KapTeacherEli wrote:Hi Mike,
Let me chime in on the problem with (B)--the "so as to" phrase makes it unclear who will "prove fitness".
Mr. Eli Meyer,
Most respectfully, I choose to differ. Yes, in principle, in a kind of mathematical sense, the infinitive of purpose ("
so as to ...") could apply to either verb, and therefore to either actor. In practice, though, the default assumption in a sentence such as this is that the infinitive of purpose applies to the closest verb, especially when the sentence is long & complex like this, and the first verb, the most distant verb, is very far away in the sentence.
In other words, if anyone wrote the
(B) version of the sentence,
Management is considering a policy requiring employees to provide doctors' notes after taking sick leave so as to prove fitness to return to work.
my guess is that 99.9% of intelligent readers would have absolutely no doubt that the actors of the infinitive of purpose are the
employees. If someone said this sentence, intending the specify that the
employees were the actors of the infinitive of purpose, I think that would be so acceptable it would pass without comment. If someone said this sentence, intending the specify that
management was the actors of the infinitive of purpose, I would consider that sentence deceitful and misleading.
What is truly bizarre about this question, compared to GMAT SC sentences --- three of the answers are just trainwreck wrong, not tempting in the least, take-them-out-back-and-shoot-them wrong, and then one of the answers --- you purport --- is deemed wrong on this highly debatable theoretical mathematical technicality. That's not the tenor of GMAT SC questions. In a real GMAT SC question, all four of the incorrect choices have something unambiguously wrong, something that, when pointed out, most intelligent people would say --- "oh yes, that has to be wrong". The nature of the mistakes differs among the answer choices. Whenever the GMAT gets into this territory --- maybe technically wrong but might pass as acceptable --- then the good people at GMAC always put some other glaring mistake elsewhere in that answer choices, so that there is absolutely no ambiguity.
I think, if you want
(B) to be a wrong answer, then you need to make it more wrong, with some other kind of mistake (a pronoun problem, an agreement problem, etc. etc.) Failing that, I submit, this sentence falls short of the very high standards set by the GMAT SC.
Respectfully,
Mike McGarry
