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Repetition of a phrase?

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Repetition of a phrase?

by limestone » Sun Dec 18, 2011 7:52 pm
Due to the fact that Greg wrecked his family's station wagon during a road trip last summer, he has not been and probably never would be allowed to drive his father's car.

A. has not been and probably never would be allowed to drive
B. has not been allowed to drive and probably never will be allowed to drive
C. has not and probably never would be allowed to drive
D. has not and probably will never be allowed to drive
E. has not and probably never will be allowed to drive

[spoiler]OA: B[/spoiler]

I spoil my doubts so that others will not be distracted when they solve this issue. Please help explain what I confuse below:

[spoiler]My choice: D. "will never" or "never will", which is better. I sometimes hear people say: I will never do it for you. Another question is why we cannot omit "been allowed to drive" as this phrase is repeated twice? and Why "E" is not correct?[/spoiler]
"There is nothing either good or bad - but thinking makes it so" - Shakespeare.
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by VivianKerr » Sun Dec 18, 2011 8:40 pm
The idea here is that he hasn't been driving it since the wreck, and won't be driving it in the future.

It is always better to keep the subject and verb together, so "he will never" is better than "he never will." But E is not correct here because of parallelism, and also because if the sentence were to complete without the coordinating conjunction "and" and the clause after it, it would not make sense.

Complete: ...he has not been allowed to drive.

Incomplete: ...he has not.
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by limestone » Sun Dec 18, 2011 9:01 pm
Thanks Vivian for your explanation but in Choice B:

The answer is: has not been allowed to drive and probably never will be allowed to drive

I eliminated this choice because of the term "never will". I found it more naturally to say "will never" than "never will". Is this OA incorrect?

The source of this sentence correction is from GMAT Simulator 2.0 CAT
"There is nothing either good or bad - but thinking makes it so" - Shakespeare.
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by avik.ch » Mon Dec 19, 2011 2:53 am
I will just address your doubt regarding "will" - as you have already noticed the split in the other answer choices !!

Many grammar expert believe that in English there are only 2 kinds of tenses and not 3 - past and present. Future tenses are nothing but modal auxiliaries !! This is the reason that why "will" cannot stand alone in the sentence and always followed by the base form of a verb or auxiliary verb. This is not the case with "are","were"....

I will go.
I will be going.

but :

You are smart
You will smart ..... I hope you understand the difference : It should be
You will be smart provided....

Since "will" acts as a modal, it is a meaning issue now !!

Now applying to this specific problem !!

-- I will never do the job : Here "never" is a adverb of frequency and is placed before the main verb and hence modifies the frequency of my action.

The frequency adverb is placed in front of the "main verb" or after the "to be" verb, when both are present it should be placed in between the two, so - I never will do..... is wrong

Subject + frequency adverb + main verb
subject + to be verb + frequency adverb.

But the construction in the given problem is quiet different, its something like this -

Never the job will be done. As "never" is an adverb modifier it modifies the whole clause "the job will be done", and the "will" acts as a modal for "done".

Now in this sentence :

-- probably never will be allowed to drive. : Here "probably never" is an adverb phrase, which in turn modifies the action " will be allowed to..."

-- probably will never be allowed to drive. : this is wrong, "probably" and "will" cannot go together : both are opposite in nature. So this sentence doesn't make any sense.
So the meaning imparted by both these sentence is quiet different.

We already have seen an easier way to solve this problem from VivianKerr, I think that is the best approach. In 1.5 min its very difficult to find such a subtle difference.

Hope this helps !!

"due to the fact..." -- is generally considered an an ugly construction in GMAT. What is GMAT stimulator 2.0 ? Never heard of it.

Please note : My knowledge on SC is quiet limited and I am also in the process of learning like you.I tried to exlain this to the best of my knowledge, I may be wrong. I generally find this to be a very controversial topic ( future tenses are not true tenses and are modal auxilliaries)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_tense -- refer the English section

So if you find this post confusing take some expert's help on this. I also want some expert view on this. May Be Vivian can help us in her next visit to BTG.
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by limestone » Mon Dec 19, 2011 4:57 am
Thanks both Avik.ch and VivianKerr.

GMAT Simulator CATs are among the CATs provided by Veritas.

"Probably" should modify "never" instead of "will". Now I get it.
"There is nothing either good or bad - but thinking makes it so" - Shakespeare.
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by tuanquang269 » Mon Dec 19, 2011 5:16 am
limestone wrote:Thanks Vivian for your explanation but in Choice B:

The answer is: has not been allowed to drive and probably never will be allowed to drive

I eliminated this choice because of the term "never will". I found it more naturally to say "will never" than "never will". Is this OA incorrect?

The source of this sentence correction is from GMAT Simulator 2.0 CAT
The important point is that in parallelism (or comparison) with clauses, when you want to change the tense of the clause. You MUST repeat the full clause of the sentence to clarify the meaning.

For example.

When I was child, I did not want to buy these toys, but now my little brother want to buy them - CORRECT

When I was child, I did not want to buy these toys, but now my little brother DO - WRONG.
Last edited by tuanquang269 on Tue Dec 20, 2011 6:36 am, edited 1 time in total.
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by GmatVerbal » Mon Dec 19, 2011 11:31 am
tuanquang269,

Thanks for verb parallelism rule. I read some where but couldn't recall where it was.

Not to nit-pick but in your example: 'was' ( singular) children ( plural), these( plural) toy(singular) ; But I got what you were trying to say.

Avi,

Thanks for the elaborate treatment of will and frequency adverbs. It makes so much sense to treat 'will' as modal/auxiliary verb.
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by tuanquang269 » Tue Dec 20, 2011 6:35 am
GmatVerbal wrote:tuanquang269,

Thanks for verb parallelism rule. I read some where but couldn't recall where it was.

Not to nit-pick but in your example: 'was' ( singular) children ( plural), these( plural) toy(singular) ; But I got what you were trying to say.

Avi,

Thanks for the elaborate treatment of will and frequency adverbs. It makes so much sense to treat 'will' as modal/auxiliary verb.
Sorry, my typo problem. I will fix it :P. Thank for remind me
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by imskpwr » Thu Dec 22, 2011 5:37 am
avik.ch wrote: Since "will" acts as a modal, it is a meaning issue now !!

-- probably will never be allowed to drive. : this is wrong, "probably" and "will" cannot go together : both are opposite in nature. So this sentence doesn't make any sense.
So the meaning imparted by both these sentence is quiet different.
Thanks Avik,
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