Sentence Correction

Unlike mainstream American businesses, more than half of which fail, the failure rate for businesses in the Amish community hovers around 5 percent.
A. Unlike mainstream American businesses, more than half of which fail
B. Unlike mainstream American businesses, in which the failure rate is more than half
C. Unlike mainstream American businesses, where more than half of them fail
D. While the rate of mainstream American businesses failing is more than half
E. While more than half of mainstream American businesses fail

I need some discussion between OP's D and E...which one is correct and which one is wrong and why???

Hi Atul...

Wht is wrong with B?

atulmangal wrote:Unlike mainstream American businesses, more than half of which fail, the failure rate for businesses in the Amish community hovers around 5 percent.
A. Unlike mainstream American businesses, more than half of which fail
B. Unlike mainstream American businesses, in which the failure rate is more than half
C. Unlike mainstream American businesses, where more than half of them fail
D. While the rate of mainstream American businesses failing is more than half
E. While more than half of mainstream American businesses fail

I need some discussion between OP's D and E...which one is correct and which one is wrong and why???

When we start a sentence with "unlike X, Y", we have to follow the following rules:

1. A comparison has already been started between X and Y.
2. X cannot be a clauses.
3. X cannot be a prepositional phrase.
4. X and Y MUST be grammatically and logically parallel.

In D RATE has been compared with RATE.

While RATE is more than half, the RATE hovers.

Here the theme:

1. While X, Y, where X and Y are clauses, and the subject of each clause is RATE.

While of RATE of X is blah blah, the RATE of Y is blah blah.

The option E has used:

While business fail, the RATE of Y blah blah. ----> Business has been compared with RATE.

Answer should be D.


To answer HSPA:

In B, Unlike X, Y--------> Look the skeleton of the sentence:


Unlike mainstream American businesses, in which the failure rate is more than half, the failure RATE.

This is wrong for at least two reasons:

1. COMMA + In which is NOT correct. "In which" is treated as essential modifier, so we need not use COMMA before "in which".
2. Mainstream business has been compared with RATE.

Thanks.

gmat_perfect wrote:

atulmangal wrote:Unlike mainstream American businesses, more than half of which fail, the failure rate for businesses in the Amish community hovers around 5 percent.
A. Unlike mainstream American businesses, more than half of which fail
B. Unlike mainstream American businesses, in which the failure rate is more than half
C. Unlike mainstream American businesses, where more than half of them fail
D. While the rate of mainstream American businesses failing is more than half
E. While more than half of mainstream American businesses fail

I need some discussion between OP's D and E...which one is correct and which one is wrong and why???

When we start a sentence with "unlike X, Y", we have to follow the following rules:

1. A comparison has already been started between X and Y.
2. X cannot be a clauses.
3. X cannot be a prepositional phrase.
4. X and Y MUST be grammatically and logically parallel.

In D RATE has been compared with RATE.

While RATE is more than half, the RATE hovers.

Here the theme:

1. While X, Y, where X and Y are clauses, and the subject of each clause is RATE.

While of RATE of X is blah blah, the RATE of Y is blah blah.

The option E has used:

While business fail, the RATE of Y blah blah. ----> Business has been compared with RATE.

Answer should be D.


To answer HSPA:

In B, Unlike X, Y--------> Look the skeleton of the sentence:


Unlike mainstream American businesses, in which the failure rate is more than half, the failure RATE.

This is wrong for at least two reasons:

1. COMMA + In which is NOT correct. "In which" is treated as essential modifier, so we need not use COMMA before "in which".
2. Mainstream business has been compared with RATE.

Thanks.

@gmat_perfect

I followed the same concepts which u mentioned above in your post, But finally, to my surprise, i ended up picking the WRONG answer Op D
Yes, Op D is INCORRECT and OA is actually E....i thought may be i'm making some silly mistake so i posted this question, but then after u also posted a wrong answer using the same concepts i searched for explanation....here is the link of MGMAT forum..
https://www.manhattangmat.com/forums/sc- ... t8022.html

It says, construction "of + NOUN + VERBing" in Op D is INCORRECT

Explanation:- if the focus of the construction is the ACTION, then you must use the POSSESSIVE form for the noun/pronoun preceding the "-ing" participle. since that's fatally awkward to say in words, i'll provide an example:
everyone laughed at me accidentally walking into the girls' bathroom --> WRONG. sorry. this sentence would actually mean that everyone laughed at me as they were walking into the girls' bathroom.
everyone laughed at my accidentally walking into the girls' bathroom --> CORRECT, because it's the action (my walking into the bathroom, not really me) that they're laughing at.

secondly, Op D has idiomatic error too

it's unidiomatic to say that a RATE is "half" (or "more/less than half"). you could say that a rate is 50%, but not "half".

Thanks atul.

I missed it.

I got an idea of "rate cannot be half".

Thanks.

In this context, "while" means "whereas."

So the sentences created by choices D and E are saying essentially, "Whereas in these cases this is how it is, in those cases that is how it is."

The two clauses don't have to be worded in perfectly parallel form, but each one has to make sense on its own.

The problem with D is that the dependent clause does not make sense.

"While the rate of ... is ..." has to be followed by a rate, such as 50 miles per hour, 100 out of every thousand, or 50%, which means 50 out of every hundred.

"half" is not a rate.

Also, ideally even the beginning of the clause would be differently worded, worded to clearly convey that the rate being discussed is the failure rate or the rate of failure. As it stands, in a way the rate seems to be the rate of businesses that fail, which meaning does not make sense. Something like the following would be better.

While the failure rate of mainstream American businesses is ...

E, on the other hand, makes total sense.

While "half" is not a rate, "half" is a fraction, and we can say that a certain fraction of businesses fail.

So the dependent clause in E makes sense on its own.

Now, let's consider the how the dependent clause works with the independent clause.

Here's the independent clause.

"the failure rate for businesses in the Amish community hovers around 5 percent."

The wording of the second clause is more like that of B and D, both of which use "failure" and "rate" as the independent clause does.

It is not, however, necessary for the wording of the two clauses to be strictly parallel.

Check out this example, which is fine.

While Jack likes to swim, Jill spends her free time running.

It does not have to be like this.

While Jack likes to swim, Jill likes to run.

It could even be this.

While Jack likes to swim, whenever I see Jill, she is running.

Similarly, the two clauses in the question don't have to be worded in the same way. The following is totally fine.

While more than half of mainstream American businesses fail, the failure rate for businesses in the Amish community hovers around 5%.

Perfect!!

thanks a lot.