Prallelism and subordinating conjunctions

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akash singhal: Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts; Posts: 152; Joined: Fri Apr 24, 2015 1:39 amFollowed by: 3 members; Location: Rourkela Odisha India; Thanked: 2 times; GMAT Score:650

by akash singhal » Wed Oct 14, 2015 8:37 pm

Unlike mainstream American businesses, more than half of which fail, the failure rate for
businesses in the Amish community hovers around 5 percent.

A. Unlike mainstream American businesses, more than half of which fail
B. Unlike mainstream American businesses, in which the failure rate is more than half
C. Unlike mainstream American businesses, where more than half of them fail
D. While the rate of mainstream American businesses failing is more than half
E. While more than half of mainstream American businesses fail

OE E

Why E and not D?Please Explain

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Source: Beat The GMAT — Sentence Correction | Wed Oct 14, 2015 8:37 pm

GMATGuruNY: GMAT Instructor; Posts: 15539; Joined: Tue May 25, 2010 12:04 pmFollowed by: 1906 members; Location: New York, NY; Thanked: 13060 times; GMAT Score:790

by GMATGuruNY » Thu Oct 15, 2015 2:21 am

akash singhal wrote:
Why E and not D?Please Explain

D: the rate is...more than half
Half of WHAT?
Eliminate D.

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thang: Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts; Posts: 111; Joined: Wed Oct 31, 2007 2:50 am; Thanked: 11 times

by thang » Fri Oct 23, 2015 3:51 am

the rate of business
in d
is not logic

if we use our common sense of this world.

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joealam1: Senior | Next Rank: 100 Posts; Posts: 74; Joined: Sun Aug 14, 2016 8:34 am; Location: China; Thanked: 1 times; GMAT Score:670

by joealam1 » Tue Dec 06, 2016 6:56 am

Hi Mitch,

I've intially chosen option D) as it sounded parallel to me while E) didn't

"While the rate of...., the failure rate..." -> while the X..., the Y

So why E doesn't need to be parallel?

Is "failing" in option D) wrong?" The rate of american business failing"
Does the usage of " failure" correct it??

Thanks.

Joe

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Anaira Mitch: Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts; Posts: 235; Joined: Wed Oct 26, 2016 9:21 pmFollowed by: 5 members; Thanked: 3 times

by Anaira Mitch » Mon Aug 07, 2017 5:28 am

When we start a sentence with "unlike X, Y", we have to follow the following rules:
1. A comparison has already been started between X and Y.
2. X cannot be a clause.
3. X cannot be a prepositional phrase.
4. X and Y MUST be grammatically and logically parallel.

For this question, we have to use COMPARISON and MEANING to pick the correct answer.

Unlike mainstream American businesses, more than half of which fail, the failure rate for businesses in the Amish community hovers around 5 percent.

A. Unlike mainstream American businesses, more than half of which fail
Wrong. incorrect comparison (mainstream American business vs the rate)

B. Unlike mainstream American businesses, in which the failure rate is more than half
Wrong. incorrect comparison (mainstream American business vs the rate)

C. Unlike mainstream American businesses, where more than half of them fail
Wrong. incorrect comparison (mainstream American business vs the rate). Also "where" is wrong because where is only used to refer places.

D. While the rate of mainstream American businesses failing is more than half
Wrong. correct comparison, but WRONG MEANING. "The rate is more than half" does not make sense. Half of what? half of 1% (0.5%); or half of 100% (50%). We never say "the rate is half". It's wrong.
i. The expression "businesses failing" the way it appears in this choice is not idiomatic.
ii. The phrase "rate is more than half" is not idiomatic. The correct expression is "rate is less than 50%" or "rate is more than 10%".

E. While more than half of mainstream American businesses fail
Correct. "more than half of X fail" = the rate is more than 50%. MEANING is the first priority in this question.
The first thing to note here is that we are not bound by the limitations of "Unlike" in this choice. Here "more than half" denotes the rate of the mainstream American businesses that fail. So the comparison is logical. And construction is also parallel because we have clauses on both sides of comma for comparison. This structure is more relaxed than that with "unlike"

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prabsahi: Senior | Next Rank: 100 Posts; Posts: 53; Joined: Wed Jun 04, 2014 10:50 amFollowed by: 2 members; Thanked: 6 times

by prabsahi » Mon Aug 07, 2017 7:02 am

GMATGuruNY wrote:
akash singhal wrote:
Why E and not D?Please Explain
D: the rate is...more than half
Half of WHAT?
Eliminate D.

Hi Mitch,
Apart from the reasons you mentioned...
Is my reasoning correct?
Here failing is a VERBing modifier and it modifies American Businesses.
Words such as ALTHOUGH,WHILE,EVENTHOUGH are conjunctions and should have a subject and verb
So WHILE is not followed by a subordinate clause. It being a conjunction.

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