Many house builders offer rent-to-buy programs that enable a

This is the problem of paralleism. like: to X and to Y
'A' - To be able is wordy and not making sense over here.
'B' - Perfect
'C' - semicolon unnecessary and parallelism is not there.
'D' & 'E' - "That" is required. As per rule use "Which" when information needs to be followed of main clause is not very important. and Opposite for "That".

Another problem with A, what I see is that "to be able" is redundant when we are already talking about "enable a family with insufficient savings ...."

Dear JusTLucK04
I'm happy to respond.

My friend, if you are going to ask questions about grammar, please learn the correct terminology. Referring to this structure as the "-ing part" is tantamount to saying that you have no intention of seriously understanding the grammar involved. The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein said, "You can enter no world for which you do not have the language." If you ignore and neglect the technical grammatical vocabulary, you will never develop the kind of precise understanding that you need to master SC grammar.

Here, the word "applying" is a participle and begins a participial phrase, about which you can find out more here:
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2012/participle ... -the-gmat/

The participle can modify the action of the clause if the action of the clause could be construed as the subject. Here, the use of the participle is incorrect, because the people who performed the action are the "families", but the placement of the participle doesn't clearly indicate them. Furthermore, the prompt indicates that the "applying" is something the "rent-to-buy program" enabled the families to do, and this connotation is lost in (E).

Does all this make sense?
Mike

Hi JusTLucK04,

You have correctly identified both the errors in option E. Also, your understanding regarding the verb-ing modifier is absolutely correct.

1. The phrase ‘to be able’ is redundant in the given sentence because of the presence of the verb ‘enable’.

2. The verb-ing modifier ‘applying’ is incorrectly used here. Since this modifier is placed after a clause and preceded by a comma it modifies the preceding clause. So, this conveys the meaning that the action of applying part of the rent to a purchase later enables the family to move into a new house. This is incorrect. The rent-to-buy programs enable a family to move into a new house.

Also, the modifier should make sense with the subject of the preceding clause. Since the modifier ‘which’ refers to ‘rent –to-buy programs’, this means that the programs apply the part of the rent to a purchase later. This is illogical since the programs cannot apply part of the rent to a purchase.



Option B does not have any of these errors and conveys the meaning clearly:

• Many house builders offer rent-to-buy programs
o that enable a family with insufficient savings for a conventional down payment
• to move into new housing
• and to apply part of the rent to a purchase later.


This option clearly states that the programs enable the family to do two things:

1.) to move into new housing.
2.) To apply part of the rent to a purchase later.



Hope this helps!
Deepak

Dear kirtivardhan,
I'm happy to respond.

Option (C) is set up so that, on both sides of the semicolon, we DO have independent clauses.

Version (C):
Many house builders offer rent-to-buy programs; that enables a family with insufficient savings for a conventional down payment to move into new housing, to apply part of the rent to a purchase later.
Independent clause #1:
subject = "Many house builders"
verb = "offer"
Independent clause #2:
subject = "that"
verb = "allows"

Remember, the word "that" has many different uses. In the prompt, and in many of the choices, the word "that" is a relative pronoun that introduces a subordinate clause. But the word "that" can also be a pronoun, and as such, can be the subject of an independent clause, as it is in (C). See:
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2013/gmat-sent ... s-of-that/

What you identified is not true and not the problem with (C). The problem is a pronoun problem. The word "that," used as a pronoun, must have a noun antecedent. The antecedent cannot be an action. The problem with (C) is that the word "that" refers to the entire action in the first independent clause. This is an illegal pronoun use. That's a big problem with (C). See:
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2013/gmat-pronoun-traps/

Does all this make sense?
Mike

Many house builders offer rent-to-buyprograms that enable a family with insufficient savings for a conventional down paymentto be able to move into new housingand to apply part of the rent to a purchase later.

thus the reduced stem stands to be : House Builders offer programms THAT enable a family to be able to move...............AND...........to apply.

Verytical scan Reveals only A & B fits this :

A : Enable a family...............To be able to move into a new housing ( To be able = unnecessary = thus Eliminated )

B : Enable a family.................To move into a new housing ( perfect = maintains parallelism : TO move..............AND.................TO apply )

Leading to B

Rgds SKM

With option A and E the problem is not that they are wordy the problem is parallelism & modifier error.
A : to be able to move into ...... to apply part of .........
E : .. the part after which separated with a coma is an non essential modifier, remove it and the sentence left doesn't make sense..... which it should in case of non essential modifiers.

Note that we only have two parallels here: "..to move.. to apply". The portion that comes after the underlined portion simply modifies "apply", don't get confused by the addition of "TO a purchase", this does not indicate that this is part of the parallel. Even at that, if purchase was parallel, then it would already be preceded by "and". It's not preceded by and, so that indicates that we have two parallels, not three. Thus, we only need "and" between the parallels

A) "programs that enable a family... to be able to move.. and to apply part of the rent..." is parallel, but the bolded portion is somewhat superfluous and distorts the meaning of the author. These programs do not unlock the ability to move, families have the actual ability to move even prior to the program. The addition of the infinitive "to be able" distorts the intended meaning

B) The only difference between A and B is that B omits "to be able". Much more concise and does not distort the intended meaning

C) subject verb agreement is violated (programs.. enables), also the semicolon creates a fragment. The parallel is 100% correct, but C is wrong for the aforementioned reasons.

D) subject verb error, (programs.. enables), and the parallel is erroneous because we have a present participle that is not in accordance with the infinitive "to move". D is wrong

E) the comma is weird, the "which" creates a inessential clause but the information we are given IS essential, it specifies something crucial about these programs, thus we need "that" instead of "which". Also, the parallelism is violated since we have the infinitive to move and the present participle applying.

So, B is correct!

Hello BLTN,

We hope this finds you well.

Having gone through the question and your query, we believe that we can help resolve your doubts.

Indeed, if multiple infinitive verb forms ("to + base form of verb" - "to + move" and "to + apply" in this case) are joined in a list, all of the infinitive constructions can share the "to" of the first one. However, this does not make including the other prepositions superfluous; maintaining separate prepositions for all of the infinitive verb form constructions is also perfectly correct. Keeping the other prepositions might be slightly redundant, but please remember that redundancy is not a deal-breaker on the GMAT. An answer choice that features redundancy can very well be correct, so long as it is error-free and there are no other error-free answer choices more concise than it is. Redundancy should only be used to determine which is the best among otherwise error-free answer choices. In this case, C, D, and E feature concrete subject-verb agreement, grammatical construction, and modifier errors, and Option A is even wordier than Option B is; thus, Option B is the best answer choice.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
Experts' Global Team

@e-gmat:
Could you please help answer my query as well.

OG-12#55
OG explanation for option D and E says "applying following a non restrictive clause suggests incorrectly that the builders, not the family, are applying the rent."

I have seen many sentence structures such as "main clause + restrictive clause, -ing modifier ..." in which participle modifier can modify either of the clause main or restrictive, depends on sentence, but I am not aware of such rule that participle modifier can jump over non restrictive clause and modify the subject of main clause. Could you please shed some light on this ?

Hello Everyone!

Let's tackle this question, one problem at a time, and narrow down the options to get the correct answer quickly! First, let's start by taking a look at the original question, and then highlighting the major differences between the options in orange:

Many house builders offer rent-to-buy programs that enable a family with insufficient savings for a conventional down payment to be able to move into new housing and to apply part of the rent to a purchase later.

(A) programs that enable a family with insufficient savings for a conventional down payment to be able to move into new housing and to apply
(B) programs that enable a family with insufficient savings for a conventional down payment to move into new housing and to apply
(C) programs; that enables a family with insufficient savings for a conventional down payment to move into new housing, to apply
(D) programs, which enables a family with insufficient savings for a conventional down payment to move into new housing, applying
(E) programs, which enable a family with insufficient savings for a conventional down payment to be able to move into new housing, applying

After a quick glance over the options, there are a few key differences we can focus on:

1. How they begin (punctuation / subject-verb agreement)
2. to be able to move vs. to move (parallelism)
3. to apply vs. applying (parallelism)

Let's start with #1 on our list, which is a combination of punctuation and subject-verb agreement. Since the punctuation varies so much from one option to the next, let's focus on subject-verb agreement first. To figure out what type of verb we need, we need to answer the question, "What is enabling families to move into new housing?" Rent-to-buy programs. Since "programs" is plural, we need a plural verb to match! Let's see which options use a plural verb, and rule out the ones that don't:

(A) programs that enable a family with insufficient savings for a conventional down payment to be able to move into new housing and to apply
(B) programs that enable a family with insufficient savings for a conventional down payment to move into new housing and to apply
(C) programs; that enables a family with insufficient savings for a conventional down payment to move into new housing, to apply
(D) programs, which enables a family with insufficient savings for a conventional down payment to move into new housing, applying
(E) programs, which enable a family with insufficient savings for a conventional down payment to be able to move into new housing, applying

We can eliminate options C & D because they use the singular "enables" with a plural subject, which does not agree in number. Now that we're down to 3 options, we can focus on the next problem.

Since both #2 and #3 on our list have to do with parallelism, let's combine them and figure out which options use parallel structure. Remember that whenever we talk about a subject doing more than one action, each action needs to be written using parallel verbs, wording, or structure.

(A) programs that enable a family with insufficient savings for a conventional down payment to be able to move into new housing and to apply --> NOT PARALLEL

(B) programs that enable a family with insufficient savings for a conventional down payment to move into new housing and to apply --> PARALLEL

(E) programs, which enable a family with insufficient savings for a conventional down payment to be able to move into new housing, applying --> NOT PARALLEL

There you have it - option B is the correct choice! It's the only option that uses the correct subject-verb agreement and parallelism.


Don't study for the GMAT. Train for it.

The second "to" in this case actually helps clarify the meaning. To see why, consider the following example:

Tim and his kids want the Warriors to win a title, which will validate the team's off-season moves, and to reward Juan Toscano-Anderson with a 17-year contract extension.

You can see here that Tim and his wants the Warriors to do two things: 1) win a title and 2) reward one of their players. Pretty clear.

But now, take a look at the sentence without the second "to."

Tim and his kids want the Warriors to win a title, which will validate the team's off-season moves, and reward Andrew Wiggins with a 17-year contract extension.

Now, it's much harder to see what "reward" should be parallel to. Tim and his kids both "want" and "reward?" Or the title will "validate" and "reward"? Notice that this construction isn't wrong, necessarily, but it takes more work to understand what's going on, so it's not as good or as clear as the first version.

Same deal here. Consider (B) without the second "to."


Now it's harder to tell what "apply" is parallel to. Is it "enable"? "Offer"?

Again, you can probably figure it out eventually, but if we include a "to," there's only one possible parallel construction: "to move" and "to apply". So the "to" isn't desirable here because of any usage rule, but because it makes the sentence clearer.

I hope that helps!

Dear Friends,

Here is a detailed explanation to this question-

Meaning is crucial to solving this problem:
Understanding the intended meaning is key to solving this question; the intended meaning of the crucial part of this sentence is that the offered programs enable a family with insufficient savings for a conventional down payment to move into new housing and enables the family to apply part of the rent to a purchase later.

Concepts tested here: Subject-Verb Agreement + Meaning + Pronouns + Grammatical Construction + Idioms + Awkwardness/Redundancy

• If a list contains only two elements, they must be joined with a conjunction.
• The introduction of the present participle ("verb+ing"- “applying” in this case) after the comma generally leads to a cause-effect relationship.
• “that” is used to provide some information needed to preserve the core meaning of the sentence, and the “comma + which” construction is used to provide extra information.

A: This answer choice redundantly uses "to be able to" alongside "enable", leading to awkwardness and redundancy.

B: Correct. This answer choice correctly refers to the plural noun "programs" with the plural verb "enable". Further, Option B uses the phrase "and to apply", conveying the intended meaning - that he offered programs enable a family with insufficient savings for a conventional down payment to move into new housing, and as a separate action enablethe family to apply part of the rent to a purchase later. Option B also avoids the pronoun error seen in Option C, as it uses "that" as a preposition. Additionally, Option B correctly uses conjunction ("and" in this case) to join two elements in a list - "to move..." and "to apply...". Moreover, Option B correctly uses "that" to refer to information needed to preserve the core meaning of the sentence. Besides, Option B is free of any awkwardness or redundancy.

C: This answer choice suffers from pronoun ambiguity, as "that" lacks a clear and logical referent. Further, Option C incorrectly uses a comma to join two elements in a list - "to move..." and "to apply..."; remember, if a list contains only two elements, they must be joined with a conjunction.

D: This answer choice incorrectly refers to the plural noun "programs" with the singular verb "enables". Further, Option D alters the meaning of the sentence through the use of the "comma + present participle ("verb+ing" - "applying" in this sentence)"; the use of this construction incorrectly implies that the offered programs enable a family with insufficient savings for a conventional down payment to move into new housing, and as a result the family applies part of the rent to a purchase later; the intended meaning is that the offered programs enable a family with insufficient savings for a conventional down payment to move into new housing, and as a separate action enable the family to apply part of the rent to a purchase later; remember, the introduction of the present participle ("verb+ing"- “applying” in this case) after comma generally leads to a cause-effect relationship. Additionally, Option D incorrectly uses the "comma + which" construction to provide information needed to preserve the core meaning of the sentence; remember, “that” is used to provide information needed to preserve the core meaning of the sentence, and the “comma + which” construction is used to provide extra information.

E: This answer choice alters the meaning of the sentence through the use of the "comma + present participle ("verb+ing" - "applying" in this sentence)"; the use of this construction incorrectly implies that the offered programs enable a family with insufficient savings for a conventional down payment to move into new housing, and as a result the family applies part of the rent to a purchase later; the intended meaning is that the offered programs enable a family with insufficient savings for a conventional down payment to move into new housing, and as a separate action enablethe family to apply part of the rent to a purchase later; remember, the introduction of the present participle ("verb+ing"- “applying” in this case) after comma generally leads to a cause-effect relationship. Further, Option E incorrectly uses the "comma + which" construction to provide information needed to preserve the core meaning of the sentence; remember, “that” is used to provide information needed to preserve the core meaning of the sentence, and the “comma + which” construction is used to provide extra information. Additionally, Option E redundantly uses "to be able to" alongside "enable", leading to awkwardness and redundancy.

Hence, B is the best answer choice.

To understand the concept of "Comma Plus Present Participle for Cause-Effect Relationship" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~2 minutes):



All the best!
Experts' Global Team

It is easy to boil it down to B & E..

E has redundancy issues with repetition of "be able to" and " , which " issue
For people interested in how the -ing part works here(I am one of these few)...
ing modifies the complete action as it is following the clause "which enable a family with insufficient savings for a conventional down payment to be able to move into new housing"..So it does makes sense to say that 'applying' is a correct usage of -ing modifier here as it is telling us something more about the previous clause..a valid usage
But there is also an additional premise to be fulfilled..the subject should also make sense with the ing modifier..
Here the subject is "which" i.e rent to buy programs..Here it is the program payment structure that is applying part of the rent payment to purchase payment.It is also a plausible meaning and is grammatically correct...
Although this modifies the intended meaning i.e Person applies for a part of the rent to be converted into purchase...I am concerned with the grammatical validity of the option E

Experts please comment on my thinking

mike,

Can we eliminate option C because the ";" is used to separate two independent clauses.The second clause of the option, starting with that enables is not independent.

Please correct me if i am wrong.

Regards

The easiest way to eliminate C would be on the basis of subject verb dis-agreement. From the intended meaning of the sentence, hopefully it is clear that:

(rent-to-buy) programs enable a family with insufficient savings for a conventional down payment to move into new housing.

So, clearly, programs enable a family.

C uses the structure that enables a family. The intent is that that here refers to programs, but then the verb enables (singular) is incorrect for the subject programs (plural).

Many house builders offer rent-to-buy programs that enable a family with insufficient savings for a conventional down payment to be able to move into new housing and to apply part of the rent to a purchase later.

(A) programs that enable a family with insufficient savings for a conventional down payment to be able to move into new housing and to apply
(B) programs that enable a family with insufficient savings for a conventional down payment to move into new housing and to apply
(C)programs; that enables a family with insufficient savings for a conventional down payment to move into new housing, to apply
(D) programs, which enables a family with insufficient savings for a conventional down payment to move into new housing, applying
(E) programs, which enable a family with insufficient savings for a conventional down payment to be able to move into new housing, applying


____________________________________________________

This is Question # 55 from Official Guide 13th Edition.

I was able to solve this question, but I have a specific question.

This is the Official Explanation - https://screencast.com/t/4Y0IHxCGMJo

OE in option E says comma after program is incorrect because the clause is meant to be restrictive.

So what should we conclude ? If we remove the comma just like this -
(E) programs which enable a family with insufficient savings for a conventional down payment to be able to move into new housing, applying

would this become restrictive now?

But I think which requires comma before it.

_________________________________

I have more issue in what they have explained in Option D - applying following a Non restrictive clause suggests that the builders not the family, are applying for the rent. what should I take away from this explanation?