SC: The results of the company's cost-cutting measures are

[RonPurewal]

Bi bi bi ~~

^^ i don't know what this means. if it's an important part of your question, please clarify. thanks.

[sabrinax656]

Hi Gurus:

I have question about this sentence when I review it second times.
According to the Mgmat guide, prep+ving should fetch the tense from the main verb; otherwise, it would be pointless.

Eg. I will go home after finishing my assignment. = I will go home after I will finish my assignment.
I went home yesterday after finishing my assignment. = I went home yesterday after I finished my assignment.
I go home after finishing my assignment. = I go home after I finish my assignment.
I will go home after finishing my assignment yesterday. [Wrong, because the tense is different between the main clause and ving]

However, I find in this SC,

The results of the company’s cost-cutting measures are evident in its profits, which have increased 5 percent during the first 3 months of this year after falling over the last two years.

above two time indicators are not compatible, but why the after falling can be used here?

Thanks
Sab

[RonPurewal]

i don't see the point in trying to assign a tense to "__ing".
just make sure that two things work:

1/ the tense of the verb that's actually a verb (__ing's are not verbs!) should make sense;

2/ "after __ing" should describe something that happens pretty much right on the heels of "__ing" (i.e., there should not be a long interim between the action/event represented by "__ing" and that represented by the verb).

[kathleenlv1451]

Please explain why E is wrong . i chose E.

is it wrong because there is no parallel structure on both sides of after
or it is worng because of use of 'with'

in general, "COMMA + prep phrase modifier" is an adverbial modifier, meaning that it modifies the entirety of the preceding clause.
in this sentence, we don't want an adverbial modifier, since it doesn't make any sense for this modifier to apply to the entire preceding clause.
rather, we want a modifier that will only modify the noun at the end of the preceding clause (i.e., "profits"). since this is the exact function of a "which" modifier, that's the modifier we want here.

Hi Ron,
There is another example of "comma+With phrase modifier to modify the noun preceding the phrase in OG 13 -7 "The intricate structure of the compound insect eye, with its hundreds of miniature eyes called ommatidia, help explain why scientist have assumed that it evolved independently of the vertebrate eyes." I notice the "with phrase" here is in the middle of the sentence, while the other example (" the result of the company's cost cutting measures....answer) the "with phrase" in answer D & E is in the end of the sentence. Is this an indication that when we should consider comma+with phrase as adverbial modifier or noun modifier? Thanks!

[RonPurewal]

in that example, 'with xxxxx' follows only a noun (the structure of the eye...).
there's no action there.
so there is no issue—clearly it's describing a noun.

[kathleenlv1451]

Got it! Appreciate your reply.

[RonPurewal]

no problem.

[EricaS221]

no problem.

It took me a while to get the handle on your explanation Ron. My first correction after reading the question was this, "which increased five percent during the first three months of this year after it had fallen"

Since fall in profits happened before the increase, I used Past Participle to represent it and then simple Past Tense to represent the increase that came after it.

I wanted to pick Option B but it didn't correlate with my construction "which had increased five percent during the first three months of this year after it had fallen". The first "had" is blatantly wrong.

What do you think of my initial correction? is it a good idea to always try and correct it before looking at the options?

I would appreciate a response from you.

Best

[RonPurewal]

you should NEVER try to 'make your own sentence'.

two reasons:

1/
if someone is a good enough editor/writer to do this, then he/she will already be getting %100 of the SC problems correct. (writing formal sentences from scratch is MUCH harder than picking them from multiple-choice options. so, anyone who is good at the former will have no trouble with the latter.)

2/
even if you could consistently do this, it's still unlikely that your predictions would actually match any of the answer choices. (most sentences can be written in approximately one billion zillion different ways. consider the fact that every author has his/her own distinct style.)

[RonPurewal]

also, 'after it had fallen' is unworkable for the same reason described here:
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/foru ... ml#p106925
(that's in this same thread)

...so that sort of thing pretty much won't ever work.

[RonPurewal]

finally, 'had __ed' DOES NOT just mean 'hey, this happened before that'. (if this were the point then there would be no need for a new verb tense, since context will already imply the order.)

the point of 'had __ed' is much more specific than that. read here:
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/foru ... ml#p115153

[gemmas521]

[redacted]

[RonPurewal]

OG problems cannot be reproduced (in whole or in part) or discussed here. (it's also unacceptable to change just a few words of the OG problem and then present the slightly modified version as "your new version".)
please familiarize yourself with the forum rules; thank you.

(if you have a question inspired by an OG problem, then, if it's a sufficiently important or general issue, you should be able to find the same issue in one of the free GMAT PREP problems. if you can't—if the "issue" literally just shows up in one OG problem and that's it—then, in all honestly, it's not very important, and you shouldn't be worrying about it.)

[DianaG875]

Can you please explain why D is wrong?

[StaceyKoprince]

Hi! I'm going to re-copy the problem here because this thread is so long.

The results of the company's cost-cutting measures are evident in its profits, which increased five percent during the first three months of this year after it fell over the last two years.

(A) which increased five percent during the first three months of this year after it fell

(B) which had increased five percent during the first three months of this year after it had fallen

(C) which have increased five percent during the first three months of this year after falling

(D) with a five percent increase during the first three months of this year after falling

(E) with a five percent increase during the first three months of this year after having fallen

The explanation that Ron gave on the first page of this thread regarding answer (E) also applies to answer (D):

in general, "COMMA + prep phrase modifier" is an adverbial modifier, meaning that it modifies the entirety of the preceding clause.
in this sentence, we don't want an adverbial modifier, since it doesn't make any sense for this modifier to apply to the entire preceding clause.
rather, we want a modifier that will only modify the noun at the end of the preceding clause (i.e., "profits"). since this is the exact function of a "which" modifier, that's the modifier we want here.

"prep phrase" is a prepositional phrase (the word "with" is a preposition).

The information after the comma logically describes the noun profits. The profits increased a certain amount. So a "comma which" structure is appropriate here, as comma-which is used for a noun modifier.

A comma-with structure, though, would modify the entire action "the results of the cost cutting measures are evident..." But the modifier doesn't logically describe all of that. The modifier describes only the profits themselves.