1000SC 289

by **gter** Wed Oct 03, 2007 12:56 am

289. Executives and federal officials say that the use of crack and cocaine is growing rapidly among workers, significantly compounding the effects of drug and alcohol abuse, which already are a cost to business of more than $100 billion a year.
(A) significantly compounding the effects of drug and alcohol abuse, which already are a cost to business of
(B) significantly compounding the effects of drug and alcohol abuse, which already cost business
(C) significantly compounding the effects of drug and alcohol abuse, already with business costs of
(D) significant in compounding the effects of drug and alcohol abuse, and already costing business
(E) significant in compounding the effects of drug and alcohol abuse, and already costs business

Can you please explain why the answer is B instead of C? I thought which needs to refer to the noun that immediately precedes it. If that is true then B makes no sense.
Thanks.

by **RonPurewal** Sat Oct 06, 2007 4:28 am

There are two ways you could interpret 'what comes right before the comma' here:
(1) 'alcohol abuse'
(2) 'the effects of drug and alcohol abuse' --> note that this is a unified whole - a prepositional phrase - thus strengthening the case for treating it in its entirety as the 'thing before the comma'

B makes sense with (2) above, and especially in light of the fact that in contains a plural verb ('cost'), proving that (2) is what's going on.

If you need an explanation of what's not good about C, shoot back.

by **gter** Sun Oct 07, 2007 1:40 am

Ron,

Thanks for the explanation (as always). Can you please tell me why C sucks?

Thanks

by **RonPurewal** Fri Oct 12, 2007 4:29 am

The main problem with answer choice C is that 'with' constructions usually apply to the entire clause preceding them, rather than just the last word. For instance, consider the following sentence (which is somewhat tacky since I'm making it up right now):

Joe and his mother were arguing about the content of Joe's recent metal album, with yelling that could be heard several blocks away.

In this sentence, the preferred interpretation is that the argument, not the album, contained yelling that could be heard at a long distance away. The same goes for answer choice C, which then makes little sense. (By contrast, if you insert '...album, which featured yelling', then the yelling is definitely on the album.)