Nice insight, Bruce. To me, the sentence looks like bad school textbook writing.

     If I were working with this material as a writer, I might ask myself whether my audience is so out of touch that they don't already know the scientific consensus on the relationship between fossil fuels and global warming. If they don't know it, does it make sense to include it in side-note fashion, in non-restrictive appositional phrase, as part of a sentence on climate change impact on migratory patterns of birds? Sentence level editing has to be sensitive to larger patterns in the text. The test question trivializes  decision making at the level of the sentence. 

From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of Bruce Despain <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, February 27, 2018 2:21:42 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: GMAT Question
 
Teachers,

I was distracted by the fact that some 150 years ago the content of such exercises was often taken from topics of a religious nature. Here we have a sentence about the World Wildlife Fund, which is followed religiously by so many people today. Anyway, I must say that C is the best of the options offered. However, I think it would be a simpler and more powerful construction as two sentences. The appositive adds an unnecessary complication.

1. Most scientists agree that human beings cause global warming by burning fossil fuels.
2. The World Wildlife Fund has declared that this phenomenon will create havoc among migratory birds by altering the environment in ways harmful to their habitats.

But now it is easier to see the agenda of the test writers. We start to think that the WWF are not scientists, that global warming is a phenomenon (observed law of nature), [limited to a certain time period so as to exclude volcanoes and other natural phenomena] that the environment harmed is larger than the habitats of migratory birds [true], that human activity is the only contributing factor to global warming [a major part], etc.

Bruce

On Mon, Feb 26, 2018 03:53 PM, Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
A former student of mine is studying for the GMAT and is struggling with the sentence structure section.  She sent me a sample from the practice test.  Not only did I miss it, but I disagree with the answer that was given.  What is your take?

The World Wildlife Fund has declared that global warming, a phenomenon most scientists agree to be caused by human beings in burning fossil fuels,will create havoc among migratory birds by altering the environment in ways harmful to their habitats. A. a phenomenon most scientists agree to be caused by human beings in burning fossil fuels, B. a phenomenon most scientists agree that is caused by fossil fuels burned by human beings, C. a phenomenon that most scientists agree is caused by human beings' burning of fossil fuels, D. which most scientists agree on as a phenomenon caused by human beings who burn fossil fuels, E. which most scientists agree to be a phenomenon caused by fossil fuels burned by human beings, 
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