doubt SC 5

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doubt SC 5

by aditya8062 » Sun Nov 23, 2014 6:07 pm
Despite last minute efforts by the company's design team at improving it, the gas-guzzling SUV, continuing its decline in the market, production ceasing at the end of the decade.

a) at improving it, the gas-guzzling SUV, continuing its decline in the market, production ceasing

b) at improving it, the gas-guzzling SUV continued its decline in the market, to cease production

c) at improving it, the gas-guzzling SUV continued declining in the market, and production was ceased

d) to improve it, the gas-guzzling SUV continued its decline in the market, and production was ceased

e) to improve it, the gas-guzzling SUV is continuing its decline in the market, and to cease production

my concern: i selected D, the proclaimed answer, in this question; however, i somehow find the "AND" parallelism in D a little weird. the initial modifier "Despite last minute efforts by the company's design team at improving it" DOES make sense with the construction "the gas-guzzling SUV continued its decline in the market", however it(the modifier) DOES NOT make sense with the construction "and production was ceased at the end of the decade.

i feel that the following construction would have been better: Despite last minute efforts by the company's design team at improving it to improve it, the gas-guzzling SUV continued its decline in the market, and THUS production was ceased at the end of the decade

thanks

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by MartyMurray » Sun Nov 23, 2014 6:58 pm
Well, let's take out part of the sentence, still using choice D, and make this.

"Despite last minute efforts by the company's design team at improving it, production was ceased at the end of the decade."

While the modifier does not refer to production, that basically makes sense.

How about this?

"Despite last minute efforts by the company's design team at improving it, thus production was ceased at the end of the decade."

Doesn't work any more.

So maybe it is actually tighter without the thus.

Either way seems fine though.

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by GMATGuruNY » Mon Nov 24, 2014 5:05 am
The construction in the OA is as follows:
Introductory modifier + first independent clause + conjunction + second independent clause.
In this construction, the introductory modifier serves to modify ONLY THE FIRST independent clause; it does NOT serve to modify the second.

SC52 in the OG13:
Long before it was fashionable to be an expatriate, Josephine Baker made Paris her home, and she remained in France during the Second World War as a performer and an intelligence agent for the Resistance..
Here, the introductory modifier serves to modify only the first independent clause (Josephine Baker made Paris her home).
It does not serve to modify the second independent clause (she remained in France).
The following sentence would not make sense:
Long before it was fashionable to be an expatriate, Josephine Baker remained in France during the Second World War as a performer and an intelligence agent for the Resistance.

The same reasoning holds true for the OA to the SC posted above.
The introductory despite-modifier serves to modify only the first independent clause (the SUV continued its decline).
It does not serve to modify the second independent clause (production was ceased).
Last edited by GMATGuruNY on Mon Nov 24, 2014 8:20 am, edited 2 times in total.
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by MartyMurray » Mon Nov 24, 2014 7:33 am
GMATGuruNY wrote:.

The introductory despite-modifier serves to modify the only first independent clause (the SUV continued its decline).
It does not serve to modify the second independent clause (production was ceased).
Looks as if Mitch nailed it, and so maybe that "thus" you wanted to add was just a means to having the sentence be constructed in such a way as to clearly confirm of what Mitch is saying.

Why would you want it to be confirmed that way? Maybe something about GMAT sentence correction questions triggers a little paranoia in many of us. No surprise there.