Relative Pronoun Modifier

[rohitowe99]

Source: OG- Sentence Correction, Problem#120

CORRECT ANSWER:
The World Wildlife Fund has declared that global warming, A PHENOMENON THAT most scientists agree IS CAUSED BY human beings' burning of fossil fuels, will create havoc among migratory birds by altering the environment in ways harmful to their habitats.

Here "THAT most scientists agree" is a relative pronoun essential modifier which modifies 'phenomenon'

But if we take out the modifier, the sentence seems to be grammatically incorrect:

global warming, A PHENOMENON IS CAUSED BY human beings' burning of fossil fuels, will create havoc among migratory birds by altering the environment in ways harmful to their habitats.

So in the original sentence "THAT" plays a dual role
1) It is the part of the modifier phrase: that most scientists agree
2) It forms the part of the sentence structure without the modifier as well: a phenomenon that is caused by human beings' burning of fossil fuels.

Is my understanding correct?

Thanks!
Deepak

[jlucero]

I'm not sure what technical term "most scientists agree" would be called, but the main modifier here is "a phenomenon that is caused by human beings' burning of fossil fuels". "most scientists agree" is an additional, subordinate modifier to this modifier that tell us more about who thinks this is true. It would be similar to the end of the sentence: "The forest is green, said Joe", where "said Joe" is a modifier to the main idea in the sentence. You can invert this sentence to say "Joe said that the forest is green" and the modifier becomes the main subject/verb. In your example, we could change the middle part of the sentence to say "most scientists agree that this phenomenon is caused by human beings' burning of fossil fuels". The problem is that this sentence is good as a standalone sentence, but not as a modifier, because we need "phenomenon" to be the subject of our modifier, since it is an appositive, describing the phrase "global warming".

[reotokate]

I always think this site is the premier GMAT Q&A destination.
Thank you Manhattan Staff.

My Question:

Is the "that" in Choice C acts as both the object of "most scientists agree" and the "that" in the relative clause to modify "a phenomenon..."

[tim]

I'm not sure exactly what your question is, but a word in a correct answer choice will never serve two different functions. If this isn't what you asked, can you please clarify so we can help you?

[Haibara]

Sorry to post here, I know asking questions from OG is somehow crossing the line. Because I couldn't find a compelling explanation to this question anywhere on other forums, I have to put it here. I'm trying to ask it (OG12-118) carefully.

[---]
------> I know the above sentence is correct, since it is the OA.

But what is the problem of [---]

[RonPurewal]

Haibara"”

1/
You're going to have to change the text to a much greater extent than that. Right now, that's still an almost exact copy of the original OG problem.

2/
Please post this question as a new thread in the general verbal folder.

Thanks.