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Source: Official Guide for the GMAT 13th Ed. Sentence Correction; #128 Official Guide for the GMAT 2015 14th Ed. Sentence Correction; #128

1

Australia embryologists have found evidence that suggests

Australia embryologists have found evidence that suggests that the elephant is descended from an aquatic animal, and its trunk originally evolving as a kind of snorkel.

2 Explanations

1

Mike, option E sounds like the embryologist's intention is to suggest rather than present the evidence that suggest X.
Is this option correct because we can eliminate all other options based on grammar and thus is a better choice rather than being a correct sentence ?

Jan 7, 2016 • Comment

Adam

Hi there,

First, if an answer choice is given as correct by the official guide, then we can always consider it 100% correct, not "wrong but better than all the others." So, (E) is 100% correct according to GMAC rules.

Both "to suggest" and "that suggests" are acceptable grammatically. The authors used "to suggest" here in order to avoid saying "evidence THAT suggests THAT...", which, although also grammatically correct, would have been wordy.

Jan 11, 2016 • Reply

1

Gravatar Mike McGarry, Magoosh Tutor

May 25, 2013 • Comment

Arun Prakash

Can you please explain why option C and D is incorrect? I couldn't get clear idea about it.

Jul 7, 2015 • Reply

Jonathan , Magoosh Tutor

Arun, one thing that is wrong with both C and D is that we have "had descended," which is the past perfect tense. We want the past tense, not the past perfect tense, because were are talking about an action "descended" that took place before NOW (the present). We use the past perfect if we want to describe an event that took place before a specific time in the PAST.

Jul 10, 2015 • Reply

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