GMATNinja  can you help with this question? why C and not D is the correct answer.
Volcano is becoming active sounds weird. HAs become active also depicts active stared in past and d have an effect on present

zondice · Answer

For me , both C and D are really close options. How does one select the better option in such cases on test day ?

DmitryFarberMPrep · Answer

This isn't valid. The GMAT wouldn't require us to make a real-world distinction about whether activity now means that the volcano has already become active or is merely in the process of  becoming  active. This isn't a tense issue; it's a science issue!

vasuca10 · Answer

VeritasKarishma  Mam  mikemcgarry  sir  GMATNinja  sir I am unable to understand why Option D is incorrect here.Kindly explain

KarishmaB · Answer

(D) is a problem for me. It uses present perfect "has become active" which implies it has just had an eruption or is having one right now. If it has had an eruption, the question itself does not arise.
 
Hence I would use "is becoming active" - is in the process of becoming active - Will we see an eruption soon?

AjiteshArun · Answer

Maybe if the volcano has already become active , we wouldn't be looking at just some geysers and springs. That is, there would be no "question" left to ask.

That said, I'm sure there is a technical side to the term "active volcano", so it's hard to say whether the GMAT would put you in this kind of situation.

Sajjad1994 · Answer

Official Explanation

You can eliminate answer  choice A  because the underlined portion of this sentence correction problem contains at least three errors:

 When only two possibilities exist, as in this case, you use whether rather than if.

 The second error concerns subject-verb agreement. The subject of the clause is activity, which is singular, so you need to use the singular verb indicates rather than the plural form, indicate.
 Because the volcanic activity is in the process of becoming active, saying is becoming active is better than saying has become active.

Get rid of  B  because it uses if rather than whether and doesn’t correct the verb form at the end of the sentence.

The remaining choices solve the problem with subject/verb agreement and word choice, but  D  fails to correct the error in verb form.

Choice C is the only answer to correct all errors.

Almost the whole of Yellowstone National Park is located in one of the

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GMAT Sentence Correction (SC - EA only) Questions

Almost the whole of Yellowstone National Park is located in one of the

Prep Toolkit

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

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My Rewards