Question
Cost cutting and restructuring has allowed the manufacturing company to lower its projected losses for the second quarter, and they are forecasting a profit before the end of the year.
Option A
Option B
Option C
Option D
Option E
(This question is from Official Guide. Therefore, because of copyrights, the complete question cannot be copied here. The question can be accessed at GMAT Club)
Solution
Sentence Analysis
- Cost cutting and restructuring has allowed the manufacturing company (Subject: Cost cutting and restructuring; Verb: ‘has allowed’)
- to lower its projected losses for the second quarter, (Infinitive phrase modifying the main verb ‘has allowed’)
- and they are forecasting a profit before the end of the year. (Separate Independent Clause. Subject: ‘they’; Verb: ‘are forecasting’)
The sentence says two things:
- Cost cutting and restructuring have allowed the company to lower its projected losses
- The company is forecasting a profit
The sentence has the following problems:
- Plural subject ‘Cost cutting and restructuring’ doesn’t agree with the singular verb ‘has allowed’.
- Logically, ‘they’ should refer to ‘company’. However, ‘they’ is plural while ‘company’ is singular.
Option Analysis
(A) Incorrect. For the reasons mentioned above.
(B) Incorrect. For the following reasons:
- First error of the original sentence.
- The use of ‘for’ in ‘allowed for the manufacturing company’ is incorrect. It should be just ‘allowed the manufacturing company to lower…’.
- The prepositional phrase ‘in the second quarter’ modifier ‘lower’, meaning that the company lowered in the second quarter its projected losses (for sometime in the future). However, logically, the original sentence makes more sense by saying ‘losses for the second quarter’. In this construction ‘for the second quarter’ modifies ‘losses’.
(C) Incorrect. For the following reasons:
- The use of ‘allowed that’ is incorrect here. However, the OG explanation that ‘allowed that’ is unidiomatic is misleading. ‘allowed that’ is a valid construction that means ‘admit that’ or ‘concede that’. Check out this link for more details (Refer to point 3). Here, ‘allowed that’ is incorrect since the corresponding meaning ‘concede that’ doesn’t make any sense in this sentence.
- ‘to forecast’ is not parallel to anything before ‘and’.
(D) Correct. This option has no error and presents a superior meaning to the original sentence by making ‘forecast’ part parallel to the ‘lower’ part. In the original sentence, ‘the company is forecasting a profit’ was a separate independent clause.
(E) Incorrect. For the following reasons:
- Second error of option B
- The use of ‘the’ in place of ‘its’ raises an ambiguity as to whose losses we’re talking about.
- ‘forecasting’ is not parallel to anything.
If you have any doubts regarding any part of this solution, please feel free to ask in the comments section.
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Doubt 1:- Please could you elaborate the difference between the following two sentences:
(a) The compay “lowered its losses IN the second quarter
(b) The company “lowered its losses FOR the second quarter
Doubt 2:- In the original sentence “,and” is used there by indicating an IC. While I believe this is grammatically correct, as I read the original sentence I preferred to have “the result of cost cutting allowing the company to lower its losses”
Please could you elaborate on the above thought
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