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An sc doubt.

by catseye » Wed May 04, 2011 10:27 am
Though the term "graphic design" may suggest laying out corporate brochures and annual reports, they have come to signify widely ranging work, from package designs and company logotypes to signs, book jackets, computer graphics, and film titles.

(A)suggest laying out corporate brochures and annual reports, they have come to signify widely ranging
(B)suggest laying out corporate brochures and annual reports, it has come to signify a wide range of
(C)suggest corporate brochure and annual report layout, it has signified widely ranging
(D)have suggested corporate brochure and annual report layout, it has signified a wide range of
(E)have suggested laying out corporate brochures and annual reports, they have come to signify widely ranging

I can easily eliminate the options A and E because they have used "they" to refer to "the term".

My questions:

1. What are exact problems in C and D?
2. What is the problem of using "widely ranging"?

Thanks.
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by pemdas » Wed May 04, 2011 11:15 am
in C, D the brochure is added as stand alone noun NOT as an adjective expressed with a noun.
"widely ranging" needs to be followed by plural noun(s).
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by Brian@VeritasPrep » Wed May 04, 2011 12:16 pm
Thanks, pemdas - and good questions, catseye.

I love the way you looked at the "it" vs. "they" pronoun differences first. Singular/plural verbs and pronouns make fantastic decision points that you can get pretty good at differentiating.

The next one I'd look at here is verb tense, another big-picture decision point. Looking at verb tenses, we have:

B) Though graphic design may suggest X, it has come to signify Y
C) Though graphic design may suggest X, it has signified Y
D) Though graphic design may have suggested X, it has signified Y

If you look at the meanings behind those verb tenses, only B provides a logical meaning. What B is basically saying is "although you'd think based on the name that it means one thing, over time it has evolved to include many other things too". That's a logical meaning and sets up a logical timeline. Overall, it should really be one thing, but over time that meaning has changed.

C doesn't provide any real timeline to be able to use "has signified", so the use of that verb tense isn't really justified. B includes the cue "has come to", which denotes that a change has occurred. C doesn't - it just uses "has signified", so we need some kind of cue (like "recently", perhaps) to note why we're changing from an indicative tense "suggest" to "has ____________". Without that cue, C's is an illogical verb to use.

Similarly, D gives an out-of-order, unjustified verb usage. "Have suggested" doesn't work on its own without some cue that gives it time context (e.g. "...may have ONCE suggested"), and even then you'd need to have a proper second verb (like "it now signifies") to set the first verb back from the second. Here, the verb tense alone suggests that the new meaning "signified" came before the previous, conventional wisdom meaning "have suggested". The verb tenses suggest an opposite, and therefore illogical, meaning, and therefore D is also correct.


You'll also note - if you focus on those major decision points here, Verb Tense and Pronoun Agreement, some of the subtle word changes (widely ranging vs. wide range) don't come into play. Which is why I strongly, strongly advocate making yourself an expert at the big picture errors so that you don't have to work nearly as hard trying to pick up on all the little details.
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by rohu27 » Wed May 04, 2011 4:37 pm
Brian,
thanks for the explanation. i also thinked on the verb tense issue first but then 'laying out' in option B - put me off.
it sounded as if graphic design is laying out something, whereas a person should be laying out the graphic design. i guess im taking the meaning in a wrong sense here. help out

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by Brian@VeritasPrep » Wed May 04, 2011 4:45 pm
Hey Rohu,

Great point, and honestly that irked me at first, too. But I always look at SC questions this way - the GMAT's job is to put some awkward phrasing in there that I might not expect so that there's a decent chance I get something wrong. My best counter-weapon is to be systematic - looking for those rules on which I know there is no dispute. Verb tense, subject-verb agreement, pronoun agreement, etc. I'll go after those first and then see what's left.

Here, I didn't necessarily love "laying out", but because the -ing form of a verb lends itself nicely to both modifiers (when used as participles) and nouns (gerunds), I'll steer clear of that verb "laying out" at first to take care of the low-hanging fruit. Since "laying out" can be taken as a noun (e.g. "my responsibilities include laying out newspaper articles and editing headlines"), it turns out that it's okay here, but even if you're unsure, it's at least something that you can see has some gray area (maybe it's okay, maybe not), whereas the other verb tenses and pronouns are much more "dead wrong", so eliminate those first.
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