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an SC question

by Balrog1978 » Tue Nov 30, 2010 9:09 am
964. In a leveraged buyout, investors borrow huge sums of money to buy companies, hoping to pay off the debt by using the company's earnings and to profit richly by the later resale of the companies or their divisions.
(A) by using the company's earnings and to profit
(B) by using the companies' earnings and by profiting
(C) using the companies' earnings and profiting
(D) with the company's earnings, profiting
(E) with the companies' earnings and to profit
OA : E

I got the answer,however, I wanted to know the difference between "by using the companies' earnings" and "with the companies' earnings". I felt "with companies' earnings doesn't sound as accurate as "using the companies' earning". Is this a correct assumption? (since "using" would mean a part of the earnings and "with" implies using the complete earnings)?
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by EducationAisle » Tue Nov 30, 2010 9:35 am
Perhaps Oxford dictionary can tell you the exact difference between 'with' and 'by'. However, as a Test taker, I would not even consider A, since the sentence starts out with companies, which is plural, while option A suddenly becomes singular (company's, which is singular).
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by rishab1988 » Tue Nov 30, 2010 10:21 am
The answer should be E

companies' is correct whereas company's is incorrect.

B and D are incorrect for the reasons in the next post.

Logically speaking-the investors pay of the debt using the earnings.As a result the companies' value increases and then the investors sell the companies' or their divisions and make profits

Answer choices B and C don't make sense:

Both B and C say that the investors paid off debt using the companies' earnings [correct[.Now here comes the issue.profiting and by profiting are parallel to using and by using.But this does not make sense!

We are left with E.

The issue I have with E is the preposition with.

with means -accompanied by.
Last edited by rishab1988 on Tue Nov 30, 2010 11:07 am, edited 3 times in total.
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by rishab1988 » Tue Nov 30, 2010 10:37 am
Honestly speaking,the sentence that you have posted is ambiguous.I am not too sure whether the source of this sentence is a good one.

GMAT also never tests punctuations : apostrophe

Also the sentence with any answer choice seems illogical.

It should read;

In a leveraged buyout,investors borrow huge sums of money to buy companies,hoping to pay off the debt using the companies' profits and to ,later, profit richly by reselling the companies or the divisions.

You can't do without the to.

Reason:investors hope to do 2 things

A) pay of the debt of the companies
B) profit from their resales
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by gmat_perfect » Tue Nov 30, 2010 11:05 am
In a leveraged buyout, investors borrow huge sums of money to buy companies, hoping to pay off the debt by using the company's earnings and to profit richly by the later resale of the companies or their divisions.

(A) by using the company's earnings and to profit
(B) by using the companies' earnings and by profiting
(C) using the companies' earnings and profiting
(D) with the company's earnings, profiting
(E) with the companies' earnings and to profit

Let me analyze:

I will pay you using the money in my bank account. Do we say it? NO.
--> Eliminate A and B.

To pay off and to profit are parallel.

--> Eliminate C and D.

Answer is E.
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by Balrog1978 » Tue Nov 30, 2010 12:37 pm
gmat_perfect wrote:In a leveraged buyout, investors borrow huge sums of money to buy companies, hoping to pay off the debt by using the company's earnings and to profit richly by the later resale of the companies or their divisions.

(A) by using the company's earnings and to profit
(B) by using the companies' earnings and by profiting
(C) using the companies' earnings and profiting
(D) with the company's earnings, profiting
(E) with the companies' earnings and to profit

Let me analyze:

I will pay you using the money in my bank account. Do we say it? NO.
--> Eliminate A and B.

To pay off and to profit are parallel.

--> Eliminate C and D.

Answer is E.
I guess this answers my with vs using. English isn't my native language - but whenever I used Bank Account - I've been (obviously incorrectly) using "Using"!! :)
thanks!
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by sanabk » Tue Nov 30, 2010 3:35 pm
E hoping to pay off the debt....and to profit richly are parallel.

In answer choice C, hoping to pay off the debt using the companies' earnings and profiting
the verb+ing using is modifying debt and "profiting" is not parallel to "to pay off."
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by puneetgangrade » Tue May 21, 2013 2:28 am
Source of the topic is NewYork Times.
Following is the link. Read this article for the source.

https://www.nytimes.com/1988/08/07/busin ... all&src=pm
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