Despite its attractiveness, investing abroad can still pose

[Samy]

18. Despite its attractiveness, investing abroad can still pose big risks, ranging from the potential for political instability in some countries to the shortage of regulations to protect investors and a serious lack of information about investments in others.

(A) to the shortage of regulations to protect investors and a serious lack of information about investments in others
(B) to the shortage of regulations to protect investors and in others a serious lack of information about investments
(C) and the shortage of regulations to protect investors and a serious lack of information about investments in others
(D) and the shortage of regulations to protect investors to a serious lack of information about investments in others
(E) to the shortage of regulations to protect investors in others and a serious lack of information about investments

What does "others" refer to in the sentence above and what is the correct way to form this sentence without changing the meaning.
What method would you use to de-construct such a sentence?
Thanks.

[givemeanid]

I think its A. What is OA?

[StaceyKoprince]

Agree - A. The first split is the idiom "from X to Y." Answers C and D both break this idiom by using "and" intead of "to" so eliminate C and D.

"In others" is referring back to "in some countries." We want parallelism here (because we're using the idiom from X to Y) - X and Y need to be parallel. A, B, and E are all identical for the opening bit (the shortage of regulations to protect investors) so I just need to make sure I keep it up. We essentially want "from X in some countries to Y in others."

B moves "in others" to the middle of the answer choice, making "in others" apply only to the lack of info. That's not good enough - it also needs to apply to the shortage of regulations. E essentially has the same problem (in reverse) b/c "in others" is applying only to the shortage and not to the lack.

Only A keeps "in others" at the end so that it applies to all of Y ("the shortage of regulations to protect investors and a serious lack of information about investments"). Note that the whole compound phrase = Y; they're just trying to mess us up by making it a compound phrase (compound phrase = phrase containing "and").

[saha.ranit]

I thought the following:

"ranging from the potential for political instability in some countries to the shortage of regulations to protect investors and a serious lack of information about investments in others" - should explain how investing can pose risks.

So, I chose D. I thought the following:

from (X and Y) to Z..

In A, ranging....should be parallel to "a serious lack of information ....." I feel that it is not parallel.

Can you pls help me in understanding the following?

1. Is "from (X and Y) to Z " allowed?
2. Parallelism issue in A

[tim]

first --
OFFICIALLY CORRECT ANSWERS ARE CORRECT!
do not question officially correct answers!
far too many students on this forum make the mistake of questioning the correct answers; please note that doing so is a complete waste of your time and effort. i.e., exactly 0% of the time that you spend posting "isn't this official answer wrong?" is productive, and exactly 100% of that time is wasted.

"is this correct?" is never a productive question to ask about one of GMAC's correct answers. the answer is always yes.
"is this wrong?" / "is this X type of error?" is never a productive question to ask about one of GMAC's correct answers. the answer is always no.

instead, the questions you should be asking about correct official answers, if you don't understand them, are:
"why is this correct?"
"how does this work?"
"what understanding am i lacking that i need to understand this choice?"

this is a small, but hugely significant, change to your way of thinking.
you will suddenly find it much easier to understand the format, style, and conventions of the official problems if you retire the idea that they might be wrong.

You're effectively asking the same question twice, and the answer is that A is correct.