In 1981 children in the United states

[ansh]

In 1981 children in the United States spent an average
of slightly less than two and a half hours a week doing
household chores; by 1997 they had spent nearly six
hours a week.

A. chores; by 1997 they had spent nearly six hours
a week
B. chores; by 1997 that figure had grown to nearly
six hours a week
C. chores, whereas nearly six hours a week were
spent in 1997
D. chores, compared with a figure of nearly six hours
a week in 1997
E. chores, that figure growing to nearly six hours a
week in 1997

correct ans is 'b'...i dont understand why use 'had grown' as 1997 is clearly after 1981

[drnewton]

"Had grown" refers to the 2.5 hours, not the year. That's the figure. (Unless I read you wrong.)

[RonPurewal]

correct ans is 'b'...i dont understand why use 'had grown' as 1997 is clearly after 1981

ah, ok, i see what you're asking.

in this case, 1981 is actually, irritatingly enough, irrelevant. the only relevant places on the proverbial timeline are (a) when the number of hours started growing (this is the 'earlier event' or FIRST time marker), and (b) 1997 (the SECOND past time marker). because 1997 is in the past, and the 'arrow of relevance' points to / stops at 1997, you use the past perfect.
if we were talking about a modern statistic instead ("as of today, the number has grown to..."), then we'd use the present perfect.

--

here's a similar sentence:
at the start of the 1991 track season, the world record in the men's long jump had stood for 23 years.
same deal here. the start of the '91 season is the second time marker, the first being the time at which the record was set. (the 'arrow of relevance' on the timeline would be 23 years long, pointing to 1991, so the past perfect is appropriate again.)

[BG]

Why not C ?

[RonPurewal]

Why not C ?

here are 2 reasons to disqualify (c):

1: it's awkward and somewhat unclear. the use of the passive voice ("6 hours were spent") not only is completely unnecessary, but also obscures the point that the children were doing the work (read this again: you could read it as meaning that someone else was doing the work).

2: it's not parallel. if you're not going to mention an external word that improves concision and clarity, such as "the figure", then you should keep the 2 parts as grammatically parallel as possible.
a shift from the active voice, with a clear subject (children), to the passive voice, with an ambiguous subject, is definitely not parallelism in action.

[Aaron]

In 1981 children in the United States spent an average
of slightly less than two and a half hours a week doing
household chores; by 1997 they had spent nearly six
hours a week.

A. chores; by 1997 they had spent nearly six hours
a week
B. chores; by 1997 that figure had grown to nearly
six hours a week
C. chores, whereas nearly six hours a week were
spent in 1997
D. chores, compared with a figure of nearly six hours
a week in 1997
E. chores, that figure growing to nearly six hours a
week in 1997

correct ans is 'b'...i dont understand why use 'had grown' as 1997 is clearly after 1981

Still want to know why D is not correct. Thanks !

[RonPurewal]

Still want to know why D is not correct. Thanks !

my best response to this is "they make the rules, so just learn this as "incorrect" and save it in your memory for future reference."

still, my justification:

it says "...compared with a figure of..."

to me, that's nonparallel. it would be parallel if one of the following 2 things were to be present:
(a) an explicit mention of the "figure" in the first half of the parallelism, so that there's actually something to compare to the "figure" mentioned in the second half;
(b) a direct comparison ("...compared with nearly 6 hours a week in 1997").

since this sentence doesn't do either, it's nonparallel.

[gnc88]

Still want to know why D is not correct. Thanks !

my best response to this is "they make the rules, so just learn this as "incorrect" and save it in your memory for future reference."

still, my justification:

it says "...compared with a figure of..."

to me, that's nonparallel. it would be parallel if one of the following 2 things were to be present:
(a) an explicit mention of the "figure" in the first half of the parallelism, so that there's actually something to compare to the "figure" mentioned in the second half;
(b) a direct comparison ("...compared with nearly 6 hours a week in 1997").

since this sentence doesn't do either, it's nonparallel.

Is there a reason why B) can use that figure but E) is faulted for using that figure?

[RonPurewal]

Is there a reason why B) can use that figure but E) is faulted for using that figure?

yes, there is.

you can't use pointing words like "that" and "this" in modifiers that immediately abut the nouns/phrases that they modify, separated only by a comma. instead, you have to use a different sort of noun modifier.

illustrations:
the coach ran a play with five receivers on the line, and this strategy succeeded nicely --> ok (although a bit awkward in this case).
the coach ran a play with five receivers on the line, this/that strategy succeeding nicely --> incorrect type of modifier for this situation.
the coach ran a play with five receivers on the line, a strategy that succeeded nicely --> correct type of modifier for this situation.

[lawrencewwh]

I try to explain this SC in my own way,please help to point out my mistake,thansk in advance.

In 1981 children in the United States spent an average
of slightly less than two and a half hours a week doing
household chores; by 1997 they had spent nearly six
hours a week.

A. chores; by 1997 they had spent nearly six hours
a week

"they" may refer to "chores" or "chinldren".

B. chores; by 1997 that figure had grown to nearly
six hours a week

C. chores, whereas nearly six hours a week were
spent in 1997
"whereas " is an indication of parelle, but C is not parelle.
"six hours a week" is singular and requires "was" instead of "were".

D. chores, compared with a figure of nearly six hours
a week in 1997
"compared" means that "children"be compared wth a figure, so the logical meaning is wrong.

E. chores, that figure growing to nearly six hours a
week in 1997
"growing" is wrong because the time is "in 1997".

Wait for your correction.Thanks.

[lawrencewwh]

Hi, Ron,

I want to know whether the original meaning of the sentence:

by 1997 that figure had grown to nearly
six hours a week

is

In 1981 children in the United States spent an average
of slightly less than two and a half hours a week doing
household chores,
and between 1981-1997
children in US spent six hours a week.
so the ACTION of "sepent 6 hours a week" stopped in 1997,
the tense should be the past perfect.

Please clarify my thought? Thanks a lot.

[JonathanSchneider]

Hi Lawrence,

[quote="lawrencewwh"]
A. chores; by 1997 they had spent nearly six hours
a week

"they" may refer to "chores" or "chinldren".

B. chores; by 1997 that figure had grown to nearly
six hours a week

C. chores, whereas nearly six hours a week were
spent in 1997
"whereas " is an indication of parelle, but C is not parelle.
"six hours a week" is singular and requires "was" instead of "were".

D. chores, compared with a figure of nearly six hours
a week in 1997
"compared" means that "children"be compared wth a figure, so the logical meaning is wrong.

E. chores, that figure growing to nearly six hours a
week in 1997
"growing" is wrong because the time is "in 1997".
quote]

A) Actually, the "they" is okay here. "They" is a subject pronoun, and the preference for matching a subject pronoun is to the subject that came before it. "Children" was the subject of the preceding clause, so this is the antecedent. No issue here. (Note, this really only works when that antecedent is not super far away from the pronoun. Moreover, it doesn't work well when there are a lot of other plural nouns in the way. And finally, it works best when the idea following the pronoun is similar in meaning to the idea following the antecedent. Notice that in this case we have a semicolon, setting up a very parallel structure, making the "they" even more clear.)

C) You are correct that the construction is not parallel, primarily because it is in passive voice. However, "six hours" is in fact plural.

D) I would argue that the "compared" here sounds like it might be describing the "chores," as that is the noun immediately before the noun modifier.

E) Yes, by saying "in 1997," we sort of indicate that something happened in that specific year. Thus, it sounds as though all of the growing happened in 1997. Of course, we mean to say that the figure grew over time, not just in that one year.

As to your second post, I think the meaning here is actually pretty clear: we mean to say that the figure grew to 6 hours over the time period up to 1997. However, this shows that the figure was NOT at 6 hours at the beginning of this time period. (It must have been lower in order to grow up to 6 hours.) We use the past perfect because we have a specific marker of time (1997), before which the growing took place.

[zhuyujun]

Hi Jonathon,

As you mentioned 'they' in A is clear and correct, then what's wrong with A? Could you please explain? Thanks!

[RonPurewal]

Hi Jonathon,

As you mentioned 'they' in A is clear and correct, then what's wrong with A? Could you please explain? Thanks!

hmm.

well, the meaning of the problem (which is clear to me - and, apparently according to the gmat people, clear to everyone else too) is that the kids were spending that many hours per week by 1997.

if you say "they had spent six hours a week by 1997", all this means is that they had gotten to 6 hrs/wk AT SOME POINT before 1997. it doesn't mean that they're still working that much.

--

analogy:

in 1980 forty percent of East High School class graduated; 67% of the class had graduated by 1997.
--> wrong. this would mean that half of the 1980 class had graduated at any time prior to 1997.

in 1980 forty percent of East High School class graduated; by 1997 the figure had grown to 67%.
--> correct. this would mean that 67% of the '97 class graduated (which is what we mean).

[jp.jprasanna]

Hi Ron - Isn't A wrong because of "they".. "they here seems to imply that the Children in 1981 who spent 2 1/2 weeks doing
household chores are the same children who have spent 6hr/wk by 1997?


Option A:
In 1981 children in the United States spent an average
of slightly less than two and a half hours a week doing
household chores; by 1997 they had spent nearly six
hours a week

Cheers