controversy textbooks

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controversy textbooks

by arora007 » Wed Jul 14, 2010 12:15 pm
source: McGraw Hill's Conquering GMAT Verbal and writing

In recent years a controversy has developed around the
lucrative textbook publishing market as students question if
textbooks should be as expensive as they are and professors
wonder over their accuracy.


A. as students question if textbooks should be as expensive as they
are and professors wonder over their accuracy
B. as students question the expense and professors wonder about
the accuracy of textbooks
C. where students question whether textbooks should be as expen-
sive as they are and professors wonder whether they are
accurate
D. where students are questioning if textbooks should be as
expensive as they are while professors wonder if they are
accurate
E. as students are questioning whether textbooks must be as
expensive as they are and professors wonder about their
accuracy

If you choose a choice please explain why.

OA-B
Last edited by arora007 on Wed Jul 14, 2010 12:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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by Haaress » Wed Jul 14, 2010 12:21 pm
Its B. My reasoning is based on concision and more importantly on parallelism.

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by reply2spg » Wed Jul 14, 2010 12:30 pm
IMO B
arora007 wrote:source: McGraw Hill's Conquering GMAT Verbal and writing

In recent years a controversy has developed around the
lucrative textbook publishing market as students question if
textbooks should be as expensive as they are and professors
wonder over their accuracy.


A. as students question if textbooks should be as expensive as they
are and professors wonder over their accuracy - No need of if. Use if only in conditional sentence else use whether. 'Their' is very confusing here.
B. as students question the expense and professors wonder about
the accuracy of textbooks - Correct
C. where students question whether textbooks should be as expen-
sive as they are and professors wonder whether they are
accurate - Meaning says that students only question in market and nowhere else. 'They' is confusing here.
D. where students are questioning if textbooks should be as
expensive as they are while professors wonder if they are
accurate - Same as C
E. as students are questioning whether textbooks must be as
expensive as they are and professors wonder about their
accuracy - Use of simple present tense is better than using present continuous tense. Again 'their' is confusing here

If you choose a choice please explain why.
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by fitzgerald23 » Wed Jul 14, 2010 2:23 pm
IMO, B

Eliminate C&D as where would indicate a physical place. The students are not actually in a market questioning anything.

Eliminate A and E due to ambiguous use of "their"...are the professors wondering about the accuracy of the students, books, or themselves? You cal also eliminate both for parallelism.

That leaves B which clearly identifies that both are questioning something about the textbooks and the structure is also proper. "students question the expense ...and professors wonder about the accuracy"

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by paes » Thu Jul 15, 2010 1:22 am
not a good question at all.

See what B is trying to say : 'students question the expense'

expense of what ?? not clear from B.

I would rather prefer E, accepting the pronoun ambiguity.

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by fitzgerald23 » Thu Jul 15, 2010 5:21 am
paes wrote:not a good question at all.

See what B is trying to say : 'students question the expense'

expense of what ?? not clear from B.

I would rather prefer E, accepting the pronoun ambiguity.
Paes I think you just have to cut the junk out of the middle of B to see what they are questioning. Read the selection in two ways:

students question the expense...of textbooks

and then

...professors wonder about the accuracy of textbooks

"of textbooks" explains what both the students and professors are questioning/wondering about.

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