Sentence Correction

Although the first U.S. auto company to manufacture compact automobiles, American Motors was never able to fully capitalize on its head start in the small car market.

A) Although the first U.S. auto company to manufacture compact automobiles,
B) Although the first auto company to manufacture compact automobiles in the U.S.,
C) Although manufacturing compact automobiles before any U.S. auto company,
D) As the first U.S. auto company to manufacture compact automobiles,
E) In being the first U.S. auto company to manufacture compact automobiles,

OA A

I think first three are wrong because 'although' requires complete sentence, not just part (what do you call it?). D is correct. E is awkward and wordy.

go for A.

You need a contrast marker like 'although' here --- they were first... but they were not able to capitalize --- down to A B C

B - American Motors is a U.S. corp. So eliminate B as that muddies the meaning... manuf autom in the U.S. as stated in b leaves open the possibility that it may be a foreign corp..

C - "although manuf before any U.S. company"... sounds silly --- comparing the process of manufacturing by one company with another company, quite literally

Added the OA. But can you explain why using 'As...' is wrong.

Can anyone explain why D is wrong ?

As.... in D would simply not work given the context...

As the winner of the race Tom was not given a standing ovation by the crowd.

Although the winner of the race, Tom was not given a standing ovation by the crowd.

- The latter makes more sense as you need an element of contrast to describe what has happened.

As the first company... American was never able to capitalize...

It should ideally have been able to capitalize, right? But the opposite happened. So logically you need an 'although' here...

In any event the original sentence came with an 'although' - so expression of that element of contrast was intended.

Thanks a lot gmat1011 , now i get it. The examples used made it crystal clear .

Hi can anyone tell the difference between A and B.Is it just the change in meaning or is there something gramattically wrong with B?
The non-underlined portion emphasizes "small car market" with a definite article so i thought there should be some reference to which country or market is the company operating in , in the underlined portion.
Am I reading too much into the question ?

mundasingh123 wrote:Hi can anyone tell the difference between A and B.Is it just the change in meaning or is there something gramattically wrong with B?
The non-underlined portion emphasizes "small car market" with a definite article so i thought there should be some reference to which country or market is the company operating in , in the underlined portion.
Am I reading too much into the question ?

I think the changed meaning is the only issue. The sentence technically looks fine.

pesfunk wrote:

mundasingh123 wrote:Hi can anyone tell the difference between A and B.Is it just the change in meaning or is there something gramattically wrong with B?
The non-underlined portion emphasizes "small car market" with a definite article so i thought there should be some reference to which country or market is the company operating in , in the underlined portion.
Am I reading too much into the question ?

I think the changed meaning is the only issue. The sentence technically looks fine.

so Dont u think that we need to have some reference about which place the company is looking to compete in

Hey guys,

Good question on the difference between A and B. Quite honestly, this is the type of question that would get filtered out by the GMAT's quality control system (each question on the official test costs thousands of dollars to produce/test/edit). If A is correct, then so is B in this case, as the only difference is meaning and there is no "Illogical" meaning:

A's placement of "U.S." denotes that AMC was an American auto company, and the first of the American companies to produce compact cars.

B's placement of "in the U.S." connotes that AMC may or may not have been an American-based company, but regardless it was the first to produce compact cars for the American market.

Without any background knowledge of American Motors or the compact car market of the 1970s/80s, you're not given enough context here to make the distinction between the two choices. In order for the question to really be valid, it would have to include context that invalidates the logic of one of the above, such as:

"...American Motors was never able to fully capitalize on its head start in the small car market because the Japanese manufacturers were already so firmly entrenched with American consumers."

In that case, B is then wrong - the context shows that AMC couldn't have been the first company to produce compacts in the US, as there's evidence that the Japanese companies had already done so. Failing such context, though, B is just as valid a choice logically as A is.

@Brian: Thanks for the reply.
Doesn't 'although' require a clause after it? The correct answer also sounds incorrect.
IMO, it should be "Although it was the first US ...."

A subordinate clause should have a verb isnt it?..here the subordinate clause with although doesnt have a verb..

E sounds awkward

D dint bring the "Although" effect in meaning..but still grammatically correct..isnt it?

Although requires a verb and it should be a subordinate clause..right?

1:20 sec IMO A