What Appears and Appear

[xyin]

From Prep
Researchers in Germany have unearthed 400,000-year-old wooden spears from what it appears was an ancient lakeshore hunting ground as stunning evidence of human ancestors who systematically hunted big game much earlier than believed.
A. it appears was an ancient lakeshore hunting ground as stunning evidence of human ancestors who
B. it appears had been an ancient lakeshore hunting ground and stunning evidence that human ancestors
C. appears was an ancient lakeshore hunting ground and is stunning evidence that human ancestors
D. appears to be an ancient lakeshore hunting ground, stunning evidence that human ancestors
E. appears that it is an ancient lakeshore hunting ground, stunning evidence of human ancestors who

The answer is D.... I have question about "appear." Can anyone tell me when should I use the plural of appear and when should I use the singular of appear?????

"What appears to" and "what appear to"

Ron, Stacey, any Gmat wizard.... please give me elaborate explanation for this question...... THanks very much !!!!

My test is coming soon....

[RonPurewal]

in these kinds of clauses, "what" should be singular.

[jp.jprasanna]

Hi Ron - + COMMA + VERBING+ modifier should also be applicable to the subject of the previous clause right - how can it be justified here as the subject of the previous clause is "Researchers"

Obviously something important I'm missing here... can you pls advise.

Cheers

[davetzulin]

Hi Ron - + COMMA + VERBING+ modifier should also be applicable to the subject of the previous clause right - how can it be justified here as the subject of the previous clause is "Researchers"

Obviously something important I'm missing here... can you pls advise.

Cheers

of course i stand to be corrected by any of the staff, but for answer choice D

appears to be an ancient lakeshore hunting ground, stunning evidence that human ancestors .... etc

i can see it's easy to mistake "stunning" as a comma + ing modifier, but notice it's acting as a participle modifying evidence. It's not acting as a "personal" -ing where it actually has a do-er involved.

That being said, stunning evidence itself is a noun so that should immediately make you think appositive or, in this case, absolute phrase since the noun itself has a bunch of modifiers. this phrase will stand for everything before it.

[jp.jprasanna]

Hi Ron - + COMMA + VERBING+ modifier should also be applicable to the subject of the previous clause right - how can it be justified here as the subject of the previous clause is "Researchers"

Obviously something important I'm missing here... can you pls advise.

Cheers

of course i stand to be corrected by any of the staff, but for answer choice D

appears to be an ancient lakeshore hunting ground, stunning evidence that human ancestors .... etc

i can see it's easy to mistake "stunning" as a comma + ing modifier, but notice it's acting as a participle modifying evidence. It's not acting as a "personal" -ing where it actually has a do-er involved.

That being said, stunning evidence itself is a noun so that should immediately make you think appositive or, in this case, absolute phrase since the noun itself has a bunch of modifiers. this phrase will stand for everything before it.

Yeah dude you are correct... "Stunning" is an adjective modifying the noun Evidence which make the whole thing a noun modifier (forget abt the name) modifying the whole previous clause...

Thanks a lot mate :-)

Cheers

[RonPurewal]

"stunning" is an adjective here.

(edit: i see that some other posters have already noted this)

[ishamehta2401]

Hi,

Please explain why option D is correct? Doesnt the sentence require a 'semi colon' just before stunning?

[jlucero]

Adding a semicolon is not an option here, so you need to stick with what the GMAT gives you. Plus adding a semicolon in place of the comma here would make answer choice D incorrect because "stunning evidence" is not part of a full sentence because it lacks a verb. Remember that semicolons need to separate two complete clauses. As Ron and several others have noted, "stunning evidence" is a modifier here that describes the first part of the sentence.

[ishamehta2401]

Thanks Joe :)

[jlucero]

No problem!

[iatbitw7]

i have a question about why we can not use "what it" here

[jnelson0612]

i have a question about why we can not use "what it" here

"it" is a pronoun that has no clear noun to refer to. Also, this is extremely poor wording when used with "what appears".

Look at these sentences:

What appears to be love is actually infatuation.
OR
What it appears to be love is actually infatuation.

Which do you prefer? :-)

[gaurav1a2b]

"stunning" is an adjective here.

(edit: i see that some other posters have already noted this)

Respected Sir,
Is "it appears was" correct usage.
or should it be "it appears to be"
Also,is the usage of the pronoun it in A and B correct?

[RonPurewal]

"stunning" is an adjective here.

(edit: i see that some other posters have already noted this)

Respected Sir,
Is "it appears was" correct usage.
or should it be "it appears to be"
Also,is the usage of the pronoun it in A and B correct?

in informal usage, "it appears" can be interjected into a larger sentence, to emphasize that something is being concluded from appearances, rather than known for sure. e.g.,
Rome, it appears, was the largest city in the ancient world.
in formal usage, however, you aren't going to see this kind of construction, as the sentence can be constructed more simply and directly:
Rome appears to have been the largest city in the ancient world.

you may, however, see "it appears that..." with the same kind "it" that appears in other constructions, such as "it has been said that..."
e.g.
it appears that january's tour may have to be canceled, as only two people have signed up.

"it appears to be...", on the other hand, is a construction in which "it" actually has to stand for a definite noun.
The building is not the residence of a king; it appears to be a religious monument.

[sgyoung12345]

I have a question on when "appear to be" is considered to be redundant and when it is not. I crossed off D on the basis of "appear to be" after reading the explanation to a question I got from the MGMAT Sentence Correction Bank:

Though viewed from a distance, Saturn's main rings may appear to be smooth and continuous, they are in fact composed of thousands of separate icy ringlets when viewed up close.

In this case the explanation says "appear to be" is redundant...is the reason that its redundant in this example but not the other one is because of the verb "viewed"?