According to Scholars, The Earliest Writing was Probably not a Direct Rendering of Speech, But was more Likely to Begin as a Separate and Distinct Symbolic System of Communication, and Only Later Merged with Spoken Language.

Question: According to scholars, the earliest writing was probably not a direct rendering of speech, but was more likely to begin as a separate and distinct symbolic system of communication, and only later merged with spoken language.

1. was more likely to begin as
2. more than likely began as
3. more than likely beginning from
4. it was more than likely begun from
5. it was more likely that it began

“According to scholars, the earliest writing was probably not a direct rendering of speech, but was more likely to begin as a separate and distinct symbolic system of communication, and only later merged with spoken language.”- is a GMAT sentence correction question. This particular GMAT sentence correction topic has been taken from the book ‘The Official Guide of GMAT Verbal Review, 2nd Edition, 2009’. This question checks meaning, parallelism, and verb. GMAT Sentence Correction questions comprise 11-16 questions to be completed within 65 minutes. Each Sentence Correction question contains a sentence with an underlined portion that includes 0-2 errors.

Answer: B

Explanation: Following are some concepts that are tested in this sentence:

1. Meaning
2. Grammatical construction
3. Parallelism
4. Redudancy

Option A: Incorrect
This option is incorrect because it incorrectly uses the infinite verb form “to begin” in the sentence to refer to an event that has concluded in the past. Always remember that simple past tense is used to refer to some event that has concluded in the past. So, Option A is incorrect.

Option B: Correct
This option is correct because it correctly uses the phrase “began as” that conveys the intended meaning of the sentence, that the earliest writing was at the beginning a separate and distinct symbolic system of communication. Also, this option correctly uses the simple past tense “began” to refer to the event that has concluded in the past. So, Option B is correct.

Option C: Incorrect
This option is incorrect because it changes the meaning of the sentence by using the phrase “beginning from”. The usage of from in this, conveys the meaning that the earliest writing grew out of a distinct symbolic system of communication. Also, this option incorrectly uses the present participle to refer to an event that has concluded in the past. So, Option C is incorrect.

Option D: Incorrect
This option is incorrect because it twists the meaning of the sentence by using the phrase “was.. begun from”. The usage of from incorrectly says that the earliest writing was grown out of a separate and distinct symbolic system of communication. It also uses the clause “it was more than likely begun from”, that leads to awkwardness and redundancy. So, Option D is incorrect.

Option E: Incorrect
This option is incorrect because it changes the meaning of the sentence by using the phrase “it began”. This phrase implies that the earliest writing started a separate and distinct symbolic system of communication, which is not the case. So, Option E is incorrect.

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