Sentence Correction

The rise in the Commerce Department's index of leading economic indicators suggest that the economy should continue its expansion into the coming months. but that the mixed performance of the index's indi¬vidual components indicates that economic growth will proceed at a more moderate pace than in the first quarter of this year.

(A) suggest that the economy should continue its expansion into the coming months, but that
(B) suggest that the economy is to continue expansion in the coming months, but
(C) suggests that the economy will continue its expanding in the coming months, but that
(D) suggests that the economy is continuing to expand into the coming months, but that
(E) suggests that the economy will continue to expand in the coming months, but

What are the differences between "into the coming months and in the coming months"?

Thanks.

"into coming months" means that u are inserting something into the coming months but "in coming months" means doing something in the months ahead...............i hope my explanation is clear...........

What are the differences between "into the coming months and in the coming months"?

generally INTO implies movement and IN implies position.

for example:-

Ravi jumped INTO the swimming pool.-----> Movement from outside to into the pool

Ravi is swimming IN the swimming pool.---> Represent state

if i'm correct in this question, the use of IN is better NOT INTO...economy continue to expand..its a state which is constant...continue...this is my opinion. please correct me if m wrong.

Hey guys,

This has long been one of my favorite official SC questions entirely because of this debate!

I'd agree pretty much entirely with Atul's explanation of into/in, but if that seems kind of nuanced and technical for you for a one-time idiom (there's a >95% likelihood that you don't see that idiom at all when you take the GMAT), it's because it is. It's probably not a very high ROI at all of the time it takes to fully investigate and embrace that subtle difference. Why not?

Because look at the answer choices. The first word of each is either "suggest" or "suggests" - and that's a clear Subject-Verb Agreement decision point. As the subject of that clause is "the rise", the correct verb must be "suggests", so A and B are out.

Next, look at the last words - you're either going to pick "but that" or just "but". And that's a pretty clear "connector" situation - you either need "that" or you don't. If we strip down the sentence to its essentials, it's:

The rise suggests X, but / but that the performance indicates Y

It should be pretty clear that the "that" interrupts the clear thought: The rise suggests X, but the performance indicates Y. Accordingly, the "that" in A, C, and D is incorrect, and the only choice that has "suggests" and "but" is E, which also uses "in".


One important thing to note about Sentence Correction - its real purpose in a business school test is to replicate the job of a consultant or analyst, in which your job is to apply a handful of robust frameworks to a variety of unique situations. The better you get at the main frameworks - Subject-Verb agreement, Modifiers, Connectors, etc. - the more you're playing into the hands of what the test is really testing. Stressing individual idioms can help you, but it's not really necessary. And in this case, knowing that it's "in" and not "into" still doesn't differentiate between B, C, and E, so you'll still have to take those steps I outlined above.

@Brian,

Thanks Brian for your useful post. Even when i solved this question, i followed the same approach..sub-verb and then But/That and i'm sure @perfect also solved this question in this same way, but i really appreciate that @perfect raised this question as during SC discussions, such questions and discussions help a lot in understanding the meaning of such small things. Specially non-native English speakers like me, through these efforts, improvise in our understanding of the logical meaning of the sentence, otherwise to be very true, most of the times i solve SC as i solve mathematics...uses a set of rules etc and that works but now as GMAT is putting a lot of meaning based questions, sometimes that single approach didn't work.

Thanks and Regards
Atul

Brian@VeritasPrep wrote: Next, look at the last words - you're either going to pick "but that" or just "but". And that's a pretty clear "connector" situation - you either need "that" or you don't. If we strip down the sentence to its essentials, it's:

The rise suggests X, but / but that the performance indicates Y

It should be pretty clear that the "that" interrupts the clear thought: The rise suggests X, but the performance indicates Y. Accordingly, the "that" in A, C, and D is incorrect, and the only choice that has "suggests" and "but" is E, which also uses "in".

I understand your point but I am not able to rule out the possibility that the following construction may also make sense:

The rise in the Commerce Department's index of leading economic indicators suggest that the economy should continue its expansion into the coming months. but that the mixed performance of the index's indi¬vidual components indicates that economic growth will proceed at a more moderate pace than in the first quarter of this year.

It means for the 2nd part of the sentence starting witH BUT, above sentence intends to convey:

The rise in the Commerce Department's index of leading economic indicators suggests that the mixed performance of the index's indi¬vidual components indicates that economic growth will proceed at a more moderate pace than in the first quarter of this year.

Meaning the rise in leading indicators suggests THAT the mixed performance..indicates that...

I would not have any problem with E, if it were "suggests that the economy will continue to expand in the coming months, but THAT".

Could you pls correct?

(e)

Hey P.P.

I see where you're going on this...but please notice that "but THAT..." is NOT logical here.

"But" is a transition word, signaling a difference between the first clause and the second. That's why you'll typically see "but" used in constructions like:

Not only X, but also Y (it's not, as some might believe, only one thing - in fact it's two!)
Not x, but Y (It's not the thing you think it is - it's something else)
X should have happened, but Y did instead (you'd think that the result would have been this, but actually it was that)

In this sentence, the first clause clearly states that "The rise suggests...". In order to counter that, we need the "but" to supply contradictory information - "BUT, something else indicates otherwise".

You'd only use the "That" here if the first clause had a "not" in it:

The rise suggests NOT that X is true, BUT that Y is true instead.

That's not the case here - the first clause finishes in its entirety: The rise suggests (something). So the "but" clause needs to have its own subject to counter it. "BUT the performance indicates...". Otherwise the parallel "that" would refer back to the subject "rise", and that can't be the case here because there's a second subject there (the performance).

Thanks a lot Brain. It's making perfect sense. Thanks for your time.