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by sarthak.agarwal » Fri Sep 26, 2014 7:59 pm
I received the following sentence in an office email:

"Hope this feedback goes into the right department and acted upon."

Is this correct?

Or the correct usage should be "Hope this feedback goes into the right department and IS acted upon."

Please let me know.
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Source: — Sentence Correction |

by Test Prep Unlimited » Fri Sep 26, 2014 8:49 pm
Yes, the latter is correct--It needs "IS", otherwise if you leave out the "goes into the right department and" it would be like saying "Hope this feedback acted upon." Acted upon what?

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by David@GMATPrepNow » Sat Sep 27, 2014 6:47 am
Hi sarthak.agarwal,

You are correct that the sentence needs the verb "is" in order to be correct. In addition, while we often see sentences begin with verbs like "hope," it is not strictly correct. It is missing a subject. Who hopes? Here is the complete, correct sentence:

I hope this feedback goes into the right department and is acted upon.

I hope this helps.
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by sarthak.agarwal » Sat Oct 04, 2014 12:30 am
Thank you, David, for the complete correction!

(I hope I used the commas in the correct way)
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by David@GMATPrepNow » Sat Oct 04, 2014 8:18 am
Nice use of commas!

Keep up the good work.

David
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by Matt@VeritasPrep » Sat Oct 04, 2014 10:45 am
I hate to be a stickler, but even the corrected sentence is a bit of a mess. A better sentence would be something like "I hope that this feedback is received and acted upon by the right department."

The key points:

* If we're going to be formal, we have to say "hope that", not simply "hope";
* "Goes into" has two problems: "into" is the wrong preposition (it should be "to"), and "goes" is a questionable verb (when dealing with bureaucracies, you never simply submit anything - it has be acknowledged!)
* Ending a sentence with a preposition ("upon"), even one that's part of a verb, is still taboo among old-fashioned grammarians, and the GMAC is pretty old-fashioned.

That sentence, you don't want to be this formal in a work email! "Hope this finds its way to the right department" is more appropriate in that context, I think.
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