Hi,
Among lower-paid workers, union members are less likely than nonunion members to be enrolled in lower-end insurance plans
imposing stricter limits on medical services and requiring doctors to see more patients, and spend less time with each.
mohan514 wrote:
how do we make out which is // and which is not
still not clear can you make it a bit clear please????
@mohan514: In order to find out the correct parallel list in the sentence, it is very important to understand the intended logical meaning of the sentence.
The intended logical meaning of the sentence is:
• Among lower-paid workers, union members are less likely than the nonunion members to be enrolled in lower-end insurance plans.
• These plans:
o impose stricter limits on medical services, and
o require doctors to see more patients.
• If the doctors are required to see more patients, they will spend less time with each of them.
On this understanding, the two entities that need to be parallel in the sentence are “impose” and “require”.
Error analysis:1. The sentence here means that the plans: a) impose stricter limits on medical services and b) require doctors: i) to see more patients, and ii) spend less time with each. This is illogical. We need an answer choice that makes “impose” and “require” parallel denoting that these are the two implications of the plans and showing “spend less time” as the outcome of the doctors required to see more patients.
POE:
(A) imposing stricter limits on medical services and requiring doctors to see more patients, and spend:
Incorrect for reason discussed above.
(B) imposing stricter limits on medical services, requiring doctors to see more patients, and spending:
Incorrect. Same error as in A. It’s just that now “spending” is also grammatically parallel to other entities in the list. (This sentence is grammatically sound but changes the intended meaning.)
(C) that impose stricter limits on medical services, require doctors to see more patients, and spend:
Incorrect. Same meaning error as in A. (This sentence is grammatically sound but changes the intended meaning.)
(D) that impose stricter limits on medical services and require doctors to see more patients, spending:
Correct. Verb-ing “spending” after comma modifies the entire preceding clause and hence communicates the intended meaning of the sentence.
(E) that impose stricter limits on medical services, requiring doctors to see more patients and spending:
Incorrect. Here the verb-ing modifiers “requiring” and “spending” illogically modifies the preceding clause.
devinawilliam83 wrote:
Couple of questions on the structure of the sentence
- since there is no comma between plans and imposing - imposing here is modifying plans and not the whole clause?
- how do we chose between imposing and that impose (essential modifier) is there a rule of thumb
- since spending is set off by a comma is it safe to say that it is modifying the action of the doctor?
Any thoughts, Please help..
Need specific suggestions on how to decide when to use THAT and when to use -ING
@devinawilliam83: The answer to your first question is "yes".
In this sentence we see the use of multiple modifiers. The first two modifiers are modifying “plans” in the form of “that” clause and the verb-ing modifier “spending” is again modifying one of the modifiers in “that” clause. Since the verb-ing modifiers can either refer to the preceding clause or the preceding noun, depending upon the placement of the comma, there is no other way to write this sentence.
If the sentence did not have the “spending” portion then using two verb-ing modifiers would have been easier. So when the verb-ing modifiers are independent of each other in a parallel list then it is alright to use them one after the other. But in a case like this question, we need to be judicious in the use of modifiers to convey the intended meaning.
1. Understand the logical intended meaning of the sentence.
2. In a parallel list, all the entities must be grammatically as well as logically parallel.
3. Be vary of choices that distort the original meaning of the sentence.
4. When separated with a comma, the verb-ing modifier modifies the preceding clause, when not then it modifies the preceding noun.
The concepts tested in this sentence have been covered in
e-gmat concepts:
1. Level 1 - Modifiers - Verb-ing (This concept features in "Level 1 Preview Concepts" that features in free trial concepts. Just register and learn.)
2. Level 1 - Parallelism - Identify & Correct
3. Level 1 - Parallelism - Helpful Tips
Hope this helps.
Shraddha
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42% (01:44) correct
