The computer company reported

[aflaamM589]

Hello Experts,
Is'nt E run on?

E)The computer company, surpassing Wall Street's estimates, reported strong second-quarter earnings, while announcing that to increase sales further, there would be the first in a series of price cuts.


Moreover, please comment on that in choice D. Is it used correctly here(which i seriously doubt but want to know the exact reason from Gurus)?
D)The computer company reported strong second-quarter earnings, while announcing the first in a series of price cuts for the purpose of increasing sales further that surpass Wall Street's estimates.
Thanks

[RonPurewal]

Hello Experts,
Is'nt E run on?

no.

...while announcing that (xxx)
the "xxx" part -- the entire rest of the sentence -- is a complete sentence. "while announcing that + (complete sentence)" can be thrown onto another sentence as a modifier.

[RonPurewal]

Moreover, please comment on that in choice D.

it isn't attached to anything that makes sense, so it's wrong.

when it comes to modifier placement, you should just judge the answer choices RELATIVE to each other.

it might be hard for you to specify an exact reason why you don't like D... but, if you COMPARE A and D, it should be very, very clear that this modifier is more logically placed in A than in D.

[aflaamM589]

Thanks Ron,
Let me say it in my language(punjabi)
Paa ji tusi great ho : )

[RonPurewal]

i copied and pasted that into google translate, punjabi —> english, and it didn't translate a single word. (:

on the other hand, at least the word "great" is there, so i have ... some sort of idea what you're trying to say? LOL.

[aflaamM589]

Happy to help
Paaji tusi great ho
Brother you are great
Ron, you command utmost respect in our hearts. (utmost is raised to the power n here )

[RonPurewal]

thanks.

[MARSHALLM603]

(A) The computer company reported strong second-quarter earnings that surpassed Wall Street's estimates and announced the first in a series of price cuts intended to increase sales further.

this is the correct answer.

note:

CORRECT MEANING -- the modifier "that surpassed wall street's estimates" is correctly attached to the noun "earnings"; this situation is required because it was the earnings that surpassed wall street's estimates. also, the modifier "intended to increase sales further" correctly applies to the price cuts.

CORRECT PARALLELISM -- the verbs "reported" and "announced" are in parallel, as they should be.

Dear Ron:

Could the parallelism in Option A be "surpassed" and "announced"? Thought it would be better to put a comma before and to avoid such ambiguity.

Could you pls kindly help. thanks!

[RonPurewal]

Could the parallelism in Option A be "surpassed" and "announced"?

clearly not, since "surpassed" is something that earnings did, while "announced" is something the company did.

in fact, it's worrisome that this interpretation would even occur to you -- since that can only happen if you are COMPLETELY IGNORING THE MEANING OF THE WORDS.

[RonPurewal]

remember -- STEP 1 of EVERY sentence correction problem is to figure out the EXACT intended meaning. that is what you do BEFORE you do ANYTHING ELSE.
once you figure out the intended meaning, it drives your understanding of EVERYTHING in the sentence.

if you are doing things correctly here, you'll figure out as soon as the problem is put in front of your face -- before you even get to the answer choices -- that the company ...
... reported xxxx
and
... announced yyyy.

[RonPurewal]

Thought it would be better to put a comma before and

DO NOT question the correct answers!

here's a handy FAQ:

Q: Is the correct answer correct?
A: Yes.

Q: Is the correct answer wrong?
A: No.

Q: I disagree with the correct answer. Who's wrong, me or GMAC?
A: You.

Q: I wrote this other version. Is it better than the correct answer?
A: No.

[MARSHALLM603]

Thought it would be better to put a comma before and

DO NOT question the correct answers!

here's a handy FAQ:

Q: Is the correct answer correct?
A: Yes.

Q: Is the correct answer wrong?
A: No.

Q: I disagree with the correct answer. Who's wrong, me or GMAC?
A: You.

Q: I wrote this other version. Is it better than the correct answer?
A: No.

I'll definitely remember that! Thanks Ron!

[RonPurewal]

excellent.