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Will VS Would

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Will VS Would

by sumithshah » Tue Aug 19, 2008 3:57 am
Hi
Im having problems with this Q

If current trends continue, by the year 2010 carbon emissions in the United States will soar to a level more than one-third higher than were those in 1990, according to official projections.
A. will soar to a level more than one-third higher than were those
B. will soar to a level more than one-third higher than that
C. would soar to a level more than one-third higher than is was
D. would soar to a level more than one-third higher than those
E. would soar to a level more than one-third higher than they were

The OA is B - but I picked E.

Quoting Stacy from a different post on this site,
"In the subjunctive, we describe situations contrary to reality, we don't simply say what WILL happen in the future.

Such sentences are always in the form:

"If X were to happen, then Y would happen."

The terms can also be reversed:


https://www.beatthegmat.com/will-vs-would-t11972.html

How come the rule stated by Stacy is not applied here?
Last edited by sumithshah on Tue Aug 19, 2008 9:17 am, edited 1 time in total.
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by just_do_it » Tue Aug 19, 2008 4:36 am
The original sentence is in present tense as indicated by the verb "continues". Hence the sentence construction should be

IF X, (then) WILL + base verb.

Had the sentence been in past tense, "would" have been more appropriate.

IF X, (then) WOULD/COULD + base verb.

makes sense?
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by sumithshah » Tue Aug 19, 2008 4:53 am
So if we had

10 years ago Bob said that if insurance rates fall, people would stop buying insurance

Is this correct ( just pay attention to the past / present usage of will / would - I made this sentence up, so it would have other stuff wrong with it
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by just_do_it » Tue Aug 19, 2008 6:31 am
sumithshah,

what you should be looking out for is the verb tense in the IF clause. So your example statement was something like this:

If rates fell, people would stop buying....

Fell is in past tense, so "would" is appropriate.

If rates fall, people will stop buying...

Fall is in present tense, so "will stop" is appropriate.

hope the concept is clear now.

cheers.
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by sumithshah » Tue Aug 19, 2008 8:35 am
ah! thanks :-)

ALso, if it was "if rates had fallen" then what would be the usage?
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by just_do_it » Tue Aug 19, 2008 8:51 am
If rates had fallen, people would have stopped buying

In case of past perfect tense, the THEN clause will be like this:

WOULD/COULD + HAVE + PAST PARTICIPLE.

cheers.
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by California4jx » Tue Aug 19, 2008 7:36 pm
just_do_it wrote:
If rates fell, people would stop buying....

Fell is in past tense, so "would" is appropriate.

If rates fall, people will stop buying...

Fall is in present tense, so "will stop" is appropriate.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

If rates had fallen , people would have stopped buying

In case of past perfect tense, the THEN clause will be like this:

WOULD/COULD + HAVE + PAST PARTICIPLE
Good discussion .. Thanks !
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by Stacey Koprince » Wed Aug 20, 2008 10:03 am
A poster sent me the below PM:
When I was going through the SC questions in the forum, I came across these two questions which tests the subjunctive. So far any subjunctive sentences, I use would and was sticking to it. These two questions has OA which has "will" instead of "would". I am not sure where these questions came from. But want to double check with you as I don't want to confuce my understanding.

Below are the links for both the questions. I would highly appreciate, if you could provide your suggestions for these questions.
Also, the text quoted by the previous poster is actually from Stuart, not me - he gives a very good reply, so I want to make sure he gets credit for it! :)

Take a look at my reply to your first link, in which I discuss subjunctive in a bit more detail: https://www.beatthegmat.com/will-vs-would-t11972.html

Go take a look at what I just posted and see if you can use that to understand why you would not want to use subjunctive in this particular sentence - let me know if you still need help!
Please note: I do not use the Private Messaging system! I will not see any PMs that you send to me!!

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by California4jx » Wed Aug 20, 2008 3:50 pm
Stacey Koprince wrote:A poster sent me the below PM:
When I was going through the SC questions in the forum, I came across these two questions which tests the subjunctive. So far any subjunctive sentences, I use would and was sticking to it. These two questions has OA which has "will" instead of "would". I am not sure where these questions came from. But want to double check with you as I don't want to confuce my understanding.

Below are the links for both the questions. I would highly appreciate, if you could provide your suggestions for these questions.
Also, the text quoted by the previous poster is actually from Stuart, not me - he gives a very good reply, so I want to make sure he gets credit for it! :)

Take a look at my reply to your first link, in which I discuss subjunctive in a bit more detail: https://www.beatthegmat.com/will-vs-would-t11972.html

Go take a look at what I just posted and see if you can use that to understand why you would not want to use subjunctive in this particular sentence - let me know if you still need help!
Excellent, Stacey. Your thread is even more comprehensive on 'will' vs 'would' -

Do we have similar kind of concept behind 'may' or 'might' or is it just a difference of prenset/past tense.
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by ankurmit » Sun Aug 15, 2010 12:48 am
I am Ok with B but not able to understand why we used.... 'that' (last word) in sentence.

will soar to a level more than one-third higher than that

Here carbon emissions are compared and we need those instead of that...

Where I am wrong?

Is carbon emissions singular ? or we campared levels?
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by [email protected] » Thu Dec 22, 2011 11:32 pm
Final solution at one place:

Important: The purpose of this post (and all the other posts by me) is to give a complete solution to all GMAT-Prep Verbal questions at one place. Sometimes students have to wade through dozens of posts to get to the final answer. My posts will give one complete and crisp solution required to arrive at the correct answer by eliminating the wrong one. Some of the content in these posts may have been taken from various other sources (discussion forums).

If current trends continue, by the year 2010 carbon emissions in the United States will soar to a level more than one-third higher than were those in 1990, according to official projections.
(A) will soar to a level more than one-third higher than were those
(B) will soar to a level more than one-third higher than that
(C) would soar to a level more than one-third higher than it was
(D) would soar to a level more than one-third higher than those
(E) would soar to a level more than one-third higher than they were

A word about conditionals:

If I meet her, I will tell her a story.

This is called a CONDITIONAL:

In this, we are talking about a "POSSIBLE" future - the action is NOT IMPROBABLE in future.

In this case, use the PRESENT + FUTURE (WILL) form.

So the sentence "If I meet her, I will tell her a story." Means that there is a positive possibility of my meeting her in the future...

Never use double future in such sentences:

If I WILL meet her, I WILL tell her a story. - WRONG.

But we may use the present tense in both parts if the context so demands:

If I meet her, I tell her a story.

In this case, 'if' means 'whenever'... this is correct construction.

***

If I met her, I would tell her a story.

If I were to meet her, I would tell her a story.

Were I to meet her, I would tell her a story.

All of these forms mean the same thing... there is no preference for one to another.

Even this form denotes FUTURE.

In this, we are talking about an almost "IMPOSSIBLE" future - the action is IMPROBABLE in future.

In this case, use the

PAST + WOULD form

Or If + were + would form

Or Were + Would form....

So the sentence "If I met her, I would tell her a story." Means that there is a hardly any possibility of my meeting her in the future...

SIMILARLY the sentence "If I were to meet her, I would tell her a story." Means that there is a hardly any possibility of my meeting her in the future...

Similarly the sentence "Were I to meet her, I would tell her a story." Means that there is a hardly any possibility of my meeting her in the future...

In all "wish" sentence, the above structures are used.

****

If I had met her, I would have / could have told her a story.

≡ Had I met her, I would have / could have told her a story.

This sentence is not about FUTURE... this is about PAST that could not happen...

We always use

"If + had + would / could have" form OR

"HAD + would / could have" form here

In the given sentence, we are talking about 'future' with respect to 'present'. In this case, 'will' is the correct usage. 'Would' is correct when the future is talked about with respect to 'past'. This eliminates C, D, and E.

Here the comparison is for the levels ... so 'will soar to a level more than one-third higher than that (the level) in 1990 ... brings out the correct comparison in B.

Choice A uses 'those (plural)' to refer to 'level (singular)' ... wrong. Also, A is not parallel ('were' is not parallel to any preceding word).

B: correct
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by babuxavier » Sun Dec 09, 2012 7:45 am
IMO C
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