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Usage of Participles

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by karthikpandian19 » Tue May 08, 2012 12:32 am
A large rise in the number of housing starts in the coming year should boost new construction dollars by several billion dollars, making the construction industry's economic health much more robust than five years ago.
(A) making the construction industry's economic health much more robust than five years ago
(B) and make the construction industry's economic health much more robust than five years ago
(C) making the construction industry's economic health much more robust than it was five years ago
(D) to make the construction industry's economic health much more robust than five years ago
(E) in making the construction industry's economic health much more robust than it as five years ago
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by Bill@VeritasPrep » Tue May 08, 2012 7:11 am
We need the wording "it was" to make the comparison valid: the economic health today vs. the economic health five years ago. Without "it was", the comparison is the economic health today vs. "five years ago" with no context. We can eliminate A, B, and D.

E uses the preposition "in" which we don't need.
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by GmatKiss » Tue May 08, 2012 10:05 am
karthikpandian19 wrote:A large rise in the number of housing starts in the coming year should boost new construction dollars by several billion dollars, making the construction industry's economic health much more robust than five years ago.
(A) making the construction industry's economic health much more robust than five years ago Wrong comparison
(B) and make the construction industry's economic health much more robust than five years ago
(C) making the construction industry's economic health much more robust than it was five years ago
(D) to make the construction industry's economic health much more robust than five years ago
(E) in making the construction industry's economic health much more robust than it as five years ago
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by hey_thr67 » Tue May 08, 2012 1:45 pm
Answer should be C,

making in C tells about the result when construction dollar increases, so no need to change the construction: "making the construction... ".

Mistakes in rest others has been mentioned above.
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by ice_rush » Tue May 08, 2012 5:29 pm
Hi Bill,

Would (B) be a contender if it has correct comparison? ...and make the construction industry's economic health much more robust than it was five years ago or does this sentence require comma + verbing?



Thanks!
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by confuse mind » Tue May 08, 2012 6:07 pm
ice_rush wrote:Hi Bill,

Would (B) be a contender if it has correct comparison? ...and make the construction industry's economic health much more robust than it was five years ago or does this sentence require comma + verbing?



Thanks!



It needs , + verb + ing because the participle is the result!
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by Bill@VeritasPrep » Tue May 08, 2012 6:19 pm
ice_rush wrote:Hi Bill,

Would (B) be a contender if it has correct comparison? ...and make the construction industry's economic health much more robust than it was five years ago or does this sentence require comma + verbing?



Thanks!
If you remove the comma, that could work:

A large rise in the number of housing starts in the coming year should boost new construction dollars by several billion dollars and make the construction industry's economic health much more robust than bit was five years ago.

We have parallel form: "a large rise should boost...and make..."

It is wordier and a bit more awkward, though, so I would still prefer B.
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by ice_rush » Tue May 08, 2012 7:11 pm
Hi Bill,

Just making sure i understood you... did you say you'd prefer (B) over (C) even though (B) is a little wordier?



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by Bill@VeritasPrep » Tue May 08, 2012 10:45 pm
Ah, no that was a typo. Sorry! I'd still go with C for being more direct.
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by karthikpandian19 » Wed May 09, 2012 10:31 pm
OA is C
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by ihatemaths » Thu May 10, 2012 6:18 am
@Bill why cant B be correct i was stuck btw B and C chose B because "and" sounded great when the whole tense of the sentence was taken into account.
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by Bill@VeritasPrep » Thu May 10, 2012 9:39 am
Whenever we use ", and" to link two clauses, we need a subject and a verb before and after the conjunction. B has a verb ("make"), but it does not have a subject.
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by Spidy001 » Thu May 10, 2012 11:17 am
Bill,

in option D , other than the comparison error , is it correct to use infinitive?

is it ever ok to use infinitive as modifier or to be specific can we ever have comma + infinitive as modifier?

also in option E, why is in wrong? could you give some examples where ",in" as a modifier is acceptable.


Thanks in advance.

Bill@VeritasPrep wrote:We need the wording "it was" to make the comparison valid: the economic health today vs. the economic health five years ago. Without "it was", the comparison is the economic health today vs. "five years ago" with no context. We can eliminate A, B, and D.

E uses the preposition "in" which we don't need.
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by Spidy001 » Thu May 10, 2012 12:44 pm
options A,B,D are all wrong because of wrong comparisons between industry's economic health and five years ago.

Option E is wrong - it as five years ago - meaning health acts as five years ago .

Answer is C. (Correct comparisons)
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by Bill@VeritasPrep » Thu May 10, 2012 9:13 pm
Spidy001 wrote:Bill,

in option D , other than the comparison error , is it correct to use infinitive?

is it ever ok to use infinitive as modifier or to be specific can we ever have comma + infinitive as modifier?

also in option E, why is in wrong? could you give some examples where ",in" as a modifier is acceptable.


Thanks in advance.
You can have an infinitive in a modifying phrase, but it's usually at the start of a sentence:

To lose weight, I lifted weights and counted calories.




"In" is a preposition. If we use it to start a prepositional phrase, we don't need to use a comma:

He spent a lot of time in the Dali exhibit.
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