Sentence Correction

Source: Beat The GMAT Practice Questions

Election officials should release the result tomorrow morning, if they have not already.

A. release the result tomorrow morning, if they have not already.
B. release the result tomorrow morning, if not already.
C. have released the result tomorrow morning, if they have not already.
D. be releasing the result tomorrow morning, if they have not already.
E. release the result tomorrow morning, if they have not already released it.

OA after some discussion.

IMO E

Hi all!

IMO E

It is correct type 1 conditional

future/imperative/can/may/might/must/should/could + present bare infinitive,
if + present simple/present cont./present perfect/present perfect cont.
Source: Grammar 4, Enterprise student's book

hope it helps!
Best,
Maciek

E IMO as well.

A incorrectly uses an ellipsis and leads to an incomplete thought. Election officials should release the result tomorrow if they have not already what? Eaten?

B - Same ellipses error, as well as tense error. See Maciek's explanation above for use of perfect form.

C - Ellipsis error at the end. Tense error in the main verb should have released. This refers to a past action while at the same time being clubbed with tomorrow.

D - Ellipsis error at the end. No need to use progressive here. (be releasing)

E - Correctly removes ellipsis and corrects all verb errors.

Took 1 minute 18 seconds. Answer should be E

DanaJ wrote:Election officials should release the result tomorrow morning, if they have not already.

A. release the result tomorrow morning, if they have not already. - if they have not already, what, does not make any sense.
B. release the result tomorrow morning, if not already. - Same as A
C. have released the result tomorrow morning, if they have not already. - no need of present perfect tense
D. be releasing the result tomorrow morning, if they have not already. - 'be releasing' is wrong
E. release the result tomorrow morning, if they have not already released it. - clear. Answers the question what, which A can't


Source: Beat The GMAT Practice Questions

OA after some discussion.

DanaJ wrote:Election officials should release the result tomorrow morning, if they have not already.

A. release the result tomorrow morning, if they have not already.
B. release the result tomorrow morning, if not already.
C. have released the result tomorrow morning, if they have not already.
D. be releasing the result tomorrow morning, if they have not already.
E. release the result tomorrow morning, if they have not already released it.


Source: Beat The GMAT Practice Questions

OA after some discussion.

I think the best way to handle this type of question is to flip the parts.

If they have not already, Election officials should release the result tomorrow morning.........weird
If they have not already released it, Election officials should release the result tomorrow morning.........sounds good!

Good job guys! You nailed it! E is indeed the correct answer. Here's my explanation adapted from the official Beat The GMAT Practice Questions one:

A, C and D can all be crossed off because we don't know what they "have not already" done. They have not already done what? They must have done something, but what is that something? That's why we definitely need the verb here. Some other reasons to eliminate C and D:

C features the present perfect form "have released" which indicates a past action. This is definitely wrong here because we have "tomorrow", which clearly points to a future action

D is wrong because of the verb form as well. The continuous form of verbs (in this case, "be releasing") suggests and action that takes a while to finish. When you say "I'm reading a book", it means it's taking you a bit of time to do that. If you say "I open my eyes to see the sunrise", opening your eyes takes just a split second. In our particular case, releasing the information does not take ages to complete: you click "send" on the "press release" button and that's it!

E is the correct answer here because it uses both the correct verb form and the verb after the comma, as many of you pointed out. I particularly liked FightWithGMAT's explanation, so kudos to you!

DanaJ wrote:Good job guys! You nailed it! E is indeed the correct answer. Here's my explanation adapted from the official Beat The GMAT Practice Questions one:

A, C and D can all be crossed off because we don't know what they "have not already" done. They have not already done what? They must have done something, but what is that something? That's why we definitely need the verb here. Some other reasons to eliminate C and D:

C features the present perfect form "have released" which indicates a past action. This is definitely wrong here because we have "tomorrow", which clearly points to a future action

D is wrong because of the verb form as well. The continuous form of verbs (in this case, "be releasing") suggests and action that takes a while to finish. When you say "I'm reading a book", it means it's taking you a bit of time to do that. If you say "I open my eyes to see the sunrise", opening your eyes takes just a split second. In our particular case, releasing the information does not take ages to complete: you click "send" on the "press release" button and that's it!

E is the correct answer here because it uses both the correct verb form and the verb after the comma, as many of you pointed out. I particularly liked FightWithGMAT's explanation, so kudos to you!

Hi Dana , what abt the developing countries where colleges take some time to stick the result pages on the announcement board within the college premises.3 large sheets which take 30 minutes to release after 1 hour of deliberation over where to stick the papers.
What do u think about maciek's explanation

Maciek wrote:Hi all!

IMO E

It is correct type 1 conditional

future/imperative/can/may/might/must/should/could + present bare infinitive,
if + present simple/present cont./present perfect/present perfect cont.
Source: Grammar 4, Enterprise student's book

hope it helps!
Best,
Maciek

Maciek can you explain in more detail , please

@mundasingh123: wow, never really thought about it like that... But you see, the process that you describe is kind of an exception as far as I can tell, meaning that normally this would not happen (although I know it may be super frustrating). The 1 h 30 mins you describe are part of the preparation for release, I guess. It shouldn't be this way anyways.

The grammatical explanation by Maciek refers to the three types of conditionals in English (well, 4, if you count the zero type). These things appear in most grammar books: there are certain rules about "if" clauses, i.e. what type of verb can be in the subordinate clause and the main clause.

did not understand as why B
cannot be an answer here.

smayekar wrote:did not understand as why B
cannot be an answer here.

I think B doesn't the exact meaning which we want to convey and is incomplete in a sense.

IMO E , whats the OA.

What is the difficulty level of this question?

I too fell for D. the choice should have been E.

The difficulty level is 550-700 average time 56 seconds.

Hi everyone,

I have eliminated the answer choice E in my initial screening as I thought the part "released it" towards the end is redundant.

Also, I fell for D. Is there anything grammatically incorrect about D or is it just one of those sentences we hear a lot but not considered correct as a part of the GMAT?

Thanks.
Manoj