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Worker contribitions

by sumanr84 » Fri Feb 12, 2010 6:51 am
A recent study has cited overcomplexity, increasing worker mobility between companies, and poor financial planning in estimating that fewer than half of eligible American workers had contributed the maximum amount to their employer-offered retirement plans.

1. A recent study has cited overcomplexity, increasing worker mobility between companies, and poor financial planning in estimating that fewer than half of eligible American workers had contributed the maximum amount to their employer-offered retirement plans.
2. Overcomplexity, increasing worker mobility between companies, and poor financial planning have been cited by a recent study that estimated that over half of eligible American workers do not contribute the maximum amount to their employer-offered retirement plans.
3. Citing overcomplexity, increasing mobility of workers between companies, and poor financial planning, less than half of eligible American workers had contributed the maximum amount to their employer-offered retirement plans, a recent study estimates.
4. A recent study of American workers, citing overcomplexity, increasing mobility of workers between companies, and poor financial planning, has estimated that fewer than half of eligible American workers had contributed the maximum amount to their employer-offered retirement plans.
5. Citing overcomplexity, increasing mobility of workers between companies, and poor financial planning, a recent study has estimated that fewer than half of eligible American workers contribute the maximum amount to their employer-offered retirement plans.

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by sumanr84 » Fri Feb 12, 2010 11:55 pm
Surprisingly, Not even a single solution has been posted till now,

Here is how expln goes in MGMAT,

The original sentence incorrectly utilizes the past perfect tense in its use of "had contributed." The past perfect tense demands that the simple past tense also be used in the sentence to refer to another action that occurred in the past but after the action referred to by the past perfect tense. Here, the sentence uses the present perfect tense "has cited" and the present participle "estimating," but does not use the simple past tense to refer to another action in the later past.

(A) This choice is incorrect as it repeats the original sentence.

(B) This choice is awkward in its use of the structure "Overcomplexity, increasing mobility . . . , and poor financial planning . . .have been cited" as this structure leads to the use of the passive voice, which is less preferable than the active voice. It is also problematic in its use of both the past tense "estimated" and the present perfect tense "have been cited" to refer to the recent study; the verb tenses should be consistent in their treatment of the study.

(C) This choice incorrectly places the modifying phrase "Citing overcomplexity, increasing mobility . . . and poor financial planning" adjacent to "less than half of American workers," incorrectly suggesting that it is less than half of American workers, and not a recent study, that cites these factors as causes for a lack of contribution to retirement plans. This choice also repeats the original verb tense error with "had contributed."

(D) This choice repeats the original verb tense error with "had contributed."

(E) CORRECT. This choice correctly uses both the present participle ("Citing . . .") and the present perfect ("has estimated") to refer to the recent study, as well as the present tense "contribute" in reference to the study findings. The phrase "Citing overcomplexity, increasing mobility . . . , and poor financial planning," is correctly used here as a modifier for "a recent study."
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by bhumika.k.shah » Sat Feb 13, 2010 5:13 am
patience!

ppl havent replied probably coz its a difficult q :)

Hope this help :)
sumanr84 wrote:
A recent study has cited overcomplexity, increasing worker mobility between companies, and poor financial planning in estimating that fewer than half of eligible American workers had contributed the maximum amount to their employer-offered retirement plans.

1. A recent study has cited overcomplexity, increasing worker mobility between companies, and poor financial planning in estimating that fewer than half of eligible American workers had contributed the maximum amount to their employer-offered retirement plans. - awkward. ELIMINATE

2. Overcomplexity, increasing worker mobility between companies, and poor financial planning have been cited by a recent study that estimated that over half of eligible American workers do not contribute the maximum amount to their employer-offered retirement plans. - why have been ? i find it awkward also . ELIMINATE

3. Citing overcomplexity, increasing mobility of workers between companies, and poor financial planning, less than half of eligible American workers had contributed the maximum amount to their employer-offered retirement plans, a recent study estimates. - whatever the recent study estimates should be next to the study. ELIMINATE

4. A recent study of American workers, citing overcomplexity, increasing mobility of workers between companies, and poor financial planning, has estimated that fewer than half of eligible American workers had contributed the maximum amount to their employer-offered retirement plans. - wrong tense. has estimated ... had contributed .ELIMINATE

5. Citing overcomplexity, increasing mobility of workers between companies, and poor financial planning, a recent study has estimated that fewer than half of eligible American workers contribute the maximum amount to their employer-offered retirement plans. - CORRECT - verb tense parallelism . ing form , has estimated ...contribute

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by hk_4u » Tue Feb 16, 2010 7:36 am
Ron explained the usage of past perfect tense in situations where there is no explicit time marker but a clause in present perfect implicitly works as a time marker ( kind a confusing)

See this thread

https://www.manhattangmat.com/forums/ozo ... t3584.html

I thought the same concept is also applicable in the question in discussion here and justifed the usage of past perfect . But as the OA suggest , I was wrong. Can some one explain .
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by money9111 » Tue Feb 16, 2010 7:51 am
IMO E. I also thought that option A was awkward, but can someone explain the grammatical reason that it's incorrect?
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by Osirus@VeritasPrep » Tue Feb 16, 2010 8:10 am
money9111 wrote:IMO E. I also thought that option A was awkward, but can someone explain the grammatical reason that it's incorrect?
Whenever you use the past perfect tense, the simple past must be somewhere in the sentence to indicate an action or result that occurred after the action or result that the past perfect tense is referring to.
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by harshavardhanc » Tue Feb 16, 2010 8:52 am
osirus0830 wrote:
money9111 wrote:IMO E. I also thought that option A was awkward, but can someone explain the grammatical reason that it's incorrect?
Whenever you use the past perfect tense, the simple past must be somewhere in the sentence to indicate an action or result that occurred after the action or result that the past perfect tense is referring to.
more to it.....

https://www.manhattangmat.com/forums/post6153.html#p6153
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by money9111 » Tue Feb 16, 2010 9:35 am
thanks for the link
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by lunarpower » Mon Feb 22, 2010 6:05 pm
harshavardhanc wrote:
osirus0830 wrote:
money9111 wrote:IMO E. I also thought that option A was awkward, but can someone explain the grammatical reason that it's incorrect?
Whenever you use the past perfect tense, the simple past must be somewhere in the sentence to indicate an action or result that occurred after the action or result that the past perfect tense is referring to.
more to it.....

https://www.manhattangmat.com/forums/post6153.html#p6153
to use the past perfect, it's not absolutely necessary to have a simple past verb. rather, there just has to be some sort of indication of a specific past time frame, either (a) by which the past perfect action ends, or (b) to which the past perfect action is somehow relevant.

for instance:
by the time smith died in the summer of 1993, his school record in the long jump had stood for over 40 years.
* in this sentence, there is no simple past verb -- and there doesn't have to be one.
in lieu of a simple past verb, the sentence presents a very clear point in the past (the summer of 1993) to which the past perfect verb pertains.

so, as you can see, there is SOME flexibility in the sort of past context in which you can place the past perfect.
however, the past perfect is incorrect if there is NO such context in a sentence -- as is the case with choice (a).

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by lunarpower » Mon Feb 22, 2010 6:05 pm
also, note another takeaway:
if you see
"a study has shown that..."
"my friend said that..."
"researchers believe that..."
these constructions have absolutely no effect at all on the verb tenses in the sentence. you can simply think of them as "warmups", which can be discarded without incident.

if you don't see why this is the case, try appending these constructions in front of just about ANY sentence containing some sort of factual statement, regardless of verb tense.
e.g.
* an earthquake will destroy the city in 50 years (future tense) -->
studies have shown that an earthquake will destroy the city in 50 years
* paleolithic people used stone tools --> studies have shown that paleolithic people used stone tools (past tense)

etc.
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by vikram4689 » Fri Apr 20, 2012 11:25 pm
I am not sure if i understood the meaning
Meaning: A study has cited 3 reasons why fewer workers contribute to employer-scheme

Whether following versions would be correct:
had contributed replaced with contributed in option A & D
estimated replaced with has estimated in option B

In option E, both contribute and contributed would be correct grammatically
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by patanjali.purpose » Sat Jul 28, 2012 2:49 am
lunarpower wrote:also, note another takeaway:
if you see
"a study has shown that..."
"my friend said that..."
"researchers believe that..."
these constructions have absolutely no effect at all on the verb tenses in the sentence. you can simply think of them as "warmups", which can be discarded without incident.

if you don't see why this is the case, try appending these constructions in front of just about ANY sentence containing some sort of factual statement, regardless of verb tense.
e.g.
* an earthquake will destroy the city in 50 years (future tense) -->
studies have shown that an earthquake will destroy the city in 50 years
* paleolithic people used stone tools --> studies have shown that paleolithic people used stone tools (past tense)

etc.
Ron,

Reacting to the poor earnings per share reported by GE, shareholders stated that their trust in the company's ability to grow is shattered by the continued losses in its financial division

"is shattered by the continued losses" is incorrect because the sentence is set in past time frame as indicated by the use of "shareholders stated...". Thus, whatever they state should have happened in the past time frame and thus the use of "is shattered" is incorrect. The appropriate verb tense is "has been shattered" since the use of present perfect tense implies that this action took place in the past but its effect is still on, i.e. trust was shattered in the past and is still shattered.

But, you mentioned in your post (quoted above) that SHAREHOLDERS STATED THAT are sort of "warmups" - if it is really a warmup how would I know whether IS SHATTED is incorrect (and HAS SHATTERED is correct)?

Am I missing something?
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by vikram4689 » Sat Jul 28, 2012 4:11 am
patanjali.purpose wrote:
lunarpower wrote:also, note another takeaway:
if you see
"a study has shown that..."
"my friend said that..."
"researchers believe that..."
these constructions have absolutely no effect at all on the verb tenses in the sentence. you can simply think of them as "warmups", which can be discarded without incident.

if you don't see why this is the case, try appending these constructions in front of just about ANY sentence containing some sort of factual statement, regardless of verb tense.
e.g.
* an earthquake will destroy the city in 50 years (future tense) -->
studies have shown that an earthquake will destroy the city in 50 years
* paleolithic people used stone tools --> studies have shown that paleolithic people used stone tools (past tense)

etc.
Ron,

Reacting to the poor earnings per share reported by GE, shareholders stated that their trust in the company's ability to grow is shattered by the continued losses in its financial division

"is shattered by the continued losses" is incorrect because the sentence is set in past time frame as indicated by the use of "shareholders stated...". Thus, whatever they state should have happened in the past time frame and thus the use of "is shattered" is incorrect. The appropriate verb tense is "has been shattered" since the use of present perfect tense implies that this action took place in the past but its effect is still on, i.e. trust was shattered in the past and is still shattered.

But, you mentioned in your post (quoted above) that SHAREHOLDERS STATED THAT are sort of "warmups" - if it is really a warmup how would I know whether IS SHATTED is incorrect (and HAS SHATTERED is correct)?

Am I missing something?
patanjali,
ron intended that constructions such as "shareholders stated that" do not affect the constructions coming later but that does not mean we can use any tense in later clause. i know that seems contradictory but there is subtle difference , lets see:
a) "shareholders stated that" our company would be profitable in near future
b) "shareholders stated that" our company had lived up to the expectations in the past

these are 2 instances in which different but logically applicable tenses are used. As you mentioned present tense cannot be used as it will not be logically applicable. This point is what ron intended. since both of the above constructions work, we cannot say that "shareholders stated that" limits the tense of the clause coming afterwards but that does not mean we can use any tense

i hope this helps.
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by lunarpower » Fri Aug 03, 2012 6:25 am
patanjali.purpose wrote:But, you mentioned in your post (quoted above) that SHAREHOLDERS STATED THAT are sort of "warmups" - if it is really a warmup how would I know whether IS SHATTED is incorrect (and HAS SHATTERED is correct)?

Am I missing something?
no. to make this sort of determination, just think about the actual timeframe of the thing that the shareholders are talking about. this is exactly what you did -- you justified the present perfect by noting that there's an effect on the present timeframe -- so your thoughts are on the right path.

but, ya, this is a "warmup" construction that could be paired with any possible tense, given the right context. for instance, it could be used with the future: shareholders stated that the company will probably not last another twenty years.
(if this statement was made more than twenty years ago -- so that the entire prediction is now in the past -- then you'd change "will" to "would".)
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by lunarpower » Thu Aug 16, 2012 11:26 pm
patanjali.purpose wrote:But, you mentioned in your post (quoted above) that SHAREHOLDERS STATED THAT are sort of "warmups" - if it is really a warmup how would I know whether IS SHATTED is incorrect (and HAS SHATTERED is correct)?

Am I missing something?
in this particular instance, you should figure out the verb tense in the same way you normally do -- according to the time context of the sentence.

you could have a present-tense verb in this kind of construction -- but only in a context where such a verb actually makes sense. for instance:
max knew that the plural of "radius" is "radii" when he was only four years old.
in this context, the present tense makes sense, because the fact described is a timeless grammar phenomenon -- in other words, something that just IS true, independently of any timeframe.

in your example, however, "is shattered" doesn't make sense, because the shattering of the shareholders' confidence was actually a point event in the past. that's not the kind of thing you can describe in the present tense.
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