An economic recession can result from a lowering of employment rates t

Hey All,

So apparently people wanted a Manhattan instructor to weigh in. So here I am! BTW, could people start putting the part of the sentence that's underlined in an actual underline? It's easy to do, and it makes the questions so much easier to read.

An economic recession can result from a lowering of employment rates triggered by a drop in investment, which causes people to cut consumer spending and starts a cycle of layoffs leading back to even lower employment rates.

NOTE: Clearly this is some kind of modifier issue ("which causes..." "triggered by..."). Remember that noun modifiers MUST TOUCH the noun they modify. There also seems to be some parallelism issues at work (and).

A) a lowering of employment rates triggered by a drop in investment, which causes people to cut consumer spending
and start a cycle of layoffs leading back to even lower employment rates.
PROBLEM: "Results from a lowering" is not idiomatic. "A lowering" would imply that somebody actually did the "lowering", whereas "falling" has no initiator. "Which causes" is unclear, but seems to be modifying "investment", which is incorrect (seems this way because it would say "which cause (no s)" if "rates" were the modifiee). Next, "causes" should be parallel to "starts", because it isn't "people" who "start a cycle of layoffs". Next, it's not leading "back" to even lower rates (they're even lower...we were never there before). Finally, we don't need to say "people to cut consumer spending". "Consumer spending" already implies the people.

B) a lowering of employment rates triggered by dropping investment, which causes people to cut consumer spending
and starts a cycle of layoffs leading back to even lower employment rates.
PROBLEM: "A lowering" issue. "Causes" issue. "leading back" issue.

C) falling employment rates triggered by a drop in investment, which cause cutbacks in consumer spending, starting a
cycle of layoffs that lead to even lower employment rates.
ANSWER: Lots of modifiers, but all are correct. "triggered" modifies "rates". "which cause" modifies "rates" as well. "starting" modifies the cutbacks in consumer spending (which makes logical sense...people don't spend money...businesses don't make us much...they have to lay people off).

D) falling employment rates that are triggered by a drop in investment, causing people to cut consumer spending and
starting a cycle of layoffs that lead back to even lower employment rates.
PROBLEM: "lead back" issue. "people...consumer spending" issue.

E) falling employment rates that are triggered by a drop in investment, causing cutbacks in consumer spending and
starting a cycle of layoffs leading to even lower employment rates.
PROBLEM: Just one modifier goes wrong here. "starting a cycle of layoffs" is modifying the previous clause ("Recession can result from rates that are triggered by a drop in investment"). But it's actually the cutbacks in consumer spending that start the cycle of layoffs. Also, we need a comma before the final participle ("leading"), because it's representing the RESULT of the layoffs, rather than modifying it adjectivally (C uses a relative clause "that lead" to do this).

Hope that helps! Toughie!

-t