policy requiring employees:

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policy requiring employees:

by \'manpreet singh » Sun Aug 25, 2013 11:12 pm
Management is considering a policy requiring employees provide doctors' notes after taking sick leave so as to prove fitness to return to work.

a)provide doctors' notes after taking sick leave so as to
b-to provide doctors' notes after taking sick leave so as to
c-provide doctors' notes after taking sick leave in order that they
d-to provide doctors' notes after taking sick leave so that the employees can
e-provide doctors' notes after taking sick leave and

Ans d

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by vinay1983 » Mon Aug 26, 2013 9:33 am
To maintain parallelism TO has to be included at the beginning.

Further, in order that they(who?) No answer or more than 2 answers.

Employees need not be mentioned twice in the sentence/phrase.

B for me
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by Mike@Magoosh » Mon Aug 26, 2013 1:43 pm
'manpreet singh wrote:Management is considering a policy requiring employees provide doctors' notes after taking sick leave so as to prove fitness to return to work.

(A) provide doctors' notes after taking sick leave so as to
(B) to provide doctors' notes after taking sick leave so as to
(C) provide doctors' notes after taking sick leave in order that they
(D) to provide doctors' notes after taking sick leave so that the employees can
(E) provide doctors' notes after taking sick leave and
With all due respect to vinay1983, the "to provide" is necessary, not because of parallelism, but because of idioms. The word "require" demands an infinitive. This means (A) & (C) & (E) are all out, and only (B) & (D) remain. See:
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2013/gmat-idiom-ebook/

I know that the source recommends (D) as the OA, but I doubt this. Both (B) & (D) are perfectly correct, both grammatically and logically, but where (D) is awkward and wordy, (B) is sleek, elegant, and powerful. I think the source is just plain wrong on this one. I vote for (B).

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by KapTeacherEli » Mon Aug 26, 2013 5:03 pm
Hi Mike,

Let me chime in on the problem with (B)--the "so as to" phrase makes it unclear who will "prove fitness". Has management implemented this policy so as to prove employee fitness to go back to work? Or are the employees providing the notes to prove their own fitness? Obviously, these two ideas are not exactly contradictory, but they convey slightly different connotations--and in (B) we don't know which connotation is intended. But introducing a new subject in choice (D), the lack of clarity is removed, and the sentence (clunky though it may be) is unambiguous.

Hope this helps!
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by vinay1983 » Tue Aug 27, 2013 9:19 am
Thanks Mike.Somehow i do not agree with D. I mean the Management is considering a policy requiring employees....so that they give doctor's notes(who, obviously employees) why?, to prove fitness to return to work.

Does this need to emphasized again in the latter part of the sentence?

Gosh..this one's tricky!
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by Mike@Magoosh » Tue Aug 27, 2013 9:53 am
KapTeacherEli wrote:Hi Mike,
Let me chime in on the problem with (B)--the "so as to" phrase makes it unclear who will "prove fitness".
Mr. Eli Meyer,
Most respectfully, I choose to differ. Yes, in principle, in a kind of mathematical sense, the infinitive of purpose ("so as to ...") could apply to either verb, and therefore to either actor. In practice, though, the default assumption in a sentence such as this is that the infinitive of purpose applies to the closest verb, especially when the sentence is long & complex like this, and the first verb, the most distant verb, is very far away in the sentence.

In other words, if anyone wrote the (B) version of the sentence,
Management is considering a policy requiring employees to provide doctors' notes after taking sick leave so as to prove fitness to return to work.
my guess is that 99.9% of intelligent readers would have absolutely no doubt that the actors of the infinitive of purpose are the employees. If someone said this sentence, intending the specify that the employees were the actors of the infinitive of purpose, I think that would be so acceptable it would pass without comment. If someone said this sentence, intending the specify that management was the actors of the infinitive of purpose, I would consider that sentence deceitful and misleading.

What is truly bizarre about this question, compared to GMAT SC sentences --- three of the answers are just trainwreck wrong, not tempting in the least, take-them-out-back-and-shoot-them wrong, and then one of the answers --- you purport --- is deemed wrong on this highly debatable theoretical mathematical technicality. That's not the tenor of GMAT SC questions. In a real GMAT SC question, all four of the incorrect choices have something unambiguously wrong, something that, when pointed out, most intelligent people would say --- "oh yes, that has to be wrong". The nature of the mistakes differs among the answer choices. Whenever the GMAT gets into this territory --- maybe technically wrong but might pass as acceptable --- then the good people at GMAC always put some other glaring mistake elsewhere in that answer choices, so that there is absolutely no ambiguity.

I think, if you want (B) to be a wrong answer, then you need to make it more wrong, with some other kind of mistake (a pronoun problem, an agreement problem, etc. etc.) Failing that, I submit, this sentence falls short of the very high standards set by the GMAT SC.

Respectfully,
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by bharath2787 » Wed Aug 28, 2013 6:46 am
i too think its B ..

source of this question please ?
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by \'manpreet singh » Wed Aug 28, 2013 7:42 am
Wow! some really good discussion.First of all the source is Kaplan and i too zeroed in on B as usage of "so as to " seemed ok to me but in their explanations they mention that "so as to" causes the reader to beleive that it is the employees takes notes to prove fitness, but its the policy that requires them to do so. Hence they opt for D as it conveys the meaning for clearly.

The explantion on second thought did look acceptable to me.Hope it helps.

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by vinay1983 » Wed Aug 28, 2013 8:09 am
I found these links(pasted below) while searching. this topic has been discussed a lot many times.I decide not to involve further as there are many other aspects to worry about.

Sorry for the abrupt and direct response.

https://www.thefreedictionary.com/so+as+to

https://www.urch.com/forums/gmat-sentenc ... -such.html
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by sanjoy18 » Fri Aug 30, 2013 12:10 pm
In this question...the word "require" needs an infinitive..hence "To provide"
so A,C and E are out
B,D remain
In GMAT, "So as to" used to denotes cause and effect. can not be used to replace "in order to"
Ex. John's grades are so poor as to lead to his expulsion from the school (correct)
Jack works out every day so as to (in order to) build his stamina (Wrong)

here no cause effect relation.

hence D

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by Mike@Magoosh » Fri Aug 30, 2013 12:19 pm
sanjoy18 wrote:In GMAT, "So as to" used to denotes cause and effect. can not be used to replace "in order to"
Dear sanjoy18,
With all due respect, I beg to differ on this point. I would argue that "so as to" and "in order to" are both correct forms of the infinitive of purpose.

1a) Washington crossed the Delaware to attack the Hessians.
1b) Washington crossed the Delaware in order to attack the Hessians.
1c) Washington crossed the Delaware so as to attack the Hessians.
All three of those sentences say the same thing --- they just use different levels of formality to say so. There is no difference in meaning between "in order to" and "so as to".

What do you think?
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by KapTeacherEli » Sat Aug 31, 2013 12:51 pm
'manpreet singh wrote:Wow! some really good discussion.First of all the source is Kaplan and i too zeroed in on B as usage of "so as to " seemed ok to me but in their explanations they mention that "so as to" causes the reader to beleive that it is the employees takes notes to prove fitness, but its the policy that requires them to do so. Hence they opt for D as it conveys the meaning for clearly.

The explantion on second thought did look acceptable to me.Hope it helps.
Sounds like a good summary, and I'm glad it made sense to you!
Eli Meyer
Kaplan GMAT Teacher
Cambridge, MA
www.kaptest.com/gmat

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