Question
Making things even more difficult has been general market inactivity lately, if not paralysis, which has provided little in the way of pricing guidance.
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
The first thing you need to figure out to understand the sentence is that the sentence is in inverted sentence structure. You can figure this out by seeing that “making things difficult has been market inactivity” doesn’t make sense in a regular sentence structure. Right?
To understand the meaning of the sentence better, let’s convert the sentence into a normal sentence structure:
General market inactivity, if not paralysis, which has provided little in the way of pricing guidance, has been making things even more difficult lately.
The sentence says that the market inactivity has not provided much pricing guidance. This market inactivity has been making things even more difficult lately.
There is one problem in the original sentence: “lately” shouldn’t appear after the subject. It should appear after “difficult”. As is, its placement not only creates confusion on what it modifies but also makes the reference of “which” to “inactivity” more difficult.
Option Analysis
(A) Incorrect. For the reason mentioned above.
(B) Incorrect. For the following reasons:
- “Making things…” seems to play the role of a beginning verb-ing modifier in this option. However, it doesn’t modify anything since the main clause starts with “there”. Besides, there is no comma between the modifier and the main clause. The comma is necessary to delineate and clarify the beginning modifier.
- This option has two independent clauses (“there is…” and “it has…”). The two independent clauses are joined by a comma. Punctuation error.
(C) Incorrect. The beginning modifier “making things…” is not joined properly with the main clause. The beginning modifier must be joined with the main clause with a comma.
(D) Correct. Please note that this option converts the sentence into a normal sentence structure, with “inactivity” as the subject and “has provided” as the verb.
(E) Incorrect. This option is a fragment i.e. it doesn’t have an independent clause. There is no verb for “general market inactivity”.
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Hi CJ,
I have a couple of questions:
[1] You mentioned that “As is, its placement not only creates confusion on what it modifies but also makes the reference of “which” to “inactivity” more difficult.”
Is the “which” reference problematic because “lately” is an adverb that may modify either “activity” or “has been” and thus “which” can’t jump over adverb (lately) to modify activity?
[2] In option E, can “which” refer to “paralysis” (in addition to “inactivity”), resulting in pronoun reference ambiguity?
[3] In option B, what does it “there” (demonstrative pronoun) and “it” refers to? Can “it” refer to “paralysis” (in addition to “inactivity), resulting in pronoun reference ambiguity?
[4] Is placement of “lately” an error in option B and C also? Because it is unclear what does “lately” modify –“general market inactivity” or “has provided” ?
1. ‘lately’ is an adverb and thus cannot modify the noun ‘inactivity’. ‘lately’ modifies the verb, and thus it’s difficult for ‘which’ to jump over a verb modifier to refer to the noun.
2. ‘which’ cannot refer to ‘paralysis’ since ‘paralysis’ is within double commas.
3. ‘there’ is a placeholder. ‘it’ can refer to ‘inactivity’. Doesn’t seem much scope of ambiguity here.
4. Refer (1) above.
Hi CJ,
Thank you for the solution.
Can ‘which’ in E jump over ‘if not paralysis’ to modify general market inactivity? Logically, it makes sense with general market inactivity but grammatically, is it allowed to do that?
Regards,
Udit
Yes, it can since “if not paralysis” is within double commas. Rather, given this construction, “which” cannot modify anything else.
Hi CJ,
Is it compulsory for Verb-ed and Verb-ing as opening modifier to have a comma after it?
I know that Prepositional phrase does not need a comma and DC modifier needs a comma as an opening modifier. Is there a specific rule for Verb-ed and Verb-ing?
Yes. It’s necessary unless it’s a single-word modifier. For example: “shining tomatoes…” – you don’t need a comma here since “shining” is a single-word modifier.
“Shining very brightly, tomatoes…” – here, you need a comma.
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