The first trenches..

[Whit Garner]

HI Experts– I don’t understand why the verb “were arising” in (A) is wrong exactly.

Hi jbhB682!

The verb tense isn't at issue in choice A, it's the modifier "THAT were arising" not clearly modifying "complex societies". Notice how much distance is between "complex societies" and "that were arising" - it is possible in A that the modifier could be describing "northern regions" or even "the Middle East," although in that case the sub-verb agreement of that modifier would be wrong!

Hope this helps!

Whit

[AsadA969]

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.

A. 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

B. 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

C. 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

D. 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

E. 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

We, normally, can't omit the that when that refers to the subject of the clause. So, how did we omit that in choice E?

[dmitryknowsbest]

There aren't a lot of rules about what we can't omit, partly because that would imply that we always use a certain word, such as "that," to create modifiers. It's true that if we said "The first trenches were cut," then "were" would be the main verb. Since we want that part to be a modifier, we'd need to say "The first trenches THAT were cut."

However, it is quite common to use participles (past tense forms of verbs) to create modifiers. In this case, we don't need THAT to introduce them:

The plan proposed by the mayor was surprising.
Artifacts found at the site include arrow heads and carvings.

Notice that in both the cases above, the first "verb" we see is really just a modifier. "Proposed by the mayor" modifies "plan" and "found at the site" modifies "artifacts. Similarly, in the original sentence, "cut into a site" modifies "trenches." We COULD choose to introduce any of these modifiers with "that were/was," but we don't have to, and normally the GMAT won't.