That twenty-one ceramic dog figurines were discovered during the excavating of a 1,000-year-old Hohokam village in Tempe, Arizona, has nearly doubled the number of these artifacts known to exist.
A.That twenty-one ceramic dog figurines were discovered during the excavating
B.Twenty-one ceramic dog figurines discovered at the excavation
C.Discovering twenty-one ceramic dog figurines at the excavating
D.Ceramic dog figurines, twenty-one of which were discovered during excavating
E.The discovery of twenty-one ceramic dog figurines during the excavation

Source:GMAT Prep

Between B & E, I would choose B.
What is the answer?

I would pick E. What is the correct answer?

Thanks
Asavari

When I'd a look at the answer choice again, I just realized that the answer can't be B because
Twenty-one ceramic dog figurines discovered at the excavation of a 1,000-year-old Hohokam village in Tempe, Arizona, has nearly doubled the number of these artifacts known to exist.

So, the answer has to be E.

Thank you all. The answer is E.

to the original poster -- i don't see an actual question about this problem. (you must ask at least one specific question about the problem that you post, especially in sentence correction; you can't just give a problem and wait for some sort of comprehensive answer key.)

do you have any specific questions? thanks.

Hi Ron,

I have found this explanation for eliminating choice A, but I don't understand it. Could you please comment or explain?

Explanation by GMAT instructor:there isn't a grammatical problem with (A) because its subject is the noun clause that twenty-one ceramic dog figurines were discovered during the excavating of a 1,000-year-old Hohokam village in Tempe, Arizona. Yes, this entire clause is the subject, and as it begins with "that" it's singular, agreeing with the verb "has." However, it's extraordinarily awkward to use such a long noun clause to begin a sentence. Furthermore, noun clauses rarely make sense as the subjects of transitive verbs, and are much more often the subjects of the verb "to be" than anything else


Also is there a difference between 'at/during excavation' in the context of this question?

in C, it seems that emphasis is on the act of 'discovering', rather than on the 'fact that figurines were discovered'; Is there a difference, or is it just me?

hi -- if you have a direct question about someone else's explanation on another forum, please post a response to that explanation (on whatever forum contains the post in the first place).
something seems a bit weird to me about transplanting another instructor's explanation over here; i guess i'd rather not clean up someone else's mess. sorry.

in addition, i prefer to avoid the use of highly technical grammar terms ("noun clause", "transitive verb", etc.) in my own discussions -- i don't even know most of these terms, and i find that they obscure the clarity of the discussion.

--

"the excavating" is inferior to "the excavation". see here:
post50089.html#p50089

also, "discovering" is worse than "the discovery", for the reasons stated here:
post60923.html#p60923

--

the weirdness of the "that..." construction in (a) isn't grammatical. it's perfectly fine to use "that" + clause as the subject of a sentence, provided that you are trying to refer to some fact as an abstraction, rather than to an actual action.
for instance,
that you arrived on time today was a surprise to everyone.
--> this is a correct sentence. in other words, you are normally late, and so the fact that you arrived on time was a surprise.
your arrival on time today was a surprise --> this isn't as good, because your arrival wasn't a surprise. the surprise was the fact that you actually showed up on time.

in this particular problem, it's the opposite: the actual discovery of the figurines doubled the number of known artifacts. (the abstract fact that these things were discovered didn't double the number.)

this is a rather subtle difference, so it may be better to rely on the distinctions that i made in the post linked above.

Hi Ron, Thanks for prompt reply, I'm just trying to understand as much as I can, since after 3 attempts I am still not where I want to be, so sorry for too many questions.




Also is there a difference between 'at excavation' and 'during excavation' in the context of this question?

these are both legitimate. in general, when you are talking about an event that takes place at a designated physical location, you can use either “at” or “during”.

they are slightly different, however.
“at” implies physical presence at the location of the event; “during” implies something that happened during the timeframe of the event, but not necessarily at the same physical place.

for instance, a fight broke out at the football game means that a fight broke out at the football field itself (or in the grandstand, etc.). on the other hand, a fight broke out during the football game could refer to a fight that broke out while some people were simply watching the game at home.

presumably, the stuff in this question was discovered at the excavation site during the course of the actual excavation, so, in this case, both prepositions make sense.

you are welcome.

Hi Ron, I have a question about choice E. Why "the discovery" can be the subject of "double"? It seems not make sense to me...Thanks in advance!

it appears you may not be noticing that the verb “double” has an object here. so, whereas you are correct that “the discovery doubled” would be wrong by itself, in this case it's different: the sentence states that the discovery doubled the number of known pieces.

along similar lines, consider the difference between the following pairs:
* i broke the computer versus the computer broke
* i grow vegetables in the backyard versus vegetables grow in the backyard
i think you get the point.
on a larger scale, i think the issue here may be that you are looking only at the answer choices, and not at the surrounding context -- i.e., i think you may be forgetting to re-insert the answer choices back into the sentence.
always insert the answer choices back into the sentence, to see how they are affected by context!