Hello Everyone!
This is a great example of a GMAT question that focuses on
verb tenses and
idioms! Let's start by taking a quick look at the question and highlight any major differences between the options in
orange:
While many of the dinosaur fossils found recently in northeast China seem to provide evidence of the kinship between dinosaurs and birds, the wealth of enigmatic fossils
seem more likely at this stage that they will inflame debates over the origin of birds rather than settle them.
(A)
seem more likely at this stage that
they will inflame debates over the origin of birds
rather than(B)
seem more likely that
it will inflame debates over the origin of birds
at this stage than(C)
seems more likely
to inflame debates on the origin of birds
at this stage rather than(D)
seems more likely
at this stage to inflame debates over the origin of birds
than to(E)
seems more likely
that it will inflame debates on the origin of birds
at this stage than toAfter a quick glance over the options, we have a few things we can focus on:
1. seem vs. seems (Subject-Verb Agreement)
2. they will inflame / it will inflame / to inflame (Subject-Verb Agreement & Idioms)
3. than vs. than to (Idioms)Let's start with #1 on our list, which focuses on subject-verb agreement. The verb we're dealing with here is seem/seems, so we need to look to the original sentence to find our subject:
While many of the dinosaur fossils found recently in northeast China seem to provide evidence of the kinship between dinosaurs and birds, the wealth of enigmatic fossils seem more likely at this stage that they will inflame debates over the origin of birds rather than settle them.Since "wealth" is singular, we need to find the options that use the singular "seems," and then rule out the ones that use the plural "seem."
(A)
seem more likely at this stage that they will inflame debates over the origin of birds rather than
(B)
seem more likely that it will inflame debates over the origin of birds at this stage than
(C)
seems more likely to inflame debates on the origin of birds at this stage rather than
(D)
seems more likely at this stage to inflame debates over the origin of birds than to
(E)
seems more likely that it will inflame debates on the origin of birds at this stage than to
We can eliminate options A & B because the subject and verb don't agree. Now that we have this narrowed down to only 2 options, let's move on to the idiom issue. Again, if we look at the entire sentence, we can figure out which idiom we're working with:
While many of the dinosaur fossils found recently in northeast China seem to provide evidence of the kinship between dinosaurs and birds, the wealth of enigmatic fossils seem more likely at this stage that they will inflame debates over the origin of birds rather than settle them.The idiom we're dealing with is:
more likely to X than to YLet's see which options use the correct idiom, and rule out those that don't:
(C) seems
more likely to inflame debates on the origin of birds at this stage rather
than --> more likely to X than Y =
WRONG(D) seems
more likely at this stage
to inflame debates over the origin of birds
than to --> more likely to X than to Y =
CORRECT!(E) seems
more likely that it will inflame debates on the origin of birds at this stage
than to --> more likely that it will X than to Y =
WRONGThere you go - option D is the only one that uses the idiom correctly and has proper subject-verb agreement!Don't study for the GMAT. Train for it.
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