A huge flying reptile that died out

[sandipbhattacharya]

I got this question from 1000 SC and the OA is C.

A huge flying reptile that died out with the dinosaurs some 65 million years ago, the Quetzalcoatlus had a wingspan of 36 feet, believed to be the largest flying creature the world has ever seen.
(A) believed to be
(B) and that is believed to be
(C) and it is believed to have been
(D) which was, it is believed,
(E) which is believed to be


I choose A thinking that "believed " is a past participal which is modifying the Quetzalcoatlus. I am not able to understand why it should be C and not A.

Please help.

Thanks,
Sandip

[RA]

There are 2 clauses in the sentence and the last part of the sentence also needs to be a clause. The last part of the sentence can be converted into a clause by adding a subject "it" and connecting it to the previous clause by adding the conjunction "and".

I would be interested in hearing what experts have to say about this explaination.

[manminder]

well a is definitely not the answer as in it, believed to be seems to modify 36 feet and not the Quetzalcoatlus.

but in choise c have been is the wrong verb as the reptile the Quetzalcoatlus is singular the best answer should have has been not have been.
but still c modifies the reptile properly by using it.


experts can you please comment on this one.

[SC Expert]

First of all A, D and E modify feet. So they are OUT!

Sentence gives us to piece of information

a) A huge flying reptile that died out with the dinosaurs some 65 million years ago, the Quetzalcoatlus had a wingspan of 36 feet,

b) AND it is believed to have been the largest flying creature the world has ever seen.

has ever seen needs to be parallel with the verb HAVE BEEN.

C is your friend. The rest of the options are not!

:)

[RonPurewal]

I got this question from 1000 SC and the OA is C.

A huge flying reptile that died out with the dinosaurs some 65 million years ago, the Quetzalcoatlus had a wingspan of 36 feet, believed to be the largest flying creature the world has ever seen.
(A) believed to be
(B) and that is believed to be
(C) and it is believed to have been
(D) which was, it is believed,
(E) which is believed to be


I choose A thinking that "believed " is a past participal which is modifying the Quetzalcoatlus. I am not able to understand why it should be C and not A.

Please help.

Thanks,
Sandip

straight-up adjective modifiers, such as "believed to be...", follow the same rules as do modifiers with relative pronouns such as "which": they modify the immediately adjacent noun. therefore, the modifier in (a) erroneously modifies "36 feet".
don't fall for concision traps!

http://www.manhattangmat.com/forums/pro ... t3712.html

in other news, the quetzalcoatlus would be a great ... wingman. ha!

[cfaking]

Ron, Stacey

why C is better than B?

is it Tense issue?

regds
Nitya

[gmk1982]

Here there are two verbs used to mention the period of time:
1) died out
2) believed to be
Rule is that: when two past tense verbs are used......one verb which describes of the event happening in the recent past must be simple past and other which happened much before must be in Past perfect tense.....

so....."believed to be the largest flying creature in the world has ever seen" is much before than it "died out"....hence we should use " it is believed to have been"

I hope this explains what you are looking for!

Thanks

[editor: there is no past perfect in this sentence, and "believed" as used here is a participle, not a past-tense verb. see below.]

[RonPurewal]

Ron, Stacey

why C is better than B?

is it Tense issue?

regds
Nitya

"that" is the problem there. there are two possible kinds of "that" here, but neither of them work:
* "that" as a relative pronoun (as in this is the book that i read yesterday).
-- this wouldn't work, since "...[i]and that..." means there should be another relative pronoun to create parallelism. there isn't one.

* "that" as a noun (as in i want two of this and three of that).
-- this is ALWAYS wrong in formal writing.

[RonPurewal]

Here there are two verbs used to mention the period of time:
1) died out
2) believed to be
Rule is that: when two past tense verbs are used......one verb which describes of the event happening in the recent past must be simple past and other which happened much before must be in Past perfect tense.....

so....."believed to be the largest flying creature in the world has ever seen" is much before than it "died out"....hence we should use " it is believed to have been"

I hope this explains what you are looking for!

Thanks

nope. incorrect.

there is no use of the past perfect in this sentence. "it is believed"... is a PRESENT tense construction, which uses the passive voice. ("believed", here, is not a past-tense verb; it's a past participle, used in the passive voice. in the same way that the participle "stolen" is used in "my car was stolen".)

the present tense is appropriate here, since this reptile is STILL believed to be the biggest, etc.

[direstraits007]

Ron, Stacey

why C is better than B?

is it Tense issue?

regds
Nitya

"that" is the problem there. there are two possible kinds of "that" here, but neither of them work:
* "that" as a relative pronoun (as in this is the book that i read yesterday).
-- this wouldn't work, since "...[i]and that..." means there should be another relative pronoun to create parallelism. there isn't one.

* "that" as a noun (as in i want two of this and three of that).
-- this is ALWAYS wrong in formal writing.

Ron,

Just a small question. As you mentioned the two usages of "that":
one as a relative pronoun and one as a noun. So, can we follow these "that" rules for every SC question in GMAT ? or you gave a specific example of "that" usage for the above question only?

Thanks!

GeeMate.

[RonPurewal]

Ron,

Just a small question. As you mentioned the two usages of "that":
one as a relative pronoun and one as a noun. So, can we follow these "that" rules for every SC question in GMAT ? or you gave a specific example of "that" usage for the above question only?

Thanks!

GeeMate.

i did not say that these were the only two uses of "that".

there are others. for instance, "that" can be used as an adjective (that idea, that notion). it can also be used as a pronoun in parallel constructions (the economy of Germany vs. that of Japan).

it's not a good idea to try to list every possible use of "that" in a single place. there are too many of them, and it's always dangerous to discuss such things outside the context of an example.

[contactshobhit]

I got this question from 1000 SC and the OA is C.

A huge flying reptile that died out with the dinosaurs some 65 million years ago, the Quetzalcoatlus had a wingspan of 36 feet, believed to be the largest flying creature the world has ever seen.
(A) believed to be
(B) and that is believed to be
(C) and it is believed to have been

I choose A thinking that "believed " is a past participal which is modifying the Quetzalcoatlus. I am not able to understand why it should be C and not A.

straight-up adjective modifiers, such as "believed to be...", follow the same rules as do modifiers with relative pronouns such as "which": they modify the immediately adjacent noun. therefore, the modifier in (a) erroneously modifies "36 feet".
don't fall for concision traps!

pronoun-problems-t3712.html

in other news, the quetzalcoatlus would be a great ... wingman. ha!

Hi Ron,
Am I correct to say that "believed to be" is participle adjective modifier?

Participle modifiers when separated by Comma and not at beginning of sentence have flexibility to modify non-touching noun. So based on this fact how is A wrong?

You commented on participles in "http://www.manhattangmat.com/forums/sc1000-11-t1645.html"

[contactshobhit]

bump.

[tim]

first, be careful bumping questions. every time you do that it puts the question at the absolute end of the queue for us to answer. bumping a question is the most effective way to cause a delay in getting your question answered..

participle modifiers with a comma have the flexibility to modify something other than a noun, not a far-away noun. does this clear things up?

[shantanu8jan]

I am not able to understand
- why in the 2nd option the reference to "that" pronoun to Quetzalcoatlus is incorrect
- while at the same time in the 3rd option "it" pronoun is correctly referring to Quetzalcoatlus.
Can you please explain.