Sentence Correction

A recent study has found that within the past few
years, many doctors had elected early retirement
rather than face the threats of lawsuits and the rising
costs of malpractice insurance.
(A) had elected early retirement rather than face
(B) had elected early retirement instead of facing
(C) have elected retiring early instead of facing
(D) have elected to retire early rather than facing
(E) have elected to retire early rather than face

[spoiler]
I ended up choosing C to make facing and the rising parallel.
Also i know instead of is used for comparing nouns whereas rather than for actions.
Is there any thing else we can use to differentiate between the two?[/spoiler]

killerdrummer wrote:A recent study has found that within the past few
years, many doctors had elected early retirement
rather than face the threats of lawsuits and the rising
costs of malpractice insurance.
(A) had elected early retirement rather than face
(B) had elected early retirement instead of facing
(C) have elected retiring early instead of facing
(D) have elected to retire early rather than facing
(E) have elected to retire early rather than face

In A and B, had elected (past perfect) serves to express an action COMPLETED AT AN INDEFINITE MOMENT IN THE PAST.
But the intention here is to express an action that STARTED within the past few years and MIGHT CONTINUE into the present.
For this purpose, we use the present perfect (have elected).
Eliminate A and B.

In C, elected retiring is unidiomatic.
The correct idiom is X elects TO DO Y.
Eliminate C.

In D, to retire and facing are not parallel.
Eliminate D.

The correct answer is E.

Thanks Mitch for the detailed explanation, but my question is when one should use "rather than" and when one should "instead of" ?? An example would make things pretty clear.


Also, if C option looked something like below, would it be right ?


have elected to retire early instead of facing

killerdrummer wrote:A recent study has found that within the past few
years, many doctors had elected early retirement
rather than face the threats of lawsuits and the rising
costs of malpractice insurance.
(A) had elected early retirement rather than face
(B) had elected early retirement instead of facing
(C) have elected retiring early instead of facing
(D) have elected to retire early rather than facing
(E) have elected to retire early rather than face

[spoiler]
I ended up choosing C to makes facing and the rising parallel.
Also i know instead of is used for comparing verbs whereas rather than for nouns.
Is there any thing else we can use to differentiate between the two?[/spoiler]

Generally In Gmat "Rather than" is Preferred to "Instead of"

Also remember that rather than is used whenever comparing actions.
Instead of is used whenever comparing two nouns.

Regars
Atal Pandit

===

killerdrummer wrote:Thanks Mitch for the detailed explanation, but my question is when one should use "rather than" and when one should "instead of" ?? An example would make things pretty clear.


Also, if C option looked something like below, would it be right ?


have elected to retire early instead of facing

X instead of Y typically implies that Y had been expected, but X happened INSTEAD.
John chose a pen instead of a pencil.
Implication: John had been expected to choose a pencil, but he chose a pen INSTEAD.
In the SC above, instead implies the following: it had been expected that doctors would elect to face the threats of lawsuits, but they have elected to retire early INSTEAD.
Not the intended meaning.

X rather than Y typically implies that X is preferred to Y.
John chose a pen rather than a pencil.
Implicated: John PREFERRED a pen.
This is the intended meaning of the SC above:
Doctors do not want to face the threats of lawsuits.
They PREFER to retire early.
The result is the wording in the OA:
Doctors have elected to retire early RATHER THAN face the threats of lawsuits.

Mitch - Well that is what i was looking for!!

Much appreciated.

Thanks for such a good explanation Mitch.
I still have a doubt with option E. I don't see parallelism in infinitives 'to retire' and 'face'. As per my understanding, because of using correlative conjunction 'rather than' one must maintain parallelism in infinitives.
Shouldn't it be saying: Doctors have elected to retire early RATHER THAN TO face the threats of lawsuits ???

GMATGuruNY wrote:===

killerdrummer wrote:Thanks Mitch for the detailed explanation, but my question is when one should use "rather than" and when one should "instead of" ?? An example would make things pretty clear.


Also, if C option looked something like below, would it be right ?


have elected to retire early instead of facing

X instead of Y typically implies that Y had been expected, but X happened INSTEAD.
John chose a pen instead of a pencil.
Implication: John had been expected to choose a pencil, but he chose a pen INSTEAD.
In the SC above, instead implies the following: it had been expected that doctors would elect to face the threats of lawsuits, but they have elected to retire early INSTEAD.
Not the intended meaning.

X rather than Y typically implies that X is preferred to Y.
John chose a pen rather than a pencil.
Implicated: John PREFERRED a pen.
This is the intended meaning of the SC above:
Doctors do not want to face the threats of lawsuits.
They PREFER to retire early.
The result is the wording in the OA:
Doctors have elected to retire early RATHER THAN face the threats of lawsuits.

positiveamal wrote:Thanks for such a good explanation Mitch.
I still have a doubt with option E. I don't see parallelism in infinitives 'to retire' and 'face'. As per my understanding, because of using correlative conjunction 'rather than' one must maintain parallelism in infinitives.
Shouldn't it be saying: Doctors have elected to retire early RATHER THAN TO face the threats of lawsuits ???

GMATGuruNY wrote:===

killerdrummer wrote:Thanks Mitch for the detailed explanation, but my question is when one should use "rather than" and when one should "instead of" ?? An example would make things pretty clear.


Also, if C option looked something like below, would it be right ?


have elected to retire early instead of facing

X instead of Y typically implies that Y had been expected, but X happened INSTEAD.
John chose a pen instead of a pencil.
Implication: John had been expected to choose a pencil, but he chose a pen INSTEAD.
In the SC above, instead implies the following: it had been expected that doctors would elect to face the threats of lawsuits, but they have elected to retire early INSTEAD.
Not the intended meaning.

X rather than Y typically implies that X is preferred to Y.
John chose a pen rather than a pencil.
Implicated: John PREFERRED a pen.
This is the intended meaning of the SC above:
Doctors do not want to face the threats of lawsuits.
They PREFER to retire early.
The result is the wording in the OA:
Doctors have elected to retire early RATHER THAN face the threats of lawsuits.

I do agree to what you say. 'To retire' would go with 'To face' rather than 'face', but among those present here, E is the best one. Because 'facing' is a noun and isn't parallel by any means.

Mitch, please correct me if I am wrong.

Here the construction of the sentence is
........ elected to verb1 rather than verb2 .............

"elected to" is common for verb1 (retire) and verb2 (face)
Hence the construction of the sentence with option E is correct.

Point: we can drop common words in a parallel structure. Look into the following two correct sentences.
I gave the candies to Matt and to Tracy.
I gave the candies to Matt and Tracy.
In the second sentence, "to" is common for Matt and Tracy. Also, this sentence is more concise than the first one.

magpie16, well explained.

Hello magpie16,

I understand that we can drop a common word (to) while writing a parallel structure. One can have 'to' before each element of parallel structure or can have only one 'to' in a parallel sentence applicable to all elements.
However This rule does not apply when we have a correlative conjunction in a sentence. For better understanding please look in to following example:

Andre's goal is not only to maximize profits but also increase brand awareness. WRONG
Andre's goal is not only to maximize profits but also to increase brand awareness. RIGHT
Andre's goal is to not only maximize profits but also increase brand awareness. SPLITTING INFINITIVE (MOSTLY WRONG)

However option 'E' is best option available here, I still have a question regarding omitting the word 'to'


Regards,
Amal
Don't forget to Thank if you found this post useful.

magpie16 wrote:Here the construction of the sentence is
........ elected to verb1 rather than verb2 .............

"elected to" is common for verb1 (retire) and verb2 (face)
Hence the construction of the sentence with option E is correct.

Point: we can drop common words in a parallel structure. Look into the following two correct sentences.
I gave the candies to Matt and to Tracy.
I gave the candies to Matt and Tracy.
In the second sentence, "to" is common for Matt and Tracy. Also, this sentence is more concise than the first one.

[/i]

positiveamal wrote:I understand that we can drop a common word (to) while writing a parallel structure. One can have 'to' before each element of parallel structure or can have only one 'to' in a parallel sentence applicable to all elements.
However This rule does not apply when we have a correlative conjunction in a sentence. For better understanding please look in to following example:

Andre's goal is not only to maximize profits but also increase brand awareness. WRONG
Andre's goal is not only to maximize profits but also to increase brand awareness. RIGHT
Andre's goal is to not only maximize profits but also increase brand awareness. SPLITTING INFINITIVE (MOSTLY WRONG)

However option 'E' is best option available here, I still have a question regarding omitting the word 'to'

Hi Amal, thank you for bringing up a very interesting question. The debate on "splitting infinitive" started in 19th century and that is still going on!

The background of the debate just to relate to the discussion:
Many of the English grammar rules are derived from Latin where the infinitive "to + verb" is treated as single word. Hence, conservative grammarians established a rule in late 19th century, a few years after the start of the wide usage of splitting infinitive. However, in 20th century, there was denials of that rule saying that "to + verb" is not one word in English and many acclaimed writers of 20th century used splitting infinitives in their literature. There are some grammarians (e.g., Toni Boyle and K.D. Sullivan, authors of The Gremlins of Grammar) who are proponents for splitting infinitive and some grammarians are opponents of splitting infinitive. In many cases, constructions with splitting infinitive are awkward or wrong and hence should be avoided. Though there are cases where splitting infinitive makes better sense, many people advise to refrain from the use of splitting infinitive in formal writing so as to reduce the possibility of ambiguity.

For the examples you have shown, I fully agree with your analysis on the first two cases. For the third case, IMHO, your sentence "Andre's goal is to not only maximize profits but also increase brand awareness" may not be discarded altogether as the preposition "to" is common for both the verbs and thus making both infinitive. However, I stand by the point that the best reconstruction of the third sentence would be your second example as that form adheres to the conservative rule and the sentence does not leave any ambiguity.

Considering GMAC's preference for the conservative path, I feel it is better to avoid split infinitives whenever possible. When there are two options with only difference of splitting infinitive, I would pick the option without splitting infinitive. But, when there are more serious problems (e.g., grammatical mistake or change of meaning) in the other choices, I would pick the option with splitting infinitive as that falls under clarity issue which is less serious problem.

For our particular case, best construction would be to have "to" before both the verbs. Please consider option E as the best option from the given choices (though it is not the best possible sentence in the world). Option E is best choice here because all other choices have more critical grammatical mistakes.

In summary, I am not denying the problem you have raised (as splitting infinitive is not accepted widely) and, at the same time, I am not discarding the use of splitting infinitive totally. As I see, use of splitting infinitive is contextual and we have to judge the correctness of the sentence based on the situation.

positiveamal wrote:Hello magpie16,

I understand that we can drop a common word (to) while writing a parallel structure. One can have 'to' before each element of parallel structure or can have only one 'to' in a parallel sentence applicable to all elements.
However This rule does not apply when we have a correlative conjunction in a sentence. For better understanding please look in to following example:

Andre's goal is not only to maximize profits but also increase brand awareness. WRONG
Andre's goal is not only to maximize profits but also to increase brand awareness. RIGHT
Andre's goal is to not only maximize profits but also increase brand awareness. SPLITTING INFINITIVE (MOSTLY WRONG)

However option 'E' is best option available here, I still have a question regarding omitting the word 'to'


Regards,
Amal
Don't forget to Thank if you found this post useful.

magpie16 wrote:Here the construction of the sentence is
........ elected to verb1 rather than verb2 .............

"elected to" is common for verb1 (retire) and verb2 (face)
Hence the construction of the sentence with option E is correct.

Point: we can drop common words in a parallel structure. Look into the following two correct sentences.
I gave the candies to Matt and to Tracy.
I gave the candies to Matt and Tracy.
In the second sentence, "to" is common for Matt and Tracy. Also, this sentence is more concise than the first one.

[/i]

The BARE INFINITIVE is the infinitive form of a verb without the to.
When rather than serves to compare actions, it typically is followed by the bare infinitive.
The OA above:
Many doctors have elected to retire early rather than FACE the threats of lawsuits.
Here, rather than is followed by face, the bare infinitive form of to face.
Because of the use of rather than, the comparison between to retire (standard infinitive) and face (bare infinitive) is considered both correct and parallel.