SC: According to some analysts, the gains :

[parthak.dey]

Q: According to some analysts, the gains in the stock market reflect growing confidence that the economy will avoid the recession that many had feared earlier in the year and instead come in for a "soft landing", followed by a gradual increase in the business acitivity.

A) that the economy will avoid the recession that many had feared earlier in the year and instead come

B) In the economy's ability to avoid the recession, something earlier in the year manay had feared, and instead to come

C) In the economy to avoid the recession, what many feared earlier in the year, rather to come

D) In the economy to avoid the recession manay were fearing earlier in the year, and rather to come

E) that the economy will avoid the recession that was feared earlier rhis year by many, with it istead coming

Doubt: Why should A be the correct answer. Use of Had confusing as had shoukd be used in case of double past.

[mahesh.s009]

The gains reflect growing confidence that the economy will AVOID X and instead COME in for Y, followed by a gradual INCREASE in Z

No other choice has parallelism maintained between these three verbs except for A and E.

In E prepositional phrase "with it" is awkward.

[parthak.dey]

Thanks for the reply Mahesh. But the question how do we justify the use of "Had" in this case as i believe had can either be used in acse of double past(Two events tooks place in the past) or incase case of possession.

[mahesh.s009]

As Ron said a few times, perfect tense can be a bit ambiguous so try to find other ways of eliminating rather than sticking to perfect tense.

This is my rule of thumb so in my checklist perfect tense comes after redundancy [last but one]

[pdarun]

I chose E just because of the past perfect tense. Past perfect is strictly not to be used unless the sentence is already talking about an Event X in the past and Event Y occurred before event X. :((

What do I not know about past perfect?

[RonPurewal]

here's another post that deals with this issue. you can't post on this thread -- it's in the OG folder, which has been disabled for posting at the request of GMAC -- but you can still read it.

post207.html#p207

[divineacclivity]

All the options including option A look bad & I'm not able to decide which one is the best of the worst.

What is common amongst all the options is that economy is in action i.e. economy is avoiding recession
For example in (A): ".. economy will avoid recession.." - how can economy avoid something; it is not a living being :(
WHY IS IT A GOOD OPTION to have economy avoiding something in the sentence??? Please help me understand.

(B): "..recession, what many feared .." - awkward; it could have been "..recession that many feared .."
(C): "economy's ability" - awkward; ".. instead to come ..." - not parallel
(D): many were fearing - wrong; rather to come - not parallel
(E): with it instead coming - non-sensical

Thanks

Divine

[nowwithgmat]

hello instructor

does "followed by a gradual increase in business activity " modify the " soft landing"?? if so what type of modifier it is?

thanx in advance

[jlucero]

All the options including option A look bad & I'm not able to decide which one is the best of the worst.

What is common amongst all the options is that economy is in action i.e. economy is avoiding recession
For example in (A): ".. economy will avoid recession.." - how can economy avoid something; it is not a living being :(
WHY IS IT A GOOD OPTION to have economy avoiding something in the sentence??? Please help me understand.

If it's in all of the answer choices (including the correct one), it must be ok in the GMAT's book, so it's not worth worrying about. Understand that the correct answer is correct grammatically. The economy will avoid recession is ok just as the book will talk about the economy. Not literally. But colloquially. Which is fine.

[jlucero]

hello instructor

does "followed by a gradual increase in business activity " modify the " soft landing"?? if so what type of modifier it is?

thanx in advance

-ED and -ING verbs after commas are most commonly a modifier that modifies the main clause of the sentence:

They won the football game, scoring 28 points. (how did they win?)
They won the football game, followed by a massive celebration. (what happened after they won?)

In this sentence, "followed by X" modifies what will happen after the economy comes in for a soft landing.

[nowwithgmat]

hello instructor

does "followed by a gradual increase in business activity " modify the " soft landing"?? if so what type of modifier it is?

thanx in advance

-ED and -ING verbs after commas are most commonly a modifier that modifies the main clause of the sentence:

They won the football game, scoring 28 points. (how did they win?)
They won the football game, followed by a massive celebration. (what happened after they won?)

In this sentence, "followed by X" modifies what will happen after the economy comes in for a soft landing.

thanx jlucero
now got the idea...

[jnelson0612]

Great! :-)

[swathi8388]

Can someone please explain who is growing confidence in "reflect growing confidence" , is it alright to not have a subject whose confidence is growing here?

[tim]

no one is growing confidence. the confidence is growing..

[rustom.hakimiyan]

I came to the right answer by splitting between A.D. vs. B.C.E, starting with "that the economy" vs. "in the economy" - the latter seemed like the economy was going to avoid something, but since the economy is not a "living" thing, how can it avoid something?

Was I lucky in coming to my conclusion or was that an appropriate split?