Worker Contributions CAT 5

[talk2ambarish]

A recent study has cited overcomplexity, increasing worker mobility between companies, and poor financial planning in estimating that fewer than half of eligible American workers had contributed the maximum amount to their employer-offered retirement plans.

A)A recent study has cited overcomplexity, increasing worker mobility between companies, and poor financial planning in estimating that fewer than half of eligible American workers had contributed the maximum amount to their employer-offered retirement plans.

B)Overcomplexity, increasing worker mobility between companies, and poor financial planning have been cited by a recent study that estimated that over half of eligible American workers do not contribute the maximum amount to their employer-offered retirement plans.

C)Citing overcomplexity, increasing mobility of workers between companies, and poor financial planning, less than half of eligible American workers had contributed the maximum amount to their employer-offered retirement plans, a recent study estimates.

D)A recent study of American workers, citing overcomplexity, increasing mobility of workers between companies, and poor financial planning, has estimated that fewer than half of eligible American workers had contributed the maximum amount to their employer-offered retirement plans.

E)Citing overcomplexity, increasing mobility of workers between companies, and poor financial planning, a recent study has estimated that fewer than half of eligible American workers contribute the maximum amount to their employer-offered retirement plans.

The OA is E

I am not able to comprehend the explanation given in the CAT.
Please explain me how OA is right.

Also I have difficulty in solving SC questions where the entire sentence is underlined. These questions tend to take lot of my time.

Please advice me as how to tackle these questions?

[ranjeet_1975]

Yes the answer should be E.

The sentence is easily understandable in E.

[NIKESH_PAHUJA]

A, C and D are wrong because of the past perfect tense.

There is no justification of using had here.

B is flawed because of structure.

hence E is OA

[RonPurewal]

I am not able to comprehend the explanation given in the CAT.
Please explain me how OA is right.

what choices were you able to eliminate? were there particular parts of the choices, or of the explanation, that you didn't get?

you can eliminate a lot using verb tense. "had contributed" doesn't make sense in (a) and (d); "have been cited" and "estimated" don't go together in (b).

in (c), the initial modifier ("Citing ...") doesn't have a subject, so it applies automatically to the subject of the next clause, "less than half of eligible American workers".
the workers aren't citing anything, so that's wrong.

Also I have difficulty in solving SC questions where the entire sentence is underlined. These questions tend to take lot of my time.

Please advice me as how to tackle these questions?

they're not fundamentally different from other problems. they just have a bigger underlined part.
really - none of the techniques that you use are going to be any different.

the most important things for you to do are (a) notice the differences among the choices quickly, and, also, (b) notice the parts that are NOT different among any of the choices (so that you can ignore those parts).
often, when the entire sentence is underlined, there will be huge amounts of text in the middle of the sentence that are the same in all five choices. (remember, if there are splits that affect both the beginning and the end, then they HAVE to underline the whole thing - even if the middle is exactly the same in all the choices.)

in fact, some of the problems in which the whole sentence is underlined can be easier, since you won't have to keep looking up ... and back down ... and back up ... and back down ... etc.

[andy_11_30]

I am not able to comprehend the explanation given in the CAT.
Please explain me how OA is right.

what choices were you able to eliminate? were there particular parts of the choices, or of the explanation, that you didn't get?

you can eliminate a lot using verb tense. "had contributed" doesn't make sense in (a) and (d); "have been cited" and "estimated" don't go together in (b).

in (c), the initial modifier ("Citing ...") doesn't have a subject, so it applies automatically to the subject of the next clause, "less than half of eligible American workers".
the workers aren't citing anything, so that's wrong.

Also I have difficulty in solving SC questions where the entire sentence is underlined. These questions tend to take lot of my time.

Please advice me as how to tackle these questions?

they're not fundamentally different from other problems. they just have a bigger underlined part.
really - none of the techniques that you use are going to be any different.

the most important things for you to do are (a) notice the differences among the choices quickly, and, also, (b) notice the parts that are NOT different among any of the choices (so that you can ignore those parts).
often, when the entire sentence is underlined, there will be huge amounts of text in the middle of the sentence that are the same in all five choices. (remember, if there are splits that affect both the beginning and the end, then they HAVE to underline the whole thing - even if the middle is exactly the same in all the choices.)

in fact, some of the problems in which the whole sentence is underlined can be easier, since you won't have to keep looking up ... and back down ... and back up ... and back down ... etc.

true, this is what I follow ;-)

Ron, ur the BEST !!!

[Ben Ku]

Glad it helped!

[gmatprep14]

Instructors - Please help

Ron taught a concept related to usage of past perfect in this thread

ozone-reaches-high-concentrations-twelve-miles-t3584.html

I thought the same concept is also applicable in the question in discussion here and justifed the usage of past perfect . But as the OA suggest , I was wrong. Can some one explain .

[tim]

If you're going to use the past perfect ("had contributed") you have to be able to pinpoint a time in the more distant past or at least put bounds on the time frame that relegate it to the more distant past (more distant than the other past tense information in the sentence). This is impossible if the timing of the contributing (or the citing for that matter) is ongoing or indefinite, so past perfect is inappropriate here. We can't be sure that all of the contributing occurred before all of the citing, so we lose the ability to apply the past perfect in this case.

[viveksharma247]

The only doubt that I had concerning the choice E is the use of fewer than half the eligible workers. I understand that fewer is used of uncountable things like water, etc. Though I fully understand that fewer is correct here, could you still confirm if fewer is used with population.

What's better - less than half the number of eligible people or fewer than half the eligible people?

Thanks in advance!!

[tim]

Vivek, you have it backwards. "Fewer" refers to countable things, "less" to uncountable..

[vijay19839]

"Citing overcomplexity, increasing mobility of workers between companies, and poor financial planning"

I think in the right answer E, we have three Nouns in a List.

1. OverComplexity
2. Increasing Mobility of Workers between Companies
3. Poor Financial Planning

Can someone please explain how can these three nouns be parallel?

'Increasing Mobility of Workers between Companies' -> Here is 'Increasing' acting as a Participle modifier or Gerund? And How do we determine that? I was really confused when answering the question.

[jnelson0612]

"Citing overcomplexity, increasing mobility of workers between companies, and poor financial planning"

I think in the right answer E, we have three Nouns in a List.

1. OverComplexity
2. Increasing Mobility of Workers between Companies
3. Poor Financial Planning

Can someone please explain how can these three nouns be parallel?

'Increasing Mobility of Workers between Companies' -> Here is 'Increasing' acting as a Participle modifier or Gerund? And How do we determine that? I was really confused when answering the question.

Sure; let's pull the actual nouns out:
1) overcomplexity
2) mobility (notice that "increasing" is just modifying mobility)
3) planning

Thus, overcomplexity, mobility, and planning can all be parallel since each one is a noun.

Please let us know if we can help further! :-)

[vijay19839]

Hi Jamie

Thanks for the reply. I think 'Planning' is an ING Gerund and How can ING Gerund which is a Simple Gerund be Parallel to other Nouns?

As per MGMAT SC,

Concrete Nouns can be parallel with Concrete Nouns only.
Simple Gerunds can be parallel only with Simple Gerunds only.
Action Nouns & Complex Gerunds can be Parallel

Thanks
Vijay

"Citing overcomplexity, increasing mobility of workers between companies, and poor financial planning"

I think in the right answer E, we have three Nouns in a List.

1. OverComplexity
2. Increasing Mobility of Workers between Companies
3. Poor Financial Planning

Can someone please explain how can these three nouns be parallel?

'Increasing Mobility of Workers between Companies' -> Here is 'Increasing' acting as a Participle modifier or Gerund? And How do we determine that? I was really confused when answering the question.

Sure; let's pull the actual nouns out:
1) overcomplexity
2) mobility (notice that "increasing" is just modifying mobility)
3) planning

Thus, overcomplexity, mobility, and planning can all be parallel since each one is a noun.

Please let us know if we can help further! :-)

[jnelson0612]

Hi Jamie

Thanks for the reply. I think 'Planning' is an ING Gerund and How can ING Gerund which is a Simple Gerund be Parallel to other Nouns?

As per MGMAT SC,

Concrete Nouns can be parallel with Concrete Nouns only.
Simple Gerunds can be parallel only with Simple Gerunds only.
Action Nouns & Complex Gerunds can be Parallel

Thanks
Vijay

"Citing overcomplexity, increasing mobility of workers between companies, and poor financial planning"

I think in the right answer E, we have three Nouns in a List.

1. OverComplexity
2. Increasing Mobility of Workers between Companies
3. Poor Financial Planning

Can someone please explain how can these three nouns be parallel?

'Increasing Mobility of Workers between Companies' -> Here is 'Increasing' acting as a Participle modifier or Gerund? And How do we determine that? I was really confused when answering the question.

Sure; let's pull the actual nouns out:
1) overcomplexity
2) mobility (notice that "increasing" is just modifying mobility)
3) planning

Thus, overcomplexity, mobility, and planning can all be parallel since each one is a noun.

Please let us know if we can help further! :-)

Hey Vijay, can you tell me where exactly you read that in our book (page number)? Because that advice would go directly against specific Official Guide problems, such as #119 in Official Guide 12, so I can't believe that we would write that. Thanks!

[tim]

I know I've seen some information to that effect in our book, and the best I can say is that if you ever find something in our book that contradicts an official answer in the OG, then our book is wrong on that point. What is FAR more important though is to recognize that if there is a grammar point in the OG problems that managed to escape the notice of the authors of our strategy guide, that topic is so OVERWHELMINGLY RARE on the GMAT that it's probably not even worth studying. I see far too many people on this forum concerning themselves with tiny rules that don't matter while neglecting the big issues..