Archaeologists in Egypt have excavated a 5,000-year-old wooden hull that is the earliest surviving example of example of a “built” boat—in other words, a boat constructed out of planks fitted together—and that thus represents a major advance, in terms of boat-building technology, over the dugout logs and reed vessels of more ancient vintage.
A. together—and that thus represents
B. together—and this has represented
C. together, and it represents
D. together that was representing
E. together to represent

This is GMATPREP question. I chose "E" which is wrong. So what is wrong with "E" and which one is correct answer and why.

FYI - you can always find the right answer yourself by going back through the software - it will show you (though, of course, it won't show you why it's right).

E says that the boat was made of "planks fitted together to represent a major advance" - the meaning is says that the reason the planks were fitted together was to represent a major advance. The technique may be a major advance, but it doesn't make sense to say that the planks were fitted together in order to represent a major advance.

The long dash is used to indicate an example or an aside. Only the example or aside goes inside the dash, so that example either has to go all the way to the end of the sentence or we need to "close" the dash at some point by putting a second one in. In this case, the "in other words" text only applies to the "built boat" concept, so I want to "close" the dash when I'm done talking about it. So eliminate C, D, and E.

Then, between A and B, only A follows parallelism. "Archaeologists have excavated a hull that is X and that represents Y." Only A does that correctly.

Hi Stacey,

What's an aside?

I had a problem with this question as well and am pleased to find it has already been posted!

An aside is just a little bit of extra info that is related to the sentence but is presented outside the core of the sentence. Basically, very similar to an example.

Hi Ron,

In the above sentence is the usage of "That" correct.. I have read your post stating that the usage of pointing words such as this, that, these and those should never be allowed to hang on its own...

Is'nt "the second "That" (and that thus represents) hanging over here ?

nope, "that" isn't being used as a standalone noun (pointing word) here.
it's the second half of a parallel construction, in which it's used as a relative pronoun both times.
analogy:
i have a machine that does X and that also does Y.
think about how you would say this out loud: you would de-emphasize "that" in both parts, because it's not being used as a noun. instead, "...that also does Y" works in exactly the same way as does "...that does X".

by contrast, if you spoke a sentence with the illegal usage of this/that/these/those, you'd have to place vocal emphasis on whichever of these words is used. for instance, "i've tried this and that (pointing to different bits of food), but neither is as good as those (pointing somewhere else)." in this case, there would be a distinct emphasis on all three of these "pointing words", which this time really are being used in a way that flouts formal writing conventions.