Hello,
mSKR. I will respond to your queries below, but how about we take a look at the sentence and answer choices first (for reference)?
Quote:
Federal incentives now encourage investing capital in commercial office buildings despite vacancy rates in existing structures that are exceptionally high and no demand for new construction.
(A) investing capital in commercial office buildings despite vacancy rates in existing structures that are exceptionally high and
(B) capital investment in commercial office buildings, even though vacancy rates in existing structures are exceptionally high and there is
(C) capital to be invested in commercial office buildings even though there are exceptionally high vacancy rates in existing structures with
(D) investing capital in commercial office buildings even though the vacancy rates are exceptionally high in existing structures with
(E) capital investment in commercial office buildings despite vacancy rates in existing structures that are exceptionally high, and although there is
mSKR wrote:
Hi
AndrewN sir
Could you please share your thoughts on this question. I find hard to eliminate more options in this question.
On reading the posts above, I would like to know your approach on making decisions related with these three below points:
1. investment vs investing - you decide based on by meaning or suggest some rule?
The only option I would eliminate based on the head of each answer choice is (C):
encourage capital to be invested is passive and generally harder to follow than either of the other iterations.
Encourage investing capital may be less preferred than
encourage capital investment, since the -ing form of a verb after the verb
encourage takes a moment to sort out (i.e. the -ing phrase would be considered a noun, answering the question,
Encourage [what]?) However, both options use two words, the former focusing on
capital, the latter on
investment, so I would keep everything but (C) in the running to play it safe, even if (B) and (E) were the forerunners on this basis alone.
mSKR wrote:
2. There doesn't refer to any definite place( vacancy rates are not at some place ). Its better not to reject there immediately? Your advise.
No,
there does not refer to a place, but you have to be careful not to consider a word in isolation, as
there is/there are is a common construct, and that is just what we see in answer choices (B), (C), and (E). Because I would have eliminated (C) already, a quick check at the tail-end of (B) or (E) would suffice:
there is no demand for new constructionThis makes perfect sense. I suppose the sentence could dodge hiding behind a
there is by opting for a more active verb, as in,
no demand exists for new construction, but that is not an option anyway. Leave (B) and (E) alone on this consideration.
mSKR wrote:
3. high vacancy rates with no demand. with here just give extra information about demand . it should not be a main reason to reject. What's your take on this ?
The transition from discussing
vacancy rates in existing structures to a completely separate topic in
demand for new construction is not clear when
with is used right after
existing structures. A reader is led to believe that
existing structures with, or even
existing structures with no demand for [something], will provide further information on
these structures after the preposition, so it is jarring to encounter information on new construction instead. If there were any lingering questions about (C), I would hope that this third reason to eliminate it would suffice. (D) also looks poor compared to other options.
So, in light of these three considerations, I would
disfavor (C) and (D). With the remaining answer choices, I would test the
and at the end to see whether the part that followed was logical, grammatically sound, and, as a final consideration, parallel. Between (B) and (E), the two answers that start with
capital investment, (E) is the poorer choice. Do we need both
despite and
although, for instance? It really comes down to (A) or (B) for me as the best of their kind. Using the
and test, (A) pairs a phrase that is modified by a clause with a phrase:
despite vacancy rates in existing structures that are exceptionally high AND
[despite] no demand for new construction.Meanwhile, (B) looks a little more promising, pairing a clause with another clause:
even though vacancy rates in existing structures are exceptionally high AND
[even though] there is no demand for new construction.(B) is the better option, which is why we should choose it.
mSKR wrote:
Thanks in anticipation
AndrewN sir
You are welcome,
mSKR. I hope my response helps you.
- Andrew
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