Unlike conventional thinking that early tribes of Apache had reached

amazing question. i fell for E. 'unlike conventional thinking' with 'current wisdom' got me in the trap so much so that I didn't even look at the rest of the sentence.

On first look E seemed to be correct.Then after a careful reading of D and E,I decided to go with D,mainly because of the modifier issue with E.
A,B,C are obviously violating parallelism.

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E. Unlike conventional thinking that early tribes of Apache had reached the American Southwest after the Spanish invasion in the sixteenth Century, current wisdom spearheaded by Archeologist Seymour revealed that the tribals had reached the spot at least 200 years earlier, basing the proposal on the storage platforms built in where the early tribesman of Apache lived in rock shelters


We do not require 'had' before 'reached' as we are explicitly mentioning 'after' + noun phase 'the spanish invasion'.
'Current' should follow present tense, not past - 'revealed' .
'had' in 'the tribals had reached' is also wrong as there is no 2nd action.
modifier 'basing..' is incorrect.

Hey guys , I understand the issue with E but, isnt the contrast between conventional thinking and Archeologist Seymour incorrect in D? Please help

pre-dated and earlier - somehow redundant if not separated by a comma. otherwise D looks better than the rest.

I understood modifier error in E. But i rejected D because it says dated the tribal’s stint at least 200 years earlier than the Spanish Invasion of the American Southwest took place in the sixteenth century and intended meaning of the sentence says platforms where the tribesman lived in rock shelters clearly pre-dated their stint at least 200 years earlier than originally thought an not that stint happened 200 years before Spanish invasion. Seems like this option changed the intended meaning.

Can somebody please explain.

Pranav

Yes, there is a change in meaning. However please note that if there is only one grammatically correct sentence, one has to select that one, even though it may deviate in meaning from the original sentence. In no official guide is it stated that the original sentence conveys the intended meaning.

However if there are two grammatically correct sentences among the options, then one must select the one that matches with the meaning conveyed by the original sentence (if the original sentence conveys a logical meaning).

Hi, I have two questions, first of all answers A. and C. are exactly the same word by word, is this okay?

Also, and more importantly I fell for answer E., which used the Unlike modifier in a correct way, I now know that in the second part of that answer the "basing the proposal" modifier is not clearly modifying the correct thing, but I rejected answer D. because I saw that the underlined part kind of made no grammatical sense.

Could someone please explain to me why "than the Spanish Invasion of the American Southwest took place in the sixteenth century" is correct? For me it is grammatically incorrect, shouldn't it be something more like "than the Spanish Invasion of the American Southwest which took place in the sixteenth century" or like "than the Spanish Invasion of the American Southwest in the sixteenth century"?

Thank you very much for your help!

Your second question:-

Compare the following:

I came 20 minutes earlier than you came.
Platforms pre-dated 200 years earlier than the invasion took place.

Do you see now why D is structurally alright?

Nonetheless I see a slight redundancy issue in using "pre-dated" and "earlier" together.

Your first question:-
This seems to be typographical error and unintentional.

A prepositional phrase may be used as a noun modifier (like an adjective) OR a verb modifier (like an adverb). Here "in contrast to conventional wisdom" refers to the verb "revealed", not the noun "Archeologist Seymour".

daagh, hello, the question is really hard and interesting. Do you know the source of the question? I worry about this question much.

Chesstitans

This is my own question, and I don't remember wherefrom I took the passage; I have also given my views on each of the choices.

But just one thing; one of the practices that this question is supposed to give is what to do when you don't understand something in the hall.
In any case, this is a modification and comparison question, right? You can perhaps re-visit the tenets of modification and comparison and look ahead thereof. More practice seems to be the solution for your worry. If there is something worthwhile in this topic, you may take it.

Good luck

Unlike conventional thinking that early tribes of Apache had reached the American Southwest after the Spanish invasion in the sixteenth Century, Archeologist Seymour revealed that some storage platforms where the tribesman lived in rock shelters clearly pre-dated their stint at least 200 years earlier than originally thought.

A. Unlike conventional thinking that early tribes of Apache had reached the American Southwest after the Spanish invasion in the sixteenth Century, Archeologist Seymour revealed that some storage platforms where the tribesman lived in rock shelters clearly pre-dated their stint at least 200 years earlier than originally thought.
Unlike conventional thinking is not parallel to Archelogisst Seymour
Hence option A is incorrect


B. Unlike conventional thinking, early tribes of Apache had reached the American Southwest after the Spanish invasion in the sixteenth Century, Archeologist Seymour revealed that some storage platforms where the tribesman lived in rock shelters clearly pre-dated their stint at least 200 years earlier than originally thought.
Same error as option A
Hence Option B is incorrect

C. Unlike conventional thinking that early tribes of Apache had reached the American Southwest after the Spanish invasion in the sixteenth Century, Archeologist Seymour revealed that some storage platforms where the tribesman lived in rock shelters clearly pre-dated their stint at least 200 years earlier than originally thought.
Same error as option A
Hence Option C is incorrect

D. D. As per contemporary studies, and in contrast to conventional wisdom, Archeologist Seymour revealed (the erroneous comparison has been rectified)that some storage platforms in rock shelters where the early tribesman of Apache lived pre-dated the tribal’s stint at least 200 years earlier than the Spanish Invasion of the American Southwest took(unnecessary to say the invasion ‘took place’. But there is no a grammatical error) place in the sixteenth century.
Correct option
E. Unlike conventional thinking that early tribes of Apache had reached the American Southwest after the Spanish invasion in the sixteenth Century, current wisdom spearheaded by Archeologist Seymour revealed that the tribals had reached the spot at least 200 years earlier, basing the proposal on the storage platforms built in where the early tribesman of Apache lived in rock shelters
Here ‘basing’ refers to the subject of the previous clause(‘current wisdom’). But current wisdom cannot base the proposal on something. It was the archeologist who based the proposal.
Hence option E is incorrect

The correct answer is choice [D] as all other choices use the improper verb tense "had reached" in ....early tribes of Apache had reached the American Southwest after the Spanish invasion in the sixteenth Century,....

Hope this explanation helps.

apologies if I didn't read all the comments,

but I don't think ans E "basing..." is the issue, comma plus v-ing clause does not modify the subject only but rather the whole preceding clause, which is fine in here.

The issue is meaning, the "wisdom spearheaded by Seymour revealed..." is not the same as "Seymour revealed..."; ie, in the former sentence, the revelation is not restricted and may attribute to more than Seymour = change of meaning.

In E, basing can ony refer to Ar Seymour. Why E is wrong?