Women are expected to be the majority

[RonPurewal]

I could not find action doer if B so B seemed passive; we do not know who is expecting

yes, (b) is written in the passive voice. you're writing as though something is wrong with this.

you are aware that the passive voice is often correct, right?

[RonPurewal]

While attempting the question I got stuck between B and D and had no knowledge to move ahead, I could figure out the "placing" and "place" is one of the differences but did not know what to mark or whats the difference between them and which one is correct!!

"placing" is an -ING modifier.

-ING modifiers don't have a tense. they automatically adopt the tense of the clause to which they're attached.

in choice (d), this is illogical: the sentence means that the trend is "placing" the women in these positions right now (since the main clause is in the present).
this is not the intended meaning. the intended meaning is that the trend will place the women in these positions in the future, not now. therefore, you want a future-tense verb.

you also DON'T want parallelism, since these ideas are not parallel.

[thanghnvn]

Ron, I do not understand you.
I agree with you that DOING has no tense and shows the tense of main clause. This means, in D, PLACING has future time and is correct.

So, why D is wrong?. Some members in beatthegmat said that D is wrong because of " it is expected.." . This structure is long and not simple. B is short and simple.

[saptadeepc]

Ron, I do not understand you.
I agree with you that DOING has no tense and shows the tense of main clause. This means, in D, PLACING has future time and is correct.

So, why D is wrong?. Some members in beatthegmat said that D is wrong because of " it is expected.." . This structure is long and not simple. B is short and simple.

Let me see if I have understood it correctly to answer your question :-
Consider the following 3 structures :
1. Since I will go out, I 'am finishing off my work.
2. Since I will go out, I will be finishing off my work
3. Since I will go out, I was finishing off my work

Notice that, to emphasize the tense of the -ING participle I have added a tense verb before it.

In example #1 although I say - I "will" go out, that does not mean my -ING participle will be in future.

If looking at the question what I mean is: -
- the first clause will not decide the tense of the -ING participle. A tense verb just before the -ING participle will decide its tense. Here it is present tense by default.

OR

even an explicit mention of the time frame would work.

for ex -- A trend placing blah blah blah " IN FUTURE "

Here we neither have "will" nor " in future" to support the tense of "_ING" participle.

Ron - please correct me if I 'am wrong somewhere.

[namnam123]

Ron, I do not understand you.
I agree with you that DOING has no tense and shows the tense of main clause. This means, in D, PLACING has future time and is correct.

So, why D is wrong?. Some members in beatthegmat said that D is wrong because of " it is expected.." . This structure is long and not simple. B is short and simple.

Let me see if I have understood it correctly to answer your question :-
Consider the following 3 structures :
1. Since I will go out, I 'am finishing off my work.
2. Since I will go out, I will be finishing off my work
3. Since I will go out, I was finishing off my work

Notice that, to emphasize the tense of the -ING participle I have added a tense verb before it.

In example #1 although I say - I "will" go out, that does not mean my -ING participle will be in future.

If looking at the question what I mean is: -
- the first clause will not decide the tense of the -ING participle. A tense verb just before the -ING participle will decide its tense. Here it is present tense by default.

OR

even an explicit mention of the time frame would work.

for ex -- A trend placing blah blah blah " IN FUTURE "

Here we neither have "will" nor " in future" to support the tense of "_ING" participle.

Ron - please correct me if I 'am wrong somewhere.

according to general grammar books, doing when it touch a noun has no tense/time. This means the pattern NOUN DOING can be
noun which is doing
noun which will do
noun which had done
...... any tense/time

the trend placing'' can be
the trend that will place
the trend that had place.
....

so in D. "trend placing" is correct.

so what make D incorrect. pls, discuss. what gmat want to test us here. There is only one chance. D is wrong because "it is expected " is long.

Ron, pls, confirm and help us. this is gmatprep question, the only official source of hard questions.

[RonPurewal]

Ron, I do not understand you.
I agree with you that DOING has no tense and shows the tense of main clause. This means, in D, PLACING has future time and is correct.

the main clause is explicitly situated within this fall.

the modifier "placing..." suggests that these women will be placed into positions of leadership this fall. that's wrong (it will take decades for them to get there), so this choice is incorrect.

[davetzulin]

While attempting the question I got stuck between B and D and had no knowledge to move ahead, I could figure out the "placing" and "place" is one of the differences but did not know what to mark or whats the difference between them and which one is correct!!

"placing" is an -ING modifier.

-ING modifiers don't have a tense. they automatically adopt the tense of the clause to which they're attached.

in choice (d), this is illogical: the sentence means that the trend is "placing" the women in these positions right now (since the main clause is in the present).
this is not the intended meaning. the intended meaning is that the trend will place the women in these positions in the future, not now. therefore, you want a future-tense verb.

you also DON'T want parallelism, since these ideas are not parallel.

what if the -ing is a part of the main clause? i might be overthinking this...

A) Women are expected to be the majority of student entering law school this fall, a trend ultimately placing <-- correct answer

entering is a participle so to give it a time frame I could either give it the time frame of "this fall", which is in the future... meaning is ok here.

but the main verb of the clause is "are expected". since this is a linking verb is there a special case here? normally I would think that "entering" would take the time frame of "are", which would be present and not make sense

[RonPurewal]

A) Women are expected to be the majority of student entering law school this fall, a trend ultimately placing <-- correct answer

hmm?

that's not the correct answer. the correct answer is (b).

[shah.abhilash]

hi Ron,
Can we say that option D is wrong because it says "expected" and then says "students entering law school this fall WILL be women".
should'nt it be "WOULD be women".

Regards

[RonPurewal]

hi Ron,
Can we say that option D is wrong because it says "expected" and then says "students entering law school this fall WILL be women".
should'nt it be "WOULD be women".

no, "would" doesn't make sense here.
* it's not an untrue or unlikely hypothetical (in fact, it's expected to happen);
* the sentence isn't written in the past tense.

this is a statement about what is expected to happen in the future, so "will" is fine.
the whole "It is expected that ..." thing is unnecessarily wordy in comparison to the correct answer, but there's no problem with the tense of "will".

[rachelhong2012]

A. Women are expected to be the majority of student entering law school this fall, a trend ultimately placing more women in leadership position in politics and business.


B The majority of students entering law school this fall are expected to be women, a trend that will ultimately place


I know that A is wrong, given the wrong tense of "place", but I'm also curious if there's a subtle difference between two sentences in terms of meaning, as I was caught up in figuring out which one is the correct intended meaning.

It seems like "women" is the subject of sentence A whereas "the majority of students" is the subject of sentence B. Sentence A seems to suggest that women need to meet this expectation of becoming the majority of students entering law school this fall, am I right?

[RonPurewal]

A. Women are expected to be the majority of student entering law school this fall, a trend ultimately placing more women in leadership position in politics and business.


B The majority of students entering law school this fall are expected to be women, a trend that will ultimately place


I know that A is wrong, given the wrong tense of "place", but I'm also curious if there's a subtle difference between two sentences in terms of meaning, as I was caught up in figuring out which one is the correct intended meaning.

It seems like "women" is the subject of sentence A whereas "the majority of students" is the subject of sentence B. Sentence A seems to suggest that women need to meet this expectation of becoming the majority of students entering law school this fall, am I right?

first, realize that this is way, way, waaaaaaayyyy beyond the actual scope of this exam.
so, if you are interested in things that are actually going to be tested on the exam, you can stop reading. on the other hand, if you are genuinely curious, read on.

--

i do think there's a subtle difference, as illustrated more easily by simpler examples.
basically, when you say "X is Y", that's a statement about X in general, but NOT necessarily about Y in general.
e.g.
In country X, soldiers are men
--> this means that soldiers, in general, are men. however, it doesn't imply that men, in general, are soldiers.
In country X, men are soldiers
--> implies that basically all men in country X are soldiers.

so, here, the one that starts with "women are expected..." doesn't really make sense, because the statement isn't about women in general.
the statement is about the majority of law students, so it's better to phrase it the other way around.

[gmatalongthewatchtower]

The source of this question is http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/26/busin ... dents.html


They have changed it to enough to not violate copyrights. The GMAT Gods seem to be unhappy with NYTimes' version.

-GMATalongthewatchtower

[jlucero]

I promise that the NY Times editors weren't looking at this sentence as long as our GMAT instructors have. :)

[thanghnvn]

IN D, "placing" takes the time of main verb "will be" and is correct

the reason to eliminate D is "it is expected that " is wordy.