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by tar.goyal » Thu May 15, 2008 10:14 am
Although the manager agreed to a more flexible work schedule, he said that it must be posted on the bulletin board so that both management and labor will know what everyone is assigned to do.

(A) he said that it must be posted on the bulletin board so that both management and labor will know what everyone is
(B) he said it had to be posted on the bulletin board so that both management and labor knows what everyone is
(C) he said that they would have to post the assignments on the bulletin board so that management and labor knew what everyone was
(D) he said that the schedule would have to be posted on the bulletin board so that both management and labor would know what everyone was
(E) saying that the schedule had to be posted on the bulletin board so that both management and labor would know what everyone had been

The answer is A.
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by netigen » Thu May 15, 2008 12:09 pm
B out because of 'had' as posting will happen after he agreed
C has pronoun issue "they"
D out because have is used for singular verb schedule
E out - what is "saying" modifying
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by lunarpower » Fri May 16, 2008 11:37 pm
netigen wrote:B out because of 'had' as posting will happen after he agreed
C has pronoun issue "they"
D out because have is used for singular verb schedule
E out - what is "saying" modifying
the past tense in choice b is acceptable, as long as the rest of the verbs in the sentence are consistent with it. the problem isn't so much 'had' by itself, but, rather, the inconsistency between 'had' and 'is'.
however,
the problem that should be MUCH MORE OBVIOUS in choice (b) is the mismatch between the compound subject 'both management and labor' and the singular verb 'knows'. the compound subject is plural, and so it requires a plural verb.

your explanations for choices (c) and (e) are perfect. on choice (e), you can point out an even stronger fact: choice (e) isn't a sentence at all. (the entire thing would constitute a giant modifier.)

the only thing that's actually mistaken in these explanations is choice (d), because the verb is 'would have' - which is perfectly good as either a singular or a plural verb ('would', like almost all other past-tense forms in english, doesn't conjugate).
in fact, both choices (a) and (d) are legitimate sentences.
- both sets of verb tenses are mutually consistent - and the non-underlined context provides no 'anchor points' to help us resolve what the verb tenses should be, so either set of verb tenses is fine
- if you have to strike one of the choices, then strike (d) and go with (a), for reasons of concision.
- i'm assuming this isn't a gmatprep problem...? after all, when official problems are predicated on concision, the differences between the concise and non-concise versions are normally more stark than the differences between (a) and (d) here.
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by s_raizada » Sat May 17, 2008 11:59 am
B - subject verb error 'management and labor knows'
C - pronoun error. who are 'they'
D - certian vs uncertain error. In the original sentence author says 'must be' where as in this sentence use of 'would' reflect uncertainity. Remember certain vs uncertain rule from Manhatten SC book. Another problem with this sentence is the tense in clause 'what everyone was assignmend to do'. Concision is also a problem in this sentence.
E - sentence fragement


A - correct one
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by lunarpower » Sun May 18, 2008 12:54 am
s_raizada wrote:In the original sentence author says 'must be' where as in this sentence use of 'would' reflect uncertainity. Remember certain vs uncertain rule from Manhatten SC book.
you're correct that the use of 'would', in certain contexts, can signal uncertainty. however, the uncertainty factor is generally limited to those cases in which 'would' indicates a hypothetical - usually when it's paired with an 'if' clause.

in this case, the use of 'would' is of a different variety: 'would' is also the past tense of 'will'. therefore, the sentence
he said/says that the schedule will have to be posted on the bulletin board so that both management and labor will know what everyone is assigned to do
is legitimately rendered into the past tense as
he said that the schedule would have to be posted on the bulletin board so that both management and labor would know what everyone was assigned to do
note that nothing in either of these sentences is hypothetical, and each of them is internally consistent.
therefore, there are only two really good reasons to choose (a) over (d):
1) it's more concise
2) it's never wise to alter the meaning of the original sentence (i.e., if the original is rendered in the present tense, and there's no good reason to change it into the past tense, then it should be left in the present tense).
#2 is actually a better reason than #1, because clarity / preservation of meaning ranks higher than concision in the SC hierarchy.
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by syh244 » Thu Sep 08, 2011 8:42 pm
Hard questions like this are fun. I would like to argue that D is the correct answer.

In answer D.

"A more flexible schedule" and "the schedule" are referring to two different things but with the same content. "flexible schedule" refers to the activities that can be done in the time slots, per se, and "the schedule" refers to the piece of paper that must be posted in a board (the piece of paper that will be posted is not flexible unless its made of rubber).

"had to be posted so that x will know" - sounds fishy. "Will" sounds almost too declarative.
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by syh244 » Thu Sep 08, 2011 8:43 pm
no idea.
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by navami » Sat Sep 10, 2011 9:57 am
IMO A
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by rohangupta83 » Sat Sep 10, 2011 1:27 pm
Sentence constructed using choice 'C'

Although the manager agreed to a more flexible work schedule, he said that they would have to post the assignments on the bulletin board so that management and labor knew what everyone was assigned to do.

I would reject 'C' as we don't know who is 'they' refering to.

IMO A
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by vikram4689 » Wed Aug 22, 2012 3:08 am
lunarpower wrote:
s_raizada wrote:In the original sentence author says 'must be' where as in this sentence use of 'would' reflect uncertainity. Remember certain vs uncertain rule from Manhatten SC book.
you're correct that the use of 'would', in certain contexts, can signal uncertainty. however, the uncertainty factor is generally limited to those cases in which 'would' indicates a hypothetical - usually when it's paired with an 'if' clause.

in this case, the use of 'would' is of a different variety: 'would' is also the past tense of 'will'. therefore, the sentence
he said/says that the schedule will have to be posted on the bulletin board so that both management and labor will know what everyone is assigned to do
is legitimately rendered into the past tense as
he said that the schedule would have to be posted on the bulletin board so that both management and labor would know what everyone was assigned to do
note that nothing in either of these sentences is hypothetical, and each of them is internally consistent.
therefore, there are only two really good reasons to choose (a) over (d):
1) it's more concise
2) it's never wise to alter the meaning of the original sentence (i.e., if the original is rendered in the present tense, and there's no good reason to change it into the past tense, then it should be left in the present tense).
#2 is actually a better reason than #1, because clarity / preservation of meaning ranks higher than concision in the SC hierarchy.
i have a doubt regarding use of present tense in a). "he said that" marks usage of reported speech and no** instance of reported speech uses present tense. https://www.ego4u.com/en/cram-up/grammar ... statements then how a) is legitimate


** when reporting verb is in present tense - (he says that) - only then we can use present tense in reported speech BUT in this question we use past tense (he said that)
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by vk_vinayak » Wed Aug 22, 2012 8:21 am
How is 'will' correct in the orginal sentence?

He said that ...

Since said is past, shouldn't we use 'would' in place of 'will' ?
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by nailGmat2012 » Wed Aug 22, 2012 11:19 am
'Will' is alright. It's a prediction - management and labor still do not know what they have been assigned. They will come to know.
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by lunarpower » Tue Sep 04, 2012 6:09 am
vikram4689 wrote:no** instance of reported speech uses present tense. https://www.ego4u.com/en/cram-up/grammar ... statements then how a) is legitimate
well, that's just wrong.
you should learn to have a healthy skepticism for what you find on random third-rate websites, especially when it comes to issues as intricate as verb tenses.
i *am* glad to see that you are motivated to research this stuff on your own, though. just be sure to judge the content of these sites according to what you see.

it's perfectly ok to have "reported speech" in the present tense -- if that speech describes something for which the present tense is the appropriate tense. (in other words, "reported speech" isn't any different from any other writing, insofar as verb tenses are concerned. the only reason that site presents it separately is, presumably, that "he said / she said" is extremely common in casual conversation.)

so, for instance, you might see the present tense if someone "reported" a timeless, permanent fact:
Ed told me that his mother is Colombian.
... or if someone "reported" something that happens on a regular basis:
Ed told me that he drives a 60-mile round trip every weekday.

if "reported" speech is in the past tense, the implication is that the "reported" fact was true in the timeframe of the sentence, but not necessarily anymore.
e.g.
Ed told me that he was tired. --> he was tired when he talked to me; he might feel fine now (or might not).
vs
Ed told me that he is tired every morning.
** when reporting verb is in present tense - (he says that) - only then we can use present tense in reported speech BUT in this question we use past tense (he said that)
nope. wrong.

there's nothing special about "reported speech"; the "reported" events take exactly the same tenses that they would take in other, essentially similar circumstances without speech.
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by vikram4689 » Wed Sep 05, 2012 10:46 am
here's a link to Professor Mary Nell Sorensen's web site(University of Washington) https://faculty.washington.edu/marynell/ ... rtdsp.html

this webpage gives almost same information as given by earlier webpage BUT with more clarity (see exceptions). however, it seems unlikely that we can use present tense as context in this question is close to none of the exceptions. Hence D seems more likely to be correct. (please tell whether i made any mistake in this analysis)

Other than this question, i did following gmat-prep question
1/ https://www.manhattangmat.com/forums/pre ... t7262.html here (c) is correct even though it changes the original meaning by not mentioning whose sales are poor - of those 1/4 stores or of whole company. Also, (a) is incorrect even though there is nothing wrong in it - 'they' correctly refers to 1/4 stores. Only point left is that (c) follow rules given in this webpage(mentioned above).

It seems that even gmat-prep question conforms to rules mentioned in webpage. please discuss why a) is correct and gmat-prep question in light of new evidence
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