Corporate finance

[satishchandra]

Corporate finance committees do not plan the detailed activities of the various divisions
in a large firm, but by their allocation of investment funds they make strategic
judgements as to where the firm should expand.
a) by their allocation of investment funds they make strategic judgements as to where
the firm should expand
b) when they allocate investment funds, they make strategic judgements about where
the firm might be expanding
c) they make strategic judgements on where the firm should expand when they allocate
investment funds
d) by allocating investment funds, they will make strategic judgements about where the
firm might be expanding
e) allocations of investments fund as to where the firm should expand are their exercise
in strategic judgement

[spoiler]OA:A;
Not quite how 'A'; Please explain how we can eliminate all other options[/spoiler]

[patanjali.purpose]

Corporate finance committees do not plan the detailed activities of the various divisions
in a large firm, but by their allocation of investment funds they make strategic
judgements as to where the firm should expand.
a) by their allocation of investment funds they make strategic judgements as to where
the firm should expand
b) when they allocate investment funds, they make strategic judgements about where
the firm might be expanding
c) they make strategic judgements on where the firm should expand when they allocate
investment funds
d) by allocating investment funds, they will make strategic judgements about where the
firm might be expanding
e) allocations of investments fund as to where the firm should expand are their exercise
in strategic judgement

[spoiler]OA:A;
Not quite how 'A'; Please explain how we can eliminate all other options[/spoiler]

Reading thro sentence we realize that its a habitual statement or 'a matter of fact' sort of statement and therefore we need not use 'future tense'. Drop B/D.

E - 2nd independent clause is not written in parallel with 1st clause. Since the first clause starts with Corporate finance committees - its better if we have an option that also starts with the same noun (THEY).

C - the adverb pharse 'when they allocate investment funds' can modify either verb 'make' or 'should expand'. Ideally it should modify 'make' and therefore we need place this modifier in such a way that modifier ambiguity is addressed.

IMO A

[saketk]

Hi --

I feel Option C should be the answer. I was surprised to see option A as the OA. This forced me to google this question and surprisingly many more people think option C should be the answer.

https://gmatclub.com/forum/corporate-fin ... 81082.html

Even the MGMAT staff agrees with that. Read the last post made by Jonathan.

https://www.manhattangmat.com/forums/cor ... t6461.html

[saketk]

Let me add that I am not totally in love with Option C as well

[satishchandra]

Hi Saketk,
Thanks a lot for your links.
Even I picked C when i first looked at the question.
I went through many posts in your links. Out of all posts, the below one looked Ok to me.

Just one step; the right idiom is 'as to where' and not 'on where' or 'about where'. BCD are out. Between the A and E, E is a useless sentence

Reg C; The use of 'when' is wrong. It restricts the meaning of the text as if they take strategic decisions only when they allocate funds. What happens when they do not allocate any fund? Are they failing to take strategic decisions in such instances? The meaning gets distorted in C


A is the choice.

[sam2304]

Went for C. What's the source of this question ?

[mankey]

None of the two options, A and C are very good. Even I chose C.

Can some expert please help us here?

Thanks.

[VivianKerr]

"do not plan...they make..." is parallel, so we can eliminate D and E since "will make" and "are" are not parallel.

"might be expanding" in B does not make sense meaning-wise with "strategic judgements." If they make "strategic judgments" then they would know for sure where the film is expanding.

We're left with A and C, and the difference is in meaning again.

A uses "by" to show us the PROCESS by which the committees make strategic judgments.

C indicates that strategic judgments are made as a BYPRODUCT of allocating investment funds. Meaning that when they allocate funds they are automatically making strategic judgments. This isn't quite clear.

The best option is A.

[vishal.pathak]

"do not plan...they make..." is parallel, so we can eliminate D and E since "will make" and "are" are not parallel.

"might be expanding" in B does not make sense meaning-wise with "strategic judgements." If they make "strategic judgments" then they would know for sure where the film is expanding.

We're left with A and C, and the difference is in meaning again.

A uses "by" to show us the PROCESS by which the committees make strategic judgments.

C indicates that strategic judgments are made as a BYPRODUCT of allocating investment funds. Meaning that when they allocate funds they are automatically making strategic judgments. This isn't quite clear.

The best option is A.

Thanks for this explanation, Vivian.

Please help me understand one thing. What was to clue to find "do not plan .. they make" parallel structure. I have heard that parallelism can be around different forms of the verb "to be". It can also be around "and" and around some idiomatic structure. I don't see any of these here. Please help

I also want to know about your general approach to attack SC problems. It takes a lot of time to analyze every option for possible grammatical mistakes and then check if they have changed the meaning in any way.

Sometimes experts prefer conciseness, in some different questions grammatical structure gets preference and in some other the subtle difference in the meaning gets more points for being correct. Is there some hierarchy which sets the priority of one over the other. I am trying to understand a general trend to frame a strategy which I can use for SC questions. But I haven;t been able to conclude anything.

Please help

Regards,
Vishal