Sentence Correction

Reporting that one of its many problems had been the recent extended sales slump in women's apparel, the seven-store retailer said it would start a three month liquidation sale in all of its stores.
(A) its many problems had been the recent
(B) its many problems has been the recently
(C) its many problems is the recently
(D) their many problems is the recent
(E) their many problems had been the recent

imo A is correct

IMO: A
the past perfect had been is correctly used here, since it indicates an action that took place prior to reporting done by retailer..."..retailer said..".

retailer said it would => past event in underlined portion as well => A vs E=> their E=> IMO A

confusion: A sud have 'recent' or 'recently' (extended: adjective and so requires adv 'recently) - pls correct me

pnk wrote:retailer said it would => past event in underlined portion as well => A vs E=> their E=> IMO A

confusion: A sud have 'recent' or 'recently' (extended: adjective and so requires adv 'recently) - pls correct me

OA is A

And, actually, I have the same question. Why can we use "recent" in this case?

pnk wrote:retailer said it would => past event in underlined portion as well => A vs E=> their E=> IMO A

confusion: A sud have 'recent' or 'recently' (extended: adjective and so requires adv 'recently) - pls correct me

Logically, recent modifies sales and not extended. Hence adjective recent is correct. Hope that helps.

Step 1:

You see "its" for choices A, B, and C and "their" for choices D and E. Since the difference is between a plural and singular pronoun, identify what noun "its" refers to. The antecedent is "retailer," which is singular. Thus, D and E are eliminated.

A, B, and C all differ in verb tense. A uses the past perfect, B uses the present perfect, and C uses the present tense. To determine the appropriate verb tense, we must pay attention to other verbs in the sentence or words that indicate when an action takes place. In this case, we can use the phrase "the seven-store retailer SAID" to determine what tense the underlined portion should be in. Did the problem of the "recent extended sale slump" occur before or after the retailer "said it would start a three month liquidation?" Logically, it must have occurred before the retailer "said" since the retailer's liquidation is the consequence of the three month slump. Thus, the tense in the underlined portion should be the past perfect since the past perfect is the tense you use to indicate events that take place in the past before other events in the past (E.g. Before I MET with my tutor, I HAD studied for 30 hours on my own).

andrey_tsi wrote:Reporting that one of its many problems had been the recent extended sales slump in women's apparel, the seven-store retailer said it would start a three month liquidation sale in all of its stores.
(A) its many problems had been the recent
(B) its many problems has been the recently
(C) its many problems is the recently
(D) their many problems is the recent
(E) their many problems had been the recent

It's illogical to say "recently extended slump" since this would imply that the slump was extended by someone/something. Though it's somewhat of a subtle error in meaning, we could assume that the business would be working in its best interest and would not intentionally extend the slump it's experiencing.

pnk wrote:retailer said it would => past event in underlined portion as well => A vs E=> their E=> IMO A

confusion: A sud have 'recent' or 'recently' (extended: adjective and so requires adv 'recently) - pls correct me

Erfun_GMATCompass wrote:Step 1:

You see "its" for choices A, B, and C and "their" for choices D and E. Since the difference is between a plural and singular pronoun, identify what noun "its" refers to. The antecedent is "retailer," which is singular. Thus, D and E are eliminated.

A, B, and C all differ in verb tense. A uses the past perfect, B uses the present perfect, and C uses the present tense. To determine the appropriate verb tense, we must pay attention to other verbs in the sentence or words that indicate when an action takes place. In this case, we can use the phrase "the seven-store retailer SAID" to determine what tense the underlined portion should be in. Did the problem of the "recent extended sale slump" occur before or after the retailer "said it would start a three month liquidation?" Logically, it must have occurred before the retailer "said" since the retailer's liquidation is the consequence of the three month slump. Thus, the tense in the underlined portion should be the past perfect since the past perfect is the tense you use to indicate events that take place in the past before other events in the past (E.g. Before I MET with my tutor, I HAD studied for 30 hours on my own).

andrey_tsi wrote:Reporting that one of its many problems had been the recent extended sales slump in women's apparel, the seven-store retailer said it would start a three month liquidation sale in all of its stores.
(A) its many problems had been the recent
(B) its many problems has been the recently
(C) its many problems is the recently
(D) their many problems is the recent
(E) their many problems had been the recent

This is a question from the OG verbal review.....so can't contest....
BUT plz help solve my query.

If one carefully reads the sentence, "retailer" can't be referred to as "its"
(for eg. The Lawyer and his....)

Moreover...I think the problem of sales slump is of "the seven-store" and not of the retailer.
any thoughts?

arora007 wrote: This is a question from the OG verbal review.....so can't contest....
BUT plz help solve my query.

If one carefully reads the sentence, "retailer" can't be referred to as "its"
(for eg. The Lawyer and his....)

Moreover...I think the problem of sales slump is of "the seven-store" and not of the retailer.
any thoughts?

As to your first question, the "retailer" here doesn't have to be a person; we could refer to the store itself as the "retailer." Furthermore, the retailer is referred to twice in the non-underlined portion as "it" and then again as "its," so it's clear from context that the GMAT doesn't consider this an issue.

As to your second question ... I'm not quite sure what you're asking. Rephrase and I'll reply as soon as I can!

AdamKnewton wrote:

arora007 wrote: This is a question from the OG verbal review.....so can't contest....
BUT plz help solve my query.

If one carefully reads the sentence, "retailer" can't be referred to as "its"
(for eg. The Lawyer and his....)

Moreover...I think the problem of sales slump is of "the seven-store" and not of the retailer.
any thoughts?

As to your first question, the "retailer" here doesn't have to be a person; we could refer to the store itself as the "retailer." Furthermore, the retailer is referred to twice in the non-underlined portion as "it" and then again as "its," so it's clear from context that the GMAT doesn't consider this an issue.

As to your second question ... I'm not quite sure what you're asking. Rephrase and I'll reply as soon as I can!

Well... my doubts are cleared if I look at "the seven-store retailer" as one entity... earlier I had thought that
there is one "seven-store" and it had a retailer(sales-man) whose work was to take care of the sale slump....

Thanks a lot Adam.