GMAT

The general rule on GMAT Sentence Corrections is that verb tenses should stay consistent within a sentence, unless the sequence of events described in the sentence justifies a change in verb tense.  Last time, we saw a question in which verb tense plays a major role; let’s revisit that question.

The benefits of the teacher’s new academic achievement reward program are evident in the student’s grades, which increased by a full point this semester after it fell last semester.

1. a. which increased by a full point this semester after it fell
2. b. which had increased by a full point this semester after it had fallen
3. c. which have increased by a full point this semester after falling
4. d. with an increase of a full point this semester after falling
5. e. with an increase of a full point this semester after having fallen

The sentence gives us some clues about our timeline; “are evident” shows us that we are in the present, for instance, and the sentence ends with “last semester,” so we know that the grades fell in the past.  Since we’re talking about an increase “this semester,” we need to use a present or present perfect version of “increase.”  We can rule out ‘a’ since it uses the past tense “increased,” and ‘b’ for its use of the past perfect “had increased.”  That leaves us with the last three choices, and to make that decision, we turn to the correct introduction of a modifying phrase.  The word “which” at the beginning of choice ‘c’ makes it clear that everything following it describes “grades,” and that’s the correct meaning.  Therefore, the answer here is ‘c.’

But what if you’re not confident with verb tense issues?  In that case, the first step in approaching this question is to eliminate as many choices as we can based on common grammar issues.  The pronoun “it” in the original sentence seems to refer to the student’s grades, but the plural “grades” doesn’t agree with the singular “it,” so any choice using that pronoun is eliminated.  That takes care of ‘a’ and ‘b’ and leaves us with ‘c,’ ‘d,’ and ‘e.’  Once again, we’re back to the modifier: both ‘d’ and ‘e’ begin with the phrase “with an increase,” and that phrase doesn’t make it clear that what follows it modifies “grades.”  That leaves us once more with ‘c.’

Thank you all for your participation in the most recent all-in-one question — dozens of responses within a day!  I’m glad to see you’re all so committed to your GMAT studies and interested in learning more; as you may have noticed, time you invest in any part of Verbal transfers to all the other Verbal tasks to various extents.   I’m sorry I don’t have prizes for you beyond the excitement of something different, perhaps the satisfaction of a job well done, and potentially a tiny contribution to a higher GMAT score — maybe someday I’ll have something tangible for you!

If you’re new to the all-in-ones, check out the question (link above) for background and then come back.  The answer choices explained:

A.  The storming of the Bastille, a medieval fortress turned from a prison, by angry protesters on July 14, 1789 was the first violent event of the opening stage of the French Revolution, following the dramatic formation of the National Assembly and the inception of a long period of much turmoil within France and throughout Europe.

The Bastille was a fortress first and a prison more recently; “from” reverses this order.  The modifying phrase beginning with “following” is setting up events that took place prior to the attack, but “the inception of a long period . . .” is meant to describe the attack, not an event before it.

B.  After the revolutionary formation of the National Assembly by angry protesters, then a long period of much turmoil within France and throughout Europe were begun by the storming of the Bastille, a medieval fortress turned into a prison, on July 14, 1789, the first violent event of the opening stage of the French Revolution.

Here angry protesters are the ones who formed the National Assembly, “then” subordinates what ought to be the main clause of a sentence, and the plural verb “were begun” does not agree with the singular “period.”

C.  Angry protesters stormed the Bastille, a medieval fortress turned into a prison, the first violent event of the opening stage of the French Revolution, the dramatic formation of the National Assembly, and the beginning of a long period of much turmoil with France and throughout Europe on July 14, 1789.

I like this (wrong) answer choice because while it’s clearly wrong, it’s challenging to articulate why — apposition and modification may make a good blog post later.  Modifying phrases by default modify the thing they are closest to, but there are still rules.  You can add apposition — a parenthetical restatement of a word you just said, similar to this thing I’m typing right now — set off only by commas and without any additional marking words; you can even put several in a row (“George’s faithful dog Spot, terror of the postal service, stealer of bacon, and pursuer of squirrels, loved riding in the car more than anything”) modifying something prior.  Without additional participles, verbs, adverbs, or relative pronouns in front of each phrase after “prison” to suggest a structure, though, the phrases default to modifying “the Bastille.”

D.  A long period of much turmoil within France and throughout Europe began on July 14th, 1789 along with the first violent event of the opening stage of the French Revolution, when angry protesters stormed the Bastille, a medieval fortress turned into a prison following the dramatic formation of the National Assembly.

“Along with” suggests that there were two parallel events, when in fact they are the same event.  The lack of a comma in D is undesirable because it suggests that the conversion from fortress to prison followed the formation of the National Assembly, when in fact that happened years before.  Commas are the difference between “I’m hungry! Let’s eat, Grandma!” and “I’m hungry!  Let’s eat Grandma!”

E.  After the revolutionary formation of the National Assembly, a long period of many turmoil within France and throughout Europe were begun by the storming of the Bastille, a medieval fortress turned into a prison by angry protesters on July 14, 1789, the first violent event of the opening stage of the French Revolution.

“Turmoil” is a non-count noun, and so should be modified with “much.”  “Were begun” is plural where “period” is singular.  Lack of an important comma strikes again, as this sentence indicates that the angry protesters are the ones who converted the fortress to a prison (not true).

F.  A long period of much turmoil within France and throughout Europe had been begun July 14th, 1789 with the first violent event of the opening stage of the French Revolution, when angry protesters stormed the Bastille, a medieval fortress turned into a prison, an event after the dramatic formation of the National Assembly.

Past perfect tenses (“had been begun”) are used to indicate time prior to a past tense elsewhere in the sentence, but here the period of turmoil begins at the same time as the storming of the Bastille.  “An event after” is simply a wordier (and therefore GMAT-incorrect) version of “after.”

G.  The storming of the Bastille, a medieval fortress turned into a prison by angry protesters on July 14, 1789, was the first violent event of the opening stage of the French Revolution, following the dramatic formation of the National Assembly and likewise beginning a long period of much turmoil not only within France and throughout Europe.

Angry protesters are industriously engaged in remodeling once more in choice G, and doing so right at the beginning of the French Revolution.  “And likewise” is wordy and unnecessary.

H.  The first violent event of the opening stage of the French Revolution was the storming of the Bastille, a medieval fortress turned into a prison, by angry protesters on July14, 1789, following the dramatic formation of the National Assembly and beginning a long period of much turmoil within France and throughout Europe.

In “real English” there’s no good reason to have a sentence this long and heavily modified, but this is correct.  You may also notice that it is mostly the same as choice I, but the ideas come in the opposite order.

I.  A long period of much turmoil within France and throughout Europe began July 14th, 1789 with the first violent event of the opening stage of the French Revolution when, following the dramatic formation of the National Assembly, angry protesters stormed the Bastille, a medieval fortress turned into a prison.

Some of you felt that “following the dramatic  formation of the National Assembly” is oddly placed — you are right, it’s a more complex sentence arrangement, but a correct one.  It looks less unusual in a shorter sentence:  “A bad time period started with a violent event when, following a political event, people did stuff to a building, a fortress made into a prison.”   As before, don’t write like this on the AWA.

J.  The first violent event of the opening stage of the French Revolution was the storming of the Bastille, a medieval fortress turned into a prison, by angry protesters on July14, 1789, following the dramatic formation of the National Assembly, also a beginning of a long period of many turmoil within France and throughout Europe.

If “also a beginning” is parallel to anything, it’s parallel to “the National Assembly”, which wouldn’t make sense anyway.  “Many” makes another appearance in place of “much”.

Thank you so much for reading!  I have another one on the way, and I’ll have the answers scheduled closer to the post next time, sorry about the delay!

Remember our parallelism challenge cliffhanger?  You’ve discussed your thoughts in the comments section; now let’s go over this question in detail.

The recent decline in bus commuter ridership has left the system underfunded, to cause the number of buses running during peak times to drop, and prompts concerns that further service cuts may lead to the collapse of the city’s entire public transportation system.

1. a. to cause the number of buses running during peak times to drop, and prompts
2. b. causing the number of buses running during peak times to drop and prompting
3. c. to cause reductions in the number of buses running during peak times and prompt
4. d. to cause the number of buses running during peak times to be reduced, and prompted
5. e. causing a reduction in the number of buses running during peak times and prompting

There are a couple of ways to make this parallel.  First, you could look at the three main verbs as a list: “left the system underfunded” is the first one, and since it’s not underlined, it’s the one we have to match.  In order to do that, we would need to put the other two verbs—cause and prompt—in the past tense.  That list would be “…has left the system underfunded, caused the number of buses… and prompted concerns…” But a quick scan of the answer choices shows us that none of them begin with “caused,” so we have to try a different option: we look at the underlined portion as the beginning of a modifying phrase that describes the results of the system being underfunded.  In order to introduce that kind of phrase, we need the gerund “causing,” which leaves us with only choices ‘b’ and ‘e’ to evaluate.

That’s a tougher issue, and one that isn’t governed by parallel structure.  This comes down to word choice: “causing the number… to drop” doesn’t clearly show that the number was reduced in response to an underfunded system.  “Causing a reduction…” tells us that the underfunded system resulted in the number of buses being reduced, with the implication that the reduction was a conscious decision, rather than an unforeseen consequence.

An issue that frequently comes into play with parallel structure is verb tense, as we saw in the previous question.  Let’s look at a verb tense question; note your answers and reasoning in the comments section, and we’ll examine this question in depth in an upcoming article.

The benefits of the teacher’s new academic achievement reward program are evident in the student’s grades, which increased by a full point this semester after it fell last semester.

1. a. which increased by a full point this semester after it fell
2. b. which had increased by a full point this semester after it had fallen
3. c. which have increased by a full point this semester after falling
4. d. with an increase of a full point this semester after falling
5. e. with an increase of a full point this semester after having fallen

How do your Sentence Correction skills stack up when it comes to parallel structure?  As this article explains, items in a list must be in parallel form, as must items being compared.  “Parallel” means that nouns go with nouns and verbs go with verbs.  Verbs must be in the same tense or form, and prepositions or other “helping” words must be parallel as well.  Take this GMAT-style question, for example:

The restaurant’s manager reported an increase in customers during the month of June, as much because of its business of the month before being so slow as that more tourists travel through the area in the summer.

1. a. of its business of the month before being so slow as that
2. b. of its business the month before having been slow as because
3. c. of its business the month before being as slow as because
4. d. its business the month before had been so slow as because
5. e. its business of the month before was as slow as that

In terms of parallelism, if you choose to say “because of its business…” you will need to use the parallel phrase “as because of more tourists travel…”  And “because of more tourists travel” doesn’t make sense; therefore, we can eliminate all the choices that begin with “of,” which leaves us with only the final two choices.  The “because” immediately before the underlined portion of the sentence leaves us with no choice but to use a “because” before “more tourists.”  Choosing ‘d’ as the correct answer, we end up with a parallel phrase: “as much because x as because y.”

A more common parallelism issue is verb form.  Gerunds need to be paired with gerunds, past tense verbs with other past tense verbs, and so on.  Let’s look at an example of that issue:

The recent decline in bus commuter ridership has left the system underfunded, to cause the number of buses running during peak times to drop, and prompts concerns that further service cuts may lead to the collapse of the city’s entire public transportation system.

1. a. to cause the number of buses running during peak times to drop, and prompts
2. b. causing the number of buses running during peak times to drop and prompting
3. c. to cause reductions in the number of buses running during peak times and prompt
4. d. to cause the number of buses running during peak times to be reduced, and prompted
5. e. causing a reduction in the number of buses running during peak times and prompting

So what do you think, Grockit readers?  Note your choice in the comments section, as well as your reasoning, and we’ll post the correct answer, as well as an explanation, in an upcoming article.