The new image of Stone Age people as systematic hunters of large animals, rather than merely scavenging for meat, have emerged from the examination from the examination of tools found in Germany, including three wooden spears that archaeologists believe to be above 400,000 years old.

A
B. as mere scavenging for meat, have emerged from examining tools found in Germany, which include
C. as mere meat scavengers, has emerged from examining tools found in Germany that includes
D. mere scavengers of meat, has emerged from the examination of tools found in Germany, which includes
E. mere scavengers of meat, has emerged from the examination of tools found in Germany, including

A and B are wrong because "has" should be used instead.
C is wrong because Germany doesn't include the three wooden spears.
Between D and E, I ended up with E since "which" *usually* refers to the preceding noun, which is Germany here. So it has the same problem in C.
However, I don't think that "including" modifies "emerge", "new image" or "Germany". What is the function of "including" here? It seems like modifying "tools". Can we really do that??

Thanks in advance.

i would agree. given that the other answer choices are wrong - for exactly the reasons you've specified (well done!) - i'm in fact forced to agree.




it would appear so.

the gmat makes its own rules, so it appears we've just learned another one: participial modifiers with -ing, even when they serve as adjectives, have more freedom than do relative pronouns such as 'which'.

good eye.

This question was extremely difficult for me. I had trouble deciding between C,D, and E. Hopefully someone can clarify the rules.

1) The comparison rule: The new image of Stone Age people as ______, rather than _______
Why are you not supposed to keep parallel structure here? The structure of "as systematic hunters of large animals, rather than as mere meat scavengers."
looked right to me.
I ended up eliminating this choice because the "that includes three wooden spears that archaeologists believe..." seemed wrong to me.

2) The modifier rule:
Is the "....tools found in Germany, which includes..." wrong because it makes it is used as a relative pronoun?

the parallism in C looks right to me too. however, using "that" to retrictively modify Germany is kind of illogical to me.

In the above sentence "That" has to refer to Germany, cause "That" is restricitve, even if we allow "That" to pass by Germany (sometimes it is used to modify the the subject and not the object of preposition) then it has to refer to "Tools", and Tools found in Germany that includes is a blatant subject verb mismatch.

you ARE supposed to keep parallel structure. ironically, that parallel structure is another reason why (c) is worse than (d) or (e).

to wit, look at the blue parts below. note that "rather than" is a one-part signal - i.e., unlike two-part constructions such as "both ... and" and "not only ... but also", it lacks a left-hand part indicating the beginning of the first parallel element. therefore, you can choose to start the first parallel element wherever you want - meaning that you can choose to include or exclude "as" at your convenience:

(c)
The new image of Stone Age people as systematic hunters of large animals, rather than as mere meat scavengers, has...
this parallelism is acceptable, but there are two undesirable things:
* "hunters OF large animals" isn't truly parallel to "meat scavengers"
* "meat scavengers" is awkward / unclear (you probably won't know this unless you're a native speaker of english and/or a writer)

(d)(e)
The new image of Stone Age people as systematic hunters of large animals, rather than mere scavengers of meat, has...
this is better parallelism (notice that "as" is excluded from the first part this time).
* note the EXACT parallelism between "hunters OF large animals" and "scavengers OF meat".


yes.
this construction implies, unambiguously (and absurdly), that germany itself "includes" 3 wooden spears.
3 all the way!