The First Trenches That Were Cut into A 500-Acre Site at Tell Hamoukar, Syria, Have Yielded Strong Evidence for Centrally Administered Complex Societies

Question: The first trenches that were cut into a 500-acre site at Tell Hamoukar, Syria, have yielded strong evidence for centrally administered complex societies in northern regions of the Middle East that were arising simultaneously with but independently of the more celebrated city-states of southern Mesopotamia, in what is now southern Iraq.

1. That were cut into a 500-acre site at Tell Hamoukar, Syria, have yielded strong evidence for centrally administered complex societies in northern regions of the Middle East that were arising simultaneously with but
2. That were cut into a 500-acre site at Tell Hamoukar, Syria, yields strong evidence that centrally administered complex societies in northern regions of the Middle East were arising simultaneously with but also
3. Having been cut into a 500-acre site at Tell Hamoukar, Syria, have yielded strong evidence that centrally administered complex societies in northern regions of the Middle East were arising simultaneously but
4. Cut into a 500-acre site at Tell Hamoukar, Syria, yields strong evidence of centrally administered complex societies in northern regions of the Middle East arising simultaneously but also
5. Cut into a 500-acre site at Tell Hamoukar, Syria, have yielded strong evidence that centrally administered complex societies in northern regions of the Middle East arose simultaneously with but

“The first trenches that were cut into a 500-acre site at Tell Hamoukar, Syria, have yielded strong evidence for centrally administered complex societies.”- 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: E

Explanation: The following concepts are tested here:

1. Subject-verb agreement
2. Tenses
3. Parallelism
4. Idioma
5. Awkwardness

Option A: Incorrect
This option is incorrect because it incorrectly uses the simple past continuous tense verb “were arising” to refer to something that has already been concluded in the past. Always remember that simple past tense is used to refer to such events. Also, it uses the construction “evidence for”, which is not idiomatically correct. So, Option A is incorrect.

Option B: Incorrect
This option is incorrect because it incorrectly refers to the plural noun “trenches” with a singular noun “yields”. Also, this option incorrectly uses the simple present tense verb “yields” to refer to an event that has already concluded in the past. Since there are many grammatical errors in the choice, Option B is incorrect.

Option C: Incorrect
This option is incorrect because it incorrectly uses the present participle phrase “having been cut” to refer to an action that has concluded in the past. Also, this option fails to maintain parallelism between “arising simultaneously” and “independently of”. So, Option C is incorrect.

Option D: Incorrect
This option is incorrect because it incorrectly refers to the plural noun “trenches” with a singular noun “yields”. Also, it uses the present participle to refer to an action that has concluded in the past. It also fails to maintain parallelism between “arising simultaneously” and “independently of”. So, Option D is incorrect.

Option E: Correct
This option is correct because it correctly refers to the plural noun “trenches” with the plural verb “have yielded”. Also, it accurately uses the past participle “cut” to refer to an action that has concluded in the past. So, Option E is correct.

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