Sentence Correction

One study found that although government policy and the industrial sector in which a company operates can influence its productivity and financial strength, management decisions have at least as great an impact on a company's performance.

A) management decisions have at least as great an impact
B) decisions by management have a great impact
C) manager decisions impact greatly
D) decisions by a company's management impact greatly
E) what a company's management decides has a greater impact

Source :MGMAT CAT
OA :after some discussion

IMO A:

Comparing with Idiom : ALthough X Y, whatever comes after comma should be parallel to government policy,

although gov policy & .. can influence tis productivity .. , management decisions have at least as grt an impact on ..

we need a noun to preposition on, starting at the end of underline part. SO C and D out, as they end up in greatly not an noun.

E is definetly have several issues

SO We hv to choose between A and B : decisions by mgmt in B is not parallel to gov policy so choose A.

prachich1987 wrote:One study found that although government policy and the industrial sector in which a company operates can influence its productivity and financial strength, management decisions have at least as great an impact on a company's performance.

A) management decisions have at least as great an impact
B) decisions by management have a great impact
C) manager decisions impact greatly
D) decisions by a company's management impact greatly
E) what a company's management decides has a greater impact

Source :MGMAT CAT
OA :after some discussion

I go with B, because of presence of the logical connectors in the sentence. A) is apparently misusing /at least -as great/; C) manager decisions - unnecessarily specifies management rank /manager/; D) redundant occurrence of /company/; E) improper logical connector /what/

possibly A-parallelism issue involved, but A is so awkward to the ear.

maihuna wrote:IMO A:

Comparing with Idiom : ALthough X Y, whatever comes after comma should be parallel to government policy,

although gov policy & .. can influence tis productivity .. , management decisions have at least as grt an impact on ..

we need a noun to preposition on, starting at the end of underline part. SO C and D out, as they end up in greatly not an noun.

E is definetly have several issues

SO We hv to choose between A and B : decisions by mgmt in B is not parallel to gov policy so choose A.

A IMO.

all others are not parallel and they change the intended meaning too.

IMO B.

Option A looks close but is missing comparison. I am not very sure if 'as' can be avoided. What follows 'great' is a noun and not a verb??

thanx

Why not E??
Although Govt policy and ... can influence its productivity and ..., management decisions have at least AS GREAT AN impact (AS)

The (AS) is missing in A,B,C & D. E seems to give a clear message.

This is an interesting one; all of the answer choices could pass for correct in spoken English. Issues include:

1) modifying nouns with other nouns: "management decisions" and "manager decisions". The "rule" is that you don't modify nouns with nouns, but rather use adjectives, but a large (and growing) number of nouns in English will regularly form compound nouns. Of the two in the question, "management" is more common than "manager".

2) "great" vs. "greatly": all are used correctly, because "impact" can be a noun or a verb, with or without the preposition "on."

3) "at least as great as" vs. "great" vs. "greater": A difference in meaning; "at least as [adjective]" is "> or =", and none of the others have that.

Personally, I'd have chosen A because it doesn't have errors and all the others change the meaning. It DOES leave out "as [the others] do" but that kind of ellipsis is common.

i would go for B.................wats the OA?

Jim@Grockit wrote:
3) "at least as great as" vs. "great" vs. "greater": A difference in meaning; "at least as [adjective]" is "> or =", and none of the others have that.

Personally, I'd have chosen A because it doesn't have errors and all the others change the meaning. It DOES leave out "as [the others] do" but that kind of ellipsis is common.

Thanks Gim for the above post
The OA is A
But I remember in many OG problems, we reject the options,which doesn't contain the second AS.
How to decide whether eliminating second AS is ok or not?

Unfortunately there is no hard rule for when to leave off the end of a comparison; it's never wrong to state it, so the strategy is to look for other errors and worry about that last. When in doubt, go with the most clear answer.