Sentence Correction

With the patience of its customers and with its network strained to the breaking point, the on-line service company announced a series of new initiatives trying to relieve the congestion that has led to at least four class-action lawsuits and thousands of complaints from frustrated customers.

A. the patience of its customers and with its network strained to the breaking point, the on-line service company announced a series of new initiatives trying to relieve
B. the patience of its customers and its network strained to the breaking point, the on-line service company announced a series of new initiatives that try to relieve
C. its network and the patience of its customers strained to the breaking point, the on-line service company announced a series of new initiatives to try to relieve
D. its network and with the patience of its customers strained to the breaking point, the on-line service company announced a series of initiatives to try relieving
E. its network and its customers' patience strained to the breaking point, the on-line service company announced a series of new initiatives to try relieving

It's an interesting question. I've never seen it before.

The first choice strikes me as completely wrong. First of all, it's completely unnecessary to say "With x and with y." I would never say, for example, "I want to go to lunch with John and with Mary." It's far better to say "with John and Mary." Second, the wording seems to indicate that the initiative is trying to accomplish something. Yet it is not the initiative that is trying but rather the on-line service company. Answer choice (A) can be eliminated.

Answer choices (B) and (D) can also be eliminated because they contain the same objectionable points that we've already identified in (A). In addition, I notice that both (D) and (E) contain "try+verb+ing,." Perhaps some readers are not aware of the difference between "I tried to recycle" and "I tried recycling." In the first clause, we acknowledge the possibility of failure. Perhaps the person will attempt to recycle and fail. He may find that he is unable to do so. In the second, however, we believe not that the person will fail but that he may be dissatisfied with recycling for some other reason. For example, he may say, "I tried recycling, but it was too expensive, and my house smelled like beer cans."

In light of the above, I conclude that (C) is the credited response. It contains no double with, it contains try + to, and uses the phrase "to try" to indicate that the purpose of the company in announcing the new initiatives is to reduce congestion.

GMATGuruNY wrote:

Mo2men wrote:With the patience of its customers and with its network strained to the breaking point, the on-line service company announced a series of new initiatives trying to relieve the congestion that has led to at least four class-action lawsuits and thousands of complaints from frustrated customers.

A. the patience of its customers and with its network strained to the breaking point, the on-line service company announced a series of new initiatives trying to relieve
B. the patience of its customers and its network strained to the breaking point, the on-line service company announced a series of new initiatives that try to relieve
C. its network and the patience of its customers strained to the breaking point, the on-line service company announced a series of new initiatives to try to relieve
D. its network and with the patience of its customers strained to the breaking point, the on-line service company announced a series of initiatives to try relieving
E. its network and its customers' patience strained to the breaking point, the on-line service company announced a series of new initiatives to try relieving

I received a PM requesting that I comment.

A: With the patience of its customers and with its network strained to the breaking point
Here -- because of the repetition of with -- the modifier in blue seems to refer only to its network.
The result is the following meaning:
With the patience of its customers, the on-line service company announced...initiatives trying to relieve the congestion.
This meaning is nonsensical, implying that the PATIENCE OF ITS CUSTOMERS induced the company to RELIEVE CONGESTION.
Eliminate A.

The purpose of the simple present tense is to express a GENERAL TRUTH.
B: a series of new initiatives that try to relieve the congestion
Here, the usage of try (simple present tense) implies that the portion in red is a general truth about the initiatives.
Not so.
The portion in red is not a general truth but is the INTENDED PURPOSE of the initiatives.
To convey the intended purpose of a noun, we use an infinitive modifier, as in the OA:
initiatives TO TRY to relieve the congestion
Eliminate B.

D: With its network and with the patience of its customers strained to the breaking point
Here -- because of the repetition of with -- the modifier in blue seems to refer only to the patience of its customers.
The result is the following meaning:
With its network, the on-line service company announced...initiatives to try relieving the congestion.
This meaning is nonsensical, implying that ITS NETWORK induced the company to RELIEVE CONGESTION.
Eliminate D.

Generally, a VERBing serves to express an action CONCURRENT with the main action.
E: the online-service company announced initiatives to try relieving the congestion
Here, the usage of relieving seems to imply that the action in red is concurrent with the main action (the company announced).
Not so.
The portion in red is not a concurrent action but is an INTENDED action.
To express an intended action, we use not a VERBing but an infinitive (to + VERB), as in the OA:
initiatives to try TO RELIEVE the congestion
Eliminate E.

The correct answer is C.

In general:
Incorrect: try + VERBing
Correct: try + to + VERB

Mitch,

So, A and D have a meaning issue. But is there a parallelism problem? I mean, in a parallelism stand point, is the "With...and with..." a problem?

Many tks!

gui_guimaraes wrote:Mitch,

So, A and D have a meaning issue. But is there a parallelism problem? I mean, in a parallelism stand point, is the "With...and with..." a problem?

Many tks!

with X and with Y is a valid construction.
An OA in GMATPrep:
With no natural predators and with expanses of green suburban neighborhoods where there is no hunting, the deer population in New Jersey has grown.

Isn't new initiative problematic ?
I strike C because I thought new initiative is redundant and chose D which uses concise initiative.

Thanks.

GMATGuruNY wrote:

Mo2men wrote:With the patience of its customers and with its network strained to the breaking point, the on-line service company announced a series of new initiatives trying to relieve the congestion that has led to at least four class-action lawsuits and thousands of complaints from frustrated customers.

A. the patience of its customers and with its network strained to the breaking point, the on-line service company announced a series of new initiatives trying to relieve
B. the patience of its customers and its network strained to the breaking point, the on-line service company announced a series of new initiatives that try to relieve
C. its network and the patience of its customers strained to the breaking point, the on-line service company announced a series of new initiatives to try to relieve
D. its network and with the patience of its customers strained to the breaking point, the on-line service company announced a series of initiatives to try relieving
E. its network and its customers' patience strained to the breaking point, the on-line service company announced a series of new initiatives to try relieving

I received a PM requesting that I comment.

A: With the patience of its customers and with its network strained to the breaking point
Here -- because of the repetition of with -- the modifier in blue seems to refer only to its network.
The result is the following meaning:
With the patience of its customers, the on-line service company announced...initiatives trying to relieve the congestion.
This meaning is nonsensical, implying that the PATIENCE OF ITS CUSTOMERS induced the company to RELIEVE CONGESTION.
Eliminate A.

The purpose of the simple present tense is to express a GENERAL TRUTH.
B: a series of new initiatives that try to relieve the congestion
Here, the usage of try (simple present tense) implies that the portion in red is a general truth about the initiatives.
Not so.
The portion in red is not a general truth but is the INTENDED PURPOSE of the initiatives.
To convey the intended purpose of a noun, we use an infinitive modifier, as in the OA:
initiatives TO TRY to relieve the congestion
Eliminate B.

D: With its network and with the patience of its customers strained to the breaking point
Here -- because of the repetition of with -- the modifier in blue seems to refer only to the patience of its customers.
The result is the following meaning:
With its network, the on-line service company announced...initiatives to try relieving the congestion.
This meaning is nonsensical, implying that ITS NETWORK induced the company to RELIEVE CONGESTION.
Eliminate D.

Generally, a VERBing serves to express an action CONCURRENT with the main action.
E: the online-service company announced initiatives to try relieving the congestion
Here, the usage of relieving seems to imply that the action in red is concurrent with the main action (the company announced).
Not so.
The portion in red is not a concurrent action but is an INTENDED action.
To express an intended action, we use not a VERBing but an infinitive (to + VERB), as in the OA:
initiatives to try TO RELIEVE the congestion
Eliminate E.

The correct answer is C.

In general:
Incorrect: try + VERBing
Correct: try + to + VERB

GMATGuruNY wrote:
The purpose of the simple present tense is to express a GENERAL TRUTH.
B: a series of new initiatives that try to relieve the congestion
Here, the usage of try (simple present tense) implies that the portion in red is a general truth about the initiatives.
Not so.
The portion in red is not a general truth but is the INTENDED PURPOSE of the initiatives.
To convey the intended purpose of a noun, we use an infinitive modifier, as in the OA:
initiatives TO TRY to relieve the congestion
Eliminate B.

Dear Mitch,

Regardless f the meaning in this particular question in B, does the construction 'the patience of its customers and its network' = the patience of its customers and of its network? Is there any difference between them?

Thanks

Thank you very much for your help, this clears my doubt.
I really appreciate your willingness to assist everyone.

Thanks.

GMATGuruNY wrote:

parry wrote:Isn't new initiative problematic ?
I strike C because I thought new initiative is redundant and chose D which uses concise initiative.

Thanks.

The phrase in blue is not redundant.
One definition of initiative is an action intended to solve a problem.
Thus:
new initiatives = new actions intended to solve a problem.

Mo2men wrote:Dear Mitch,

Regardless f the meaning in this particular question in B, does the construction 'the patience of its customers and its network' = the patience of its customers and of its network? Is there any difference between them?

Thanks

B: with the patience of its customers and its network
Case 1: the patience and its network are intended to be parallel, as follows:
WITH THE PATIENCE and WITH ITS NETWORK.
Case 2: its customers and its network are intended to be parallel, as follows:
OF ITS CUSTOMERS and OF ITS NETWORK
Case 2 is unlikely, since it implies the following nonsensical meaning:
the patience...of its network
That said, both cases constitute grammatically sound interpretations.
Since the grammatical intention is not crystal clear, the construction in B is inviable.

with the patience of its customers and of its network
Here, only Case 2 is possible.
The result is the nonsensical meaning discussed above.

In C , why can't we read like this - With its network, the on-line service company announced a series of new initiatives to try to relieve ... and say that it doesn't make sense.
Why do we include "strained to the breaking point" as a modifier to the network? In A, We didn't attach this modifier to "With the patience of its customers" and said that it doesn't make sense.