ykaiim wrote:
Eli,
Can you provide some explanation on this problem:
If the proposed expenditures for gathering information abroad are reduced even further, international news reports
have been and will continue to diminish in number and quality.
(A) have been and will continue to diminish
(B) have and will continue to diminish
(C) will continue to diminish, as they already did,
(D) will continue to diminish, as they have already,
(E) will continue to diminish [CORRECT]
Here also we have CONTINUE in the sentence but the correct choice doesn't have
HAVE. If I go with your reasoninng then the correct answer should be -
HAVE continue to diminish.Please correct me where I am wrong.
KapTeacherEli wrote:
ykaiim wrote:
Eli,
Thanks for your expanation. Even I agree with your point. I have referred Manhattan SC and it that its clearly mentioned that - If an action is happened in the past and it is continued to the present then we use Present Perfect tense. But, does it means that -
If an action is happened in the past and it is continued to the present and will continue to happen in the future then the use Present Perfect tense is correct.
Can you explain more on the SC problem above. E is the OA but I am not convienced with it.
Hi ykaiim,
Sorry I wasn't clear. 'Have continue' is NEVER correct. From a grammatical point of view, the auxiliary verb 'have' in the present perfect must always be followed by the past participle.
(A) and (B) are therefore incorrect because of the rule of ellipsis--omitted words. In 'have been and will continue' and 'have and will continue', we're leaving out a word: the first instance of the verb 'continue' in each case. When we have orphaned auxiliary verbs like 'have been', we can't make up a new verb tense out of thin air. We must use the one we are provided elsewhere in the sentence: 'continue'. Filling in that missing word to test for correctness, we get 'have been continue and will continue' and 'have continue and will continue', both of which are obviously grammatically wrong.
The remaining two answer choices do away with the ellipses, moving the part about the past to an intervening phrase. 'Already did' is grammatically incorrect because the diminishment continues to the future. But we are still left with (D) and (E)
Here's the confusing part--and the unique behavior of the verb 'continue'. Remember, the present perfect tense refers to an event that began in the past and continues to the present. What about 'continue'? Well, the verb 'continue' refers to an event that began in past and continues to the present!
Thus, the trap of choice (D), and the trap from the previous problem. Because the verb 'continue'
always implies the present perfect by its very definition, actually including the present perfect in our sentence is redundant. Saying that it 'already has diminished', or (as in the Limon problem) 'has continued and will continue', is considered stylistically incorrect by the GMAT, because the present perfect explicitly states information that is already implied, and therefore adds nothing but word count to the sentence.