GMATPrep - sequence of tenses, ing modifiers,

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Some patients who do not respond to therapies for depression may simply have received inadequate treatment, having, for example, been prescribed a drug at a dosage too low to be effective or having been taken off a drug too soon.

(A) having, for example, been prescribed a drug at a dosage too low to be effective or having been
(B) having, for example, a drug prescription that was ineffective because the dosage was too low, or being
(C) as, for example, having too low of a dosage of a prescribed drug for it to be effective, or being
(D) when they have, for example, been prescribed too low a drug dosage to be effective, or were
(E) for example, when they have a drug prescription with a dosage too low to be effective, or been

Could someone help with this question. seems like a monster. :(

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by irock » Tue Jun 07, 2011 6:51 am
IMO E
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by abhishek.pati » Tue Jun 07, 2011 7:01 am
IMO C

having and being looks to be in parallel....!!!

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by jainnikhil02 » Tue Jun 07, 2011 7:33 am
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by abidshariff » Tue Jun 07, 2011 8:19 am
hmmmm...indeed a monster.. BTW, i guess it's A


Some patients who do not respond to therapies for depression may simply have received inadequate treatment, having, for example, been prescribed a drug at a dosage too low to be effective or having been taken off a drug too soon.

(A) having, for example, been prescribed a drug at a dosage too low to be effective or having been
(B) having, for example, a drug prescription that was ineffective because the dosage was too low, or being (too wordy)
(C) as, for example, having too low of a dosage of a prescribed drug for it to be effective, or being (wrong usage...y do we need "for it")
(D) when they have, for example, been prescribed too low a drug dosage to be effective, or were(tense is changed to were)
(E) for example, when they have a drug prescription with a dosage too low to be effective, or been( you can't have a drug prescription..you ll be prescribed one)

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by abidshariff » Tue Jun 07, 2011 8:19 am
waiting hard for the ans....

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by irock » Tue Jun 07, 2011 8:50 am
@gmatmadeasy: whats the answer? any explanations?
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit - Aristotle.

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by itsmebharat » Tue Jun 07, 2011 9:00 am
Seriously a monster , from where you got that.. :evil:

IMO A
I am not an Expert, please feel free to suggest if there is an error.

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by crh » Tue Jun 07, 2011 9:37 am
One of the toughest questions I have come across so far.....phew ...

IMO A
Others look incorrect with respect to the parallelism rule.......

What's the OA

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by Brian@VeritasPrep » Tue Jun 07, 2011 9:38 am
Great question here, everyone - definitely involved but I think if you go back to the fundamentals you can pick this one apart pretty nicely. Thanks to GMATMadeEasy for the title of this thread - that should set us on the right path...this is above all else a verb tense problem.

Ultimately we're stuck with the tense "some patients...may have received...". It's a conditional progressive tense - it didn't necessarily happen and it's something that may have happened in the recent past.

Choices D and E use the straight-up past tense ("were" in D, "when they have" in E) and that's not consistent with the conditional/progressive usage in the original.

In choice C, "as having...or being" really can't work as a modifier, also as GMATMadeEasy eluded to in the title. The "having" modifier in A and B works to set up the second half of the sentence to modify the claim in the first clause; C doesn't serve that function.

Between A and B, the biggest difference is that B uses the straight-past "was" twice so it's not completely consistent with the conditional tense in the non-underlined portion. Held up to this light, A doesn't make any mistakes so the correct answer has to be A.
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by boazkhan » Tue Jun 07, 2011 1:55 pm
Hi Brian,
I chose A as the answer and my reasoning was to treat "or" as a parallel marker.

having,...., been.........or having been......

Is this the correct approach?


Thanks!

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by [email protected] » Tue Jun 07, 2011 8:57 pm
Hi Brian,
i got he right answer ,but I am confused what is the reference of they in D and E.Is They in D & E refers to patients or therapies becuause i negate the D and E on the basis of pronoun and tense both.can u please help to clear my doubt.


Brian@VeritasPrep wrote:Great question here, everyone - definitely involved but I think if you go back to the fundamentals you can pick this one apart pretty nicely. Thanks to GMATMadeEasy for the title of this thread - that should set us on the right path...this is above all else a verb tense problem.

Ultimately we're stuck with the tense "some patients...may have received...". It's a conditional progressive tense - it didn't necessarily happen and it's something that may have happened in the recent past.

Choices D and E use the straight-up past tense ("were" in D, "when they have" in E) and that's not consistent with the conditional/progressive usage in the original.

In choice C, "as having...or being" really can't work as a modifier, also as GMATMadeEasy eluded to in the title. The "having" modifier in A and B works to set up the second half of the sentence to modify the claim in the first clause; C doesn't serve that function.

Between A and B, the biggest difference is that B uses the straight-past "was" twice so it's not completely consistent with the conditional tense in the non-underlined portion. Held up to this light, A doesn't make any mistakes so the correct answer has to be A.

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by [email protected] » Thu Dec 22, 2011 10:51 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 ones. Some of the content in these posts may have been taken from various other sources (discussion forums).

Some patients who do not respond to therapies for depression may simply have received inadequate treatment, having, for example, been prescribed a drug at a dosage too low to be effective or having been taken off a drug too soon.
(A) having, for example, been prescribed a drug at a dosage too low to be effective or having been
(B) having, for example, a drug prescription that was ineffective because the dosage was too low, or being
(C) as, for example, having too low of a dosage of a prescribed drug for it to be effective, or being
(D) when they have, for example, been prescribed too low a drug dosage for it to be effective, or were
(E) for example, when they have a drug prescription with a dosage too low to be effective, or been

The best way to attack this problem is to remove 'for example' from each of the choices.

A. having been prescribed a drug at a dosage too low to be effective or having been
B. having a drug prescription that was ineffective because the dosage was too low, or being
C. as having too low of a dosage of a prescribed drug for it to be effective, or being
D. when they have been prescribed too low a drug dosage for it to be effective, or were
E. when they have a drug prescription with a dosage too low to be effective, or been

A is parallel 'having been || having been' ... the connector word is 'or' ... as we are joining two similar ideas (and only two ideas), we should not use a comma. This alone is sufficient to eliminate B, C, D, and E.

In B, 'having a drug prescription (refers to patients) can't be parallel to being taken off (refers to a doctor, possibly) ... as the subjects are different, the two are not parallel.

In C, 'having too low of a dosage (refers to patients) can't be parallel to being taken off (refers to a doctor, possibly) ... as the subjects are different, the two words are not parallel.

D is not parallel ('have been' is not parallel to 'were')

E is not parallel ('have a prescription' is not parallel to 'been taken off')

Correct: A
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