It was anomalies in the orbit of Uranus that led to the

Question

It was anomalies in the orbit of Uranus that  led to the discovery of Neptune.

B. It was the orbit of Uranus showing anomalies that
C. They were anomalies in the orbit of Uranus that
D. The orbit of Uranus being anomalous was what
E. The anomalies in the orbit of Uranus was what

AlHindi · Answer

It was anomalies in the orbit of Uranus that  led to the discovery of Neptune. 

B. It was the orbit of Uranus showing anomalies that 
C. They were anomalies in the orbit of Uranus that 
D. The orbit of Uranus being anomalous was what 
E. The anomalies in the orbit of Uranus was what

There are two problems I see here in A:
It is singular but it refers to "anamolies" a prural.
"led to the discovery of Neptune" is a modifier that modifies "anamolies" a prural noun. So it must be next to anamolies not Uranus.

A, C & D are out.

Between B & D I would go for B. 
B fixes both the issues.
D also fixes both issues, but introduces another one.
"being anamolus" is an adjective phrase. It tells "Uranus is anamolus and that let to discovery of Neptune",ie, Uranus let to the discovery. This is changing the meaning of original sentence.

buckkitty · Answer

But as selene mentions in her post "it" here is a noun clause, which I think means it does not need a referrent. Can you elaborate on these noun clauses? 

I went for A too, but by POE, the "best of the worst" answer choices...

AlHindi · Answer

Best way to remove confusions with clauses is to identify dominant verb in the sentence. Then identify subject of that verb, then the object. Then identify all "extras". These "extras" are modifiers(phrases, clauses, etc).
With the exception of essential modifiers, you can remove all modifiers and sentence should still make sence.
Here is how to do it:
"It was anomalies in the orbit of Uranus that led to the discovery of Neptune. "

What is the word that is doing (dominant) or being (dominant) here?.
"was". And what was?, "it" was.
It was is thus main subject and main verb.
Next, "It was" but what? Ans--> "anamolies"

So now sentence is: "It was anamolies". (if you ignore pronoun-verb aggrement mistake, this will be a complete sentence, though wrong on GMAT). Correct sentence would be "They were anamolies".

Now to add more sense to it, a modifer is addded.
"It was anamolies  that led to the discovery of Neptune.  "
This modifer is essential modifier. It brings a whole new meaning to sentence. Without it, even though sentence is complete, it would have different meaning. What does "that led to the discovery of Neptune. " modify ?. It tells more about anamolies, a noun(object).

Now a participle phrase is added to add more information.(This introduces an error of modifier placement).
It was anamolies  in the orbit of Uranus   that led to the discovery of Neptune. 

The participle gives more information about anamolies, it shows where exactly the anamolies are. This is  extra  information by the way.
The main meaning of sentence does not change with or without it.

Now can you see what is modifier and why it is placed wrongly?.

vivek123 · Answer

It should be "A"

All other choices have problems.

buckkitty · Answer

OA is A. The OE from Kaplan800 says that "the entire underlined portion of the sentence operates as the singular subject for  led .". They further explain that "B" is wrong because it is a wordier version of A.

vivek123 · Answer

Mahesh, The anomalies in the orbit of Uranus was what ...... = Subject-verb agreement problem!

GMATT73 · Answer

anomalies...led...  correct S-V agreement

(A) reads just fine

selene · Answer

It was anomalies in the orbit of Uranus that led to the discovery of Neptune. 

B. It was the orbit of Uranus showing anomalies that ---> again a correct noun clause but the meaning is changed!!

C. They were anomalies in the orbit of Uranus that ---> "that" refers to Uranus here and then the meaning changes!

D. The orbit of Uranus being anomalous was what ---> "being" is wrong

E. The anomalies in the orbit of Uranus was what ---> "anomalies..was" no S-V agreement

 >> B is wrong not because it is the wordy version of A but it changes the meaning! It reads as if the orbit led to the discovery!

selene · Answer

It was anomalies in the orbit of Uranus that  led to the discovery of Neptune. 

M8,
Think the bold part as the subject of the sentence. In such noun clauses it is not important whether we use plural or singular objects/people in it. Maybe this example will make it more clear:

It was the  competing bicycles  that caused the traffic jam.

Professor · Answer

LITTLE AWAKWAD SENTENCE. 

i donot know how "It was anomalies" is correct. "that" also doesnot refers to anomolies. huhhhhh.........

kaplan has creazy questions with creazy OA/OE.

kayli · Answer

Totally agree with you, Professor. While A may be officially correct, it's awkward and overly wordy. Something like this would be so much stronger - Anomalies in the orbit of Uranus led to the discovery of Neptune. 

I can say that I've come across a few of these in the Kaplan/PR materials -- questions where I just don't think there is a good answer among the choices. For what it's worth, I didn't come across any of these on the actual test.

It was anomalies in the orbit of Uranus that led to the

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