The decline and fall of the Roman Empire

[manhhiep2509]

The decline and fall of the Roman Empire remains a topic of vigorous debate to this day; historians have attributed it to a variety of causes, including military insurrection, ethnic conflict, and widespread immorality.

A. have attributed it to a variety of causes, including military insurrection, ethnic conflict, and
B. attribute it variously to causes that include military insurrection, ethnic conflict, or
C. have variously attributed them to causes which include military insurrection, ethnic conflict, and
D. attribute them to various causes, including military insurrection, ethnic conflict, as well as
E. variously attribute them to causes including military insurrection, ethnic conflict, and

the modifier "including ..." in answer choice A clearly modifies "causes". However, I learn that present participle go after commas modifies the main clause or the subject of the main clause. If "including ..." modifies "causes", it should go immediately after the noun without any commas.

Since it is the correct answer in a CAT of Manhattan, I do not question the accuracy of the structure but want to be confirmed whether my opinion is wrong.

[RonPurewal]

hi --
this post does not follow the forum rules. please correct the following within the next week or so:

* per the forum rules, please provide the original problems, with all answer choices. you should do so even if you only plan to ask about one or two of the choices.

also, please read the forum rules (top of every folder).

if this is not done within a week, we'll have to delete the thread. thanks

[manhhiep2509]

I edited my post as Ron required. Hope to receive answers for my question soon.

[jlucero]

Comma rules are a course by themselves, so I'd suggest not worrying about the ones you find in the course of your study. In this case, one of the most ambiguous comma rules comes in to play: use commas to avoid confusion:

For most the year is already finished.
For most, the year is already finished.

In our sentence, we want to avoid the confusion of:

historians attributed it to a variety of causes including X, Y, & Z
vs
historians attributed it to a variety of causes, including X, Y, & Z.

This is the difference between:

I play sports including ping pong (maybe I play a game where I try to drop a ping pong ball into a cup of water)
I play sports, including ping pong. (I clarify that one such sport is ping pong)

[lukedowler]

I had appeared for the CAT exam for the very first time. I haven't cleared it, because of the verbal as my verbal reasoning is not that much strong. I want to know how to find out the best possible answer in the verbal questions. Help will be appreciated.


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construire

[RonPurewal]

I had appeared for the CAT exam for the very first time. I haven't cleared it, because of the verbal as my verbal reasoning is not that much strong. I want to know how to find out the best possible answer in the verbal questions. Help will be appreciated.

Hi,

1/
Wrong folder for something like this. Questions about general strategy belong in the "General GMAT Strategy Questions" folder.

2/
"How to find the best possible answer in the verbal questions" is obviously not something that can be addressed in a forum post. (You're asking about the entire verbal section at once!)
You need to ask about specific things.
The best answer to this kind of general query is to sign up for our full GMAT course.