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OG 16, SC Q37

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OG 16, SC Q37

by parry » Tue Oct 20, 2015 4:14 pm

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Not trusting themselves to choose wisely among the wide array of investment opportunities on the market, stockbrokers are helping many people who turn to them to buy stocks that could be easily bought directly.

(A) stockbrokers are helping many people who turn to them to buy stocks that could be easily

(B) stockbrokers are helping many people who are turning to them for help in buying stocks that they could easily have

(C) many people are turning to stockbrokers for help from them to buy stocks that could be easily

(D) many people are turning to stockbrokers for help to buy stocks that easily could have been

(E) many people are turning to stockbrokers for help in buying stocks that could easily be

OA is E.

Could somebody explain when "IN BUYING" is better than "TO BUY"? I chose D over E, because i thought D shows the intent (to but stocks) of people who are turning to stockbrokers.

Also those people WERE not able to buy the stocks and therefore they ARE truning to the stockbrokers.
What am I missing in the above sentence? Please explain.

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by thang » Tue Oct 20, 2015 9:19 pm

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I look at the oxford dictionary online

help as a noun has idiom

help in doing.

another problem is "from them" in E is redundant. "could have been" in D is wrong. this phrase refers to action previous to action in main clause.
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by GMATGuruNY » Wed Oct 21, 2015 3:35 am

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parry wrote:Not trusting themselves to choose wisely among the wide array of investment opportunities on the market, stockbrokers are helping many people who turn to them to buy stocks that could be easily bought directly.

(A) stockbrokers are helping many people who turn to them to buy stocks that could be easily

(B) stockbrokers are helping many people who are turning to them for help in buying stocks that they could easily have

(C) many people are turning to stockbrokers for help from them to buy stocks that could be easily

(D) many people are turning to stockbrokers for help to buy stocks that easily could have been

(E) many people are turning to stockbrokers for help in buying stocks that could easily be
An introductory VERBing modifier must serve to refer to the SUBJECT OF THE FOLLOWING CLAUSE.
In A and B, not trusting seems to refer to stockbrokers -- the subject of the following clause -- implying that STOCKBROKERS are NOT TRUSTING themselves.
Not the intended meaning.
The intended meaning is that MANY PEOPLE are not trusting themselves, with the result that they are turning to stockbrokers for help.
Eliminate A and B.

C: Many people are turning to stockbrokers for help from them
Here, them and stockbrokers are redundant.
It would be sufficient to say the following:
Many people are turning to stockbrokers for help.
Eliminate C.

The present perfect (has/have + VERBed) cannot serve to express a GENERAL TRUTH.
D: stocks that easily could have been purchased directly
Here, the intent is discuss a GENERAL TRUTH about the stocks being purchased: they COULD BE PURCHASED directly.
Thus, the usage of the present perfect (have been purchased) is inappropriate.
Eliminate D.

The correct answer is E.

In D, for help to buy stocks is unidiomatic.
Correct idiom:
X asks for help IN DOING Y.
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by parry » Wed Oct 21, 2015 10:29 pm

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Thanks a lot for excellent reply GMATGuruNY.


Use of "people ARE turning...." in D & E got me thinking that it is a new phonomenon.
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by RBBmba@2014 » Fri Dec 18, 2015 11:19 am

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hi Guru - a quick question on C.

Isn't the following another potential ERROR in C -- them refers to stockbrokers, whereas themselves in the non-underlined part refers to many people. But on GMAT, any Subject pronoun of same category MUST have same ANTECEDENT.

Correct me please if wrong!
GMATGuruNY wrote:Correct idiom:
X asks for help IN DOING Y.
In another OG Qs (OG 12,SC#59) it uses this construction -- The Olympic Games helped to keep peace. So, how these TWO usages are DIFFERENT exactly ?

Can you please shed some light on this aspect ?
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by GMATGuruNY » Mon Dec 21, 2015 5:41 am

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RBBmba@2014 wrote:hi Guru - a quick question on C.

Isn't the following another potential ERROR in C -- them refers to stockbrokers, whereas themselves in the non-underlined part refers to many people. But on GMAT, any Subject pronoun of same category MUST have same ANTECEDENT.

Correct me please if wrong!
This line of reasoning is viable.
GMATGuruNY wrote:Correct idiom:
X asks for help IN DOING Y.
In another OG Qs (OG 12,SC#59) it uses this construction -- The Olympic Games helped to keep peace. So, how these TWO usages are DIFFERENT exactly ?

Can you please shed some light on this aspect ?
help in buying stocks
Here, help is a NOUN.
When help serves as a noun, help + in + VERBing is correct.

helped to keep peace
Here, helped is a VERB.
When help serves as a VERB, help + INFINITIVE is correct.
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by Alchemist14 » Wed Jan 06, 2016 6:39 pm

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GMATGuruNY wrote:
RBBmba@2014 wrote:hi Guru - a quick question on C.

Isn't the following another potential ERROR in C -- them refers to stockbrokers, whereas themselves in the non-underlined part refers to many people. But on GMAT, any Subject pronoun of same category MUST have same ANTECEDENT.

Correct me please if wrong!
This line of reasoning is viable.
GMATGuruNY wrote:Correct idiom:
X asks for help IN DOING Y.
In another OG Qs (OG 12,SC#59) it uses this construction -- The Olympic Games helped to keep peace. So, how these TWO usages are DIFFERENT exactly ?

Can you please shed some light on this aspect ?
help in buying stocks
Here, help is a NOUN.
When help serves as a noun, help + in + VERBing is correct.

helped to keep peace
Here, helped is a VERB.
When help serves as a VERB, help + INFINITIVE is correct.
GMATGuruNY awesome explanation.

Just a few doubts.

1.'For help to buy' means that X asks Y for help with the objective of buying shares right? But this is not what the sentence wants. The sentence wants to say that X asks Y for help in selecting stocks. Is my line of reasoning correct?

2.Is it a rule that we cannot use noun+infinitive?

Thanks and Regards,
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by GMATGuruNY » Thu Jan 07, 2016 4:27 am

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Alchemist14 wrote: GMATGuruNY awesome explanation.

Just a few doubts.

1.'For help to buy' means that X asks Y for help with the objective of buying shares right? But this is not what the sentence wants. The sentence wants to say that X asks Y for help in selecting stocks. Is my line of reasoning correct?
In most cases, an infinitive modifier will serve to express the INTENT of the preceding subject.
Here, the usage of help to buy is incorrect both idiomatically and semantically.
It seems to imply that PEOPLE intend TO BUY stocks on their own, with the HELP of stockbrokers.
The actual process is just the opposite: STOCKBROKERS buy stocks ON BEHALF OF people.
Thus, the usage of help to buy does not convey the intended meaning.
That said, the error here is primarily idiomatic, as discussed in my posts above.
2.Is it a rule that we cannot use noun+infinitive?
An infinitive modifier may follow a noun.
SC15 in the OG12:
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by Crystal W » Sat May 14, 2016 11:43 pm

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I have a question about the placement of the adverb "easily". I believe the adverb can be put in any place, before or after the verb, to modify the verb. However, the OG said it only can be "could easily be bought directly". Can somebody explain this one?
Thanks in advance!
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by [email protected] » Wed Mar 13, 2019 1:41 pm

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Hello Everyone!

Let's take a closer look at this question, and tackle one issue at a time! Before we dive in, here is the original question, with any major differences between the options highlighted in orange:

Not trusting themselves to choose wisely among the wide array of investment opportunities on the market, stockbrokers are helping many people who turn to them to buy stocks that could be easily bought directly.

(A) stockbrokers are helping many people who turn to them to buy stocks that could be easily
(B) stockbrokers are helping many people who are turning to them for help in buying stocks that they could easily have
(C) many people are turning to stockbrokers for help from them to buy stocks that could be easily
(D) many people are turning to stockbrokers for help to buy stocks that easily could have been
(E) many people are turning to stockbrokers for help in buying stocks that could easily be

After a quick glance over the options, a few key differences pop out:

1. Starting with "stockbrokers" vs. "many people" (modifier-antecedent agreement)
2. Form of the verb "to help": helping / for help to / for help in (verb tense/idioms)
3. How they end: could be easily / could easily have / could have been (verb tense/meaning)

Let's start with #1 on our list because no matter which method we choose, we'll eliminate 2-3 options right away. The modifying phrase, "Not trusting themselves to choose wisely among the wide array of investment opportunities on the market," MUST be immediately followed by who/what it's referring to. In this case, the people hiring stockbrokers are the ones who don't trust themselves to invest properly. Let's see which options correctly place the modifier and antecedent next to each other:

(A) stockbrokers are helping many people who turn to them to buy stocks that could be easily
(B) stockbrokers are helping many people who are turning to them for help in buying stocks that they could easily have
(C) many people are turning to stockbrokers for help from them to buy stocks that could be easily
(D) many people are turning to stockbrokers for help to buy stocks that easily could have been
(E) many people are turning to stockbrokers for help in buying stocks that could easily be

We can eliminate options A & B because they don't place the people who hire stockbrokers next to the modifier phrase. It doesn't make sense to say that the stockbrokers don't trust themselves to buy stocks - that's their job!

Now that we've narrowed it down to 3 options, let's take a look at #2 and #3 on the list, and see which option handles both correctly:

(C) many people are turning to stockbrokers for help from them to buy stocks that could be easily

This option is INCORRECT because it's redundant. It's not necessary to repeat that people are getting help from stockbrokers - it's clear enough already without the extra addition of a pronoun. It's also not idiomatically correct to say that someone seeks "help to" do something - we say that we seek out "help in" doing something.

(D) many people are turning to stockbrokers for help to buy stocks that easily could have been

This is INCORRECT for a couple reasons. First, it's not idiomatically correct to say a person seeks "help to" doing something - they seek "help in" doing something. Second, by using the past tense "could have been," it slightly changes the meaning. It says that people are turning to stockbrokers in the present to buy stocks that were hard to buy in the past, but aren't difficult to buy today?? That doesn't really make sense. They're easy to buy in the present too, but people still hire stockbrokers to help them in the present.

(E) many people are turning to stockbrokers for help in buying stocks that could easily be

This is CORRECT! It uses the correct idiom structure "for help in" doing something, and it uses present tense to say that stocks are easy to buy in the present, but people still hire brokers to help them anyway. The meaning is logical and clear, so this is our best choice.

There you have it - option E is our correct choice!


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by vietnam47 » Fri Aug 09, 2019 7:13 am

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could can be the past tense of "can", which show ability, possibility and request.
but could can be use in present time to show possibility and request more hesitately and more politely

so, in E, "could be" show a possibility in present. never think " could" is only for the past time.
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