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davetzulin
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Re: Blaming its recent troubles on a widening recession

by davetzulin Sat Jan 14, 2012 4:03 pm

* found the answer to my first question,

my last question is on how the experts properly read that in answer choice A the intended parallelism is not "announced" and "expected". Since it's a 1-part parallel marker "and", we have flexibility in choosing the segments that are parallel and i incorrectly saw that it was announced/reported in A.

company announced that it would cut 10 percent of its workforce--more than 2,000 jobs--and expected to report a

is this more of a meaning issue?
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Re: Blaming its recent troubles on a widening recession

by RonPurewal Sun Jan 22, 2012 8:52 pm

davetzulin Wrote:company announced that it would cut 10 percent of its workforce--more than 2,000 jobs--and expected to report a

is this more of a meaning issue?


yeah, that version of the sentence really doesn't make much sense. according to that wording, the company actually announced the first thing, but, in the case of the second, the narrator just knows (seemingly by pure magic) what the company "expected".
for the sentence to be reasonable, the company would have to announce its expectations.
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Re: Blaming its recent troubles on a widening recession

by vikram4689 Mon Nov 12, 2012 9:50 pm

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Last edited by vikram4689 on Mon Nov 12, 2012 10:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Blaming its recent troubles on a widening recession

by vikram4689 Mon Nov 12, 2012 9:52 pm

ron,
i would like to confirm the reason for difference in parallel elements in a) and b). following is the method that i follow, please tell whether i am correct

for a) - i saw that element next to "and" is a verb. i traversed backwards from "and" to find a verb (grammatical parallelism). after i found the verb (would cut), i saw whether both of these verbs should be parallel in context (logical parallelism). both of these establish (company would cut and company expected) that parallelism is OK in a)

for b) - i saw that element next to "and" is a verb. i traversed backwards from "and" to find a verb (grammatical parallelism). after i found the verb (would be), i saw whether both of these verbs should be parallel in context (logical parallelism). both of these are not parallel because their subjects differ. we need a verb whose subject is company. so i traversed again and encountered (announced). both of these have same subject but now meaning is drastically changed. so parallelism is NOT OK.
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RonPurewal
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Re: Blaming its recent troubles on a widening recession

by RonPurewal Sat Nov 17, 2012 3:17 am

vikram4689 Wrote:ron,
i would like to confirm the reason for difference in parallel elements in a) and b). following is the method that i follow, please tell whether i am correct

for a) - i saw that element next to "and" is a verb. i traversed backwards from "and" to find a verb (grammatical parallelism). after i found the verb (would cut), i saw whether both of these verbs should be parallel in context (logical parallelism). both of these establish (company would cut and company expected) that parallelism is OK in a)

for b) - i saw that element next to "and" is a verb. i traversed backwards from "and" to find a verb (grammatical parallelism). after i found the verb (would be), i saw whether both of these verbs should be parallel in context (logical parallelism). both of these are not parallel because their subjects differ. we need a verb whose subject is company. so i traversed again and encountered (announced). both of these have same subject but now meaning is drastically changed. so parallelism is NOT OK.


the problem with (b) isn't with the subjects of the verbs. after all, it's rather plain that the company is the subject of both "announced" and "expected".

the issue with the verbs there is that, together, they don't make a lot of sense.
if you say the company announced xxxxx and expected yyyyy, then imagine what this would signify from the point of view of the narrator/writer/speaker of the sentence.
specifically, the narrator would be telling us that the company actually announced xxxxx (which makes sense), but, then, the narrator would also be telling us that the company expected yyyyy, even though it hadn't announced that part.

that's not a very sensible meaning, since it entails the notion that the narrator can basically read the company's mind.
the meaning in the original -- namely, that the company simply announced both things -- is much more reasonable.
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Re: Blaming its recent troubles on a widening recession

by vikram4689 Sat Nov 17, 2012 11:37 am

i agree but i think i did not make my question clear enough. let me put my question in a more direct manner. what was going through your mind when you marked the parallel elements in a) & b). why you marked different parallel elements (in green)
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Re: Blaming its recent troubles on a widening recession

by tim Sun Nov 18, 2012 2:43 pm

there was nothing going through Ron's mind at all. this is not something you have to process mentally. "expected" is a verb, and Ron simply underlined the two verbs to the left of the "and" to highlight the possibilities. i see some of my previous posts on this topic have been deleted, but i want to reiterate that structurally both of these are parallel! Ron's point is that the second set are "not the right items" because they mess with the intended meaning. your takeaway from this is that you should accept BOTH a and b on structural grounds and then use your thinking skills to determine which of them have a correct meaning..
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Re: Blaming its recent troubles on a widening recession

by eggpain24 Fri Aug 15, 2014 9:35 pm

HI,Ron

in choice A,we had “expected to report a loss

in choice B,we had “expected a reported loss

I know there is something wrong in reported,but I cannot articulate it,please clarify~
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Re: Blaming its recent troubles on a widening recession

by RonPurewal Sat Aug 16, 2014 11:47 pm

eggpain24 Wrote:HI,Ron

in choice A,we had “expected to report a loss

in choice B,we had “expected a reported loss

I know there is something wrong in reported,but I cannot articulate it,please clarify~


Think about them literally.
Choice A has the correct meaning; choice B has a meaning that doesn't make sense.
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Re: Blaming its recent troubles on a widening recession

by eggpain24 Sun Aug 17, 2014 10:50 am

RonPurewal Wrote:
eggpain24 Wrote:HI,Ron

in choice A,we had “expected to report a loss

in choice B,we had “expected a reported loss

I know there is something wrong in reported,but I cannot articulate it,please clarify~


Think about them literally.
Choice A has the correct meaning; choice B has a meaning that doesn't make sense.


"reported" → the loss has already happened?

is it what you mean,Ron? Thanks!
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Re: Blaming its recent troubles on a widening recession

by gmatkiller_24 Fri Mar 27, 2015 11:24 pm

eggpain24 Wrote:
RonPurewal Wrote:
eggpain24 Wrote:HI,Ron

in choice A,we had “expected to report a loss

in choice B,we had “expected a reported loss

I know there is something wrong in reported,but I cannot articulate it,please clarify~


Think about them literally.
Choice A has the correct meaning; choice B has a meaning that doesn't make sense.


"reported" → the loss has already happened?

is it what you mean,Ron? Thanks!



I am also bothering by the issue above.


in addition to that,

to the doubt discussed above, I dont think in the correct choice, announced is parallel to expected

I think "would cut" is parallel to "expected" ( both included in the announcement)
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Re: Blaming its recent troubles on a widening recession

by RonPurewal Tue Mar 31, 2015 8:30 am

eggpain24 Wrote:"reported" → the loss has already happened?

is it what you mean,Ron? Thanks!


that's what i mean.
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Re: Blaming its recent troubles on a widening recession

by RonPurewal Tue Mar 31, 2015 8:32 am

1131570003 Wrote:to the doubt discussed above, I dont think in the correct choice, announced is parallel to expected

I think "would cut" is parallel to "expected" ( both included in the announcement)


correct on both counts.

by the way, almost every post on this entire page is focused on exactly this idea--that "announced || expected" is nonsense, and that the correct meaning is "would cut || expected".

please read the entire thread, carefully, before posting questions. thank you.