Some scientists suggest the moon had been formed out of part of the Earth, which was dislodged perhaps by a meteor.

A) the moon had been formed out of part of the Earth, which was dislodged perhaps
B) that the moon was formed from part of the Earth that had perhaps been dislodged
C) that part of the Earth formed the moon, which was dislodged perhaps
D) the moon was formed out of part of the Earth, having perhaps been dislodged
E) that the moon had been formed from part of the Earth, which perhaps had been dislodged

According to the explanation, the correct answer is B. How can this be true if that (and which) refer to the noun immediately preceding it? Does "B" say that the Earth had been dislodged?

Thanks for all your help

The orginial sentence has the following problems -

1) relative pronoun 'which'points to the Earth rather it should point to the part of the earth that formed the moon.
2) "Some scientists suggest the moon had been formed out of part of the Earth" is the combination of two independent clauses "Some scientists suggest" and "the moon had been formed out of part of the Earth". In all it is a Run-on sentence so it needs a conjunction such as 'that'.

So from (2) A & D are out

(C) 'which' modifies 'moon' though it should modify part of the earth
(E) both the clauses are in past perfect. Unable to indentify which event followed the other.

While (B) corrects the above problems -

1) Correct Verb tense - First the part of the earth had been dislodged and then the moon was formed.
2) 'that' points correctly to the 'part of the earth'

Hope it answers your question.

Guest79

Yes, "which" points directly to the preceding noun. "That" can refer only to a preceding noun but can also refer to a phrase or clause. "That" has a lot more flexibility. For instance, look earlier in this same sentence to "Some scientists suggest that..." The word right before "that" is a verb.

So just remember that "that" can be a noun modifier but doesn't have to be, while "which" has to be.

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Stacey Koprince
Instructor
Director of Online Community
ManhattanGMAT

Yes, "which" points directly to the preceding noun.

Referring to the above statement -

Stacey, Can you please explain if this is an absolute rule about which? I heard somewhere in my MGMAT class that sometimes in rare cases we really need find out if which is modifying the noun right before the comma or not.

For ex:

Priyanka published a book about women, which had long stories and illustrations.

In this sentence 'which' seems to modify book and not the noun 'women' (which is part of the prepositional phrase - "about women")

I have seen a question before where the right answer had a structure similar to the one above and the modifier starting with which was not modifying the noun right before the comma. Also, I think Ron mentioned in one of his video lectures that we really need to look at the context of the sentence sometimes ( in rare cases) to see what which is modifying, although in most cases it's the noun before the comma.

Check out this thread, which is all about the "which rule" and its exceptions: the-which-rule-t7033.html

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Jamie Nelson
ManhattanGMAT Instructor

thanks!

:)

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Tim Sanders
Manhattan GMAT Instructor

Stacey: Can you comment on the verb tense in the above question?
How do you eleiminate based on that?

If you set up a timeline of what happened, you realize that the part of the Earth became dislodged, and then the moon formed from that part sometime thereafter. So the dislodging needs to use the past perfect, while formation of the moon is simple past..

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Tim Sanders
Manhattan GMAT Instructor