Congress bill about unpaid leave

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kobel51: Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts; Posts: 114; Joined: Tue Mar 24, 2009 9:19 am; Thanked: 1 times

by kobel51 » Wed Feb 26, 2014 7:33 pm

Congress is debating a bill requiring certain employers provide workers with unpaid leave so as to care for sick or newborn children.

(A) provide workers with unpaid leave so as to

(B) to provide workers with unpaid leave so as to

(C) provide workers with unpaid leave in order that they

(D) to provide workers with unpaid leave so that they can

(E) provide workers with unpaid leave and

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Source: Beat The GMAT — Sentence Correction | Wed Feb 26, 2014 7:33 pm

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by [email protected] » Wed Feb 26, 2014 7:48 pm

Hi kobel51,

This SC is based mostly on some idiom/style rulers that criss-cross with verbs and pronouns.

1) Verb vs. Infinitive - Since the prompt talks about "a bill", it's discussing something that isn't going to be happening at one point in time (if the bill is approved, then it will go on...possibly forever). We need an infinitive verb to properly present this idea. Eliminate A, C and E.

2) Pronoun Usage - There's a rule with pronouns that requires the pronoun to be specific to one noun AND to not be ambiguous or vague (or confuse-able). Here, the pronoun 'they' appears in some answers, but does 'they' refer to "employers" or "workers?" My initial skepticism here was a bit severe (Bill points out that the pronoun should refer to the preceding noun and that's a fair point). The ambiguity in B doesn't account for who's going to care for people on sick leave, so I agree that it should be eliminated.

Final Answer: D

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Rich

Last edited by [email protected] on Wed Feb 26, 2014 9:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Bill@VeritasPrep: GMAT Instructor; Posts: 1248; Joined: Thu Mar 29, 2012 2:57 pmFollowed by: 192 members; Location: Everywhere; Thanked: 503 times; GMAT Score:780

by Bill@VeritasPrep » Wed Feb 26, 2014 7:51 pm

Congress is requiring the employers to do something, so we should have the infinitive form of the verb. Eliminate A, C, and E.

B is ambiguous. When you read it with the rest of the sentence, it seems to imply that the employers are caring for the children. Congress is requiring employers to do X (provide sick leave) so as to Y (care for children).

D wins. I think some people may run into confusion with the pronoun "they" and its antecedent, but I think the fact that it follows the "so that" construction makes it pretty clear that "they" refers to "workers". It's not perfect, but it works.

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Patrick_GMATFix: GMAT Instructor; Posts: 1052; Joined: Fri May 21, 2010 1:30 amFollowed by: 98 members; Thanked: 335 times

by Patrick_GMATFix » Wed Feb 26, 2014 7:53 pm

I go through the question in detail in the full solution below (taken from the GMATFix App).

-Patrick

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To prep my students I use this tool >> (screenshots, video)

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