The labor agreement permits staff reductions through attrition with in

Hi All....

Option B looks good, but i have one slight confusion. Isn't it a little odd with the phrase "to speed the attrition process". Shouldn't it be "speed up" or is it fine. How is it wrong/right ??

Thanks.

Abhi077 GMATNinja

agreement does 2 things here:
- permits staff reduction through attrition
- provides increased pension & early retirement program

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION:

Parallelism; Verb Form

The original version of the sentence has multiple ambiguities that make it impossible to tell just what meaning the author intended to convey. The entire portion of the sentence after attrition could modify attrition. The portion after benefits (and a special early-retirement program) could refer to the second of two things that the agreement permits. Furthermore, the structure of the sentence makes it unclear whether it in the final phrase for speeding it up refers to the agreement or the attrition. The sentence needs to be restructured in a way that expresses a clear meaning. The best answer choice is B because it will be the one in which the wording resolves the ambiguities in the wording without creating any additional issues.

A As explained above, this has multiple ambiguities that make it impossible to tell just what meaning the author intended to convey. The entire portion of the sentence after attrition could modify attrition, or the portion after benefits (and a special early-retirement program) could refer to the second of two things that the agreement permits. Furthermore, the structure of the sentence makes it unclear whether it in the final phrase for speeding it up refers to the agreement or the attrition.

B Correct. This clearly expresses the idea that the agreement calls for two things, expressed by two noun phrases in parallel: increased pension benefits and an early-retirement program whose purpose is to speed up the attrition.

C This makes either attrition or staff reductions through attrition the subject of both will be speeded up; and providing, thus appearing to say, illogically, that the attrition or the staff reductions will provide increased pension benefits and an early retirement program and will thereby speed up.

D This wording is incoherent. The intended referents of which and their are unclear. The only grammatically plausible antecedent for the plural their is the plural noun phrase staff reductions. Thus, the sentence appears to say, illogically, that the staff reductions will provide increased pension benefits and an early-retirement program and will thereby speed some unspecified process.

E This makes which appear to refer illogically to attrition, thus saying that attrition provides increased benefits and an early-retirement program to speed itself up. Alternatively, which could be read as referring to the fact that the labor agreement permits staff reductions through attrition, but this reading would also be illogical—that fact could not plausibly provide pension benefits or an early-retirement program.

The correct answer is B.

Here's the official explanation provided by the GMAC for this question:

The original version of the sentence has multiple ambiguities that make it impossible to tell just what meaning the author intended to convey. The entire portion of the sentence after attrition could modify attrition. The portion after benefits (and a special early-retirement program) could refer to the second of two things that the agreement permits. Furthermore, the structure of the sentence makes it unclear whether it in the final phrase for speeding it up refers to the agreement or the attrition. The sentence needs to be restructured in a way that expresses a clear meaning. The best answer choice is B because it will be the one in which the wording resolves the ambiguities in the wording without creating any additional issues.

Option A: As explained above, this has multiple ambiguities that make it impossible to tell just what meaning the author intended to convey. The entire portion of the sentence after attrition could modify attrition, or the portion after benefits (and a special early-retirement program) could refer to the second of two things that the agreement permits. Furthermore, the structure of the sentence makes it unclear whether it in the final phrase for speeding it up refers to the agreement or the attrition.

Option B: Correct. This clearly expresses the idea that the agreement calls for two things, expressed by two noun phrases in parallel: increased pension benefits and an early-retirement program whose purpose is to speed up the attrition.

Option C: This makes either attrition or staff reductions through attrition the subject of both will be speeded up; and providing, thus appearing to say, illogically, that the attrition or the staff reductions will provide increased pension benefits and an early retirement program and will thereby speed up.

Option D: This wording is incoherent. The intended referents of which and their are unclear. The only grammatically plausible antecedent for the plural their is the plural noun phrase staff reductions. Thus, the sentence appears to say, illogically, that the staff reductions will provide increased pension benefits and an early-retirement program and will thereby speed some unspecified process.

Option E: This makes which appear to refer illogically to attrition, thus saying that attrition provides increased benefits and an early-retirement program to speed itself up. Alternatively, which could be read as referring to the fact that the labor agreement permits staff reductions through attrition, but this reading would also be illogical—that fact could not plausibly provide pension benefits or an early-retirement program.

The correct answer is B.

Please note that I'm not the author of this explanation. I'm just posting it here since I believe it can help the community.

The labor agreement permits staff reductions through attrition with increased pension benefits and a special early-retirement program for speeding it up.

(A) attrition with increased pension benefits and a special early-retirement program for speeding it up

-- 'it' has no clear antecedent.

(B) attrition and provides increased pension benefits and a special early-retirement program to speed the attrition process

-- Looks good. Keep.

(C) attrition, which will be speeded up by providing increased pension benefits and a special early-retirement program

-- attrition itself does not provide increased pension benefits.

(D) attrition, which, by their providing increased pension benefits and a special early-retirement program, will speed the process

-- 'their' has no logical antecedent.

(E) attrition, which provides increased pension benefits and a special early-retirement program for speeding the attrition process

-- attrition itself does not provide increased pension benefits.


Answer is B.

How can B. be correct if it doesn’t use the idiom correctly? To “speed up” is the idiom, not “to speed” – that’s a nonsensical statement

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