Faced with an estimated $2 billion budget gap, the city’s mayor propos

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 core meaning of this sentence is that the mayor proposed that the amount of money allocated the previous year for the purpose of maintaining the city’s major cultural institutions and subsidizing hundreds of local arts groups be reduced by nearly 17 percent.

Concepts tested here: Meaning + Pronouns + Tenses + Parallelism + Verb Forms + Awkwardness/Redundancy

• The simple past tense is used to refer to actions that concluded in the past.
• The simple past continuous tense is used to refer to actions that were ongoing over a period of time in the past.
• For referring to the purpose/intent of an action, the infinitive verb form ("to + base form of verb") is the preferred construction.
• Any elements linked by a conjunction ("and" in this sentence) must be parallel.

A: Correct. This answer choice uses the phrase "to maintain...and to subsidize", conveying the intended meaning - that the mayor proposed reducing the amount of money allocated the previous year for the purpose of maintaining the city’s major cultural institutions and for the purpose of subsidizing hundreds of local arts groups. Further, Option A avoids the pronoun error seen in Option E, as it uses no pronouns. Moreover, Option A correctly uses the simple past tense verb "proposed" and the past participle "allocated" to refer to actions that concluded in the past. Additionally, Option A maintains parallelism between "to maintain" and "to subsidize". Besides, Option A uses the infinitive verb form ("to + base form of verb" - "to + maintain" and "to + subsidize" in this sentence) to refer to the purpose of the action "allocated". Option A is also free of any awkwardness or redundancy.

B: This answer choice incorrectly uses the simple past continuous tense verb "was allocating" to refer to an action that concluded in the past; remember, the simple past tense is used to refer to actions that concluded in the past, and the simple past continuous tense is used to refer to actions that were ongoing over a period of time in the past. Further, Option B uses the present participle ("verb+ing") phrase "for subsidizing" to refer to the purpose of the action "allocating"; remember, for referring to the purpose/intent of an action, the infinitive verb form ("to + base form of verb") is preferred over the present participle ("verb+ing" - "subsidizing" in this sentence). Additionally, Option B uses the needlessly indirect phrase "proposed a reduction...in the amount", leading to awkwardness.

C: This answer choice alters the meaning of the sentence through the phrase "proposed to reduce...and to subsidize"; the parallelism between "to reduce" and "to subsidize" incorrectly implies that the mayor proposed reducing the amount of money allocated the previous year for the purpose of maintaining the city’s major cultural institutions and proposed subsidizing hundreds of local arts groups; the intended meaning is that the mayor proposed reducing the amount of money allocated the previous year for the purpose of maintaining the city’s major cultural institutions and for the purpose of subsidizing hundreds of local arts groups. Further, Option C uses the phrase "for the maintenance of" to refer to the purpose of the action "allocated"; remember, for referring to the purpose/intent of an action, the infinitive verb form ("to + base form of verb") is the preferred construction. Additionally, Option C uses the passive construction "the amount from the previous year that was allocated", leading to awkwardness and redundancy.

D: This answer choice alters the meaning of the sentence through the phrase "proposed a reduction...and to subsidize"; the construction of this phrase incorrectly implies that the mayor proposed reducing the amount of money allocated the previous year for the purpose of maintaining the city’s major cultural institutions and proposed subsidizing hundreds of local arts groups; the intended meaning is that the mayor proposed reducing the amount of money allocated the previous year for the purpose of maintaining the city’s major cultural institutions and for the purpose of subsidizing hundreds of local arts groups. Further, Option D incorrectly uses the simple past continuous tense verb "was allocating" to refer to an action that concluded in the past; remember, the simple past tense is used to refer to actions that concluded in the past, and the simple past continuous tense is used to refer to actions that were ongoing over a period of time in the past. Additionally, Option D fails to maintain parallelism between "a reduction" and "to subsidize"; remember, any elements linked by a conjunction ("and" in this sentence) must be parallel. Besides, Option D uses the present participle ("verb+ing") phrase "for maintaining" to refer to the purpose of the action "allocating"; remember, for referring to the purpose/intent of an action, the infinitive verb form ("to + base form of verb") is preferred over the present participle ("verb+ing" - "maintaining" in this sentence).

E: This answer choice suffers from a pronoun error, as the pronoun "they" has no logical and clear referent. Further, Option E incorrectly uses the simple past continuous tense verbs "was proposing" and "were allocating" to refer to actions that concluded in the past; remember, the simple past tense is used to refer to actions that concluded in the past, and the simple past continuous tense is used to refer to actions that were ongoing over a period of time in the past. Additionally, Option E fails to maintain parallelism between "for maintaining" and "for the subsidization"; remember, any elements linked by a conjunction ("and" in this sentence) must be parallel. Besides, Option E uses the phrases "for maintaining" and "for the subsidization" to refer to the purposes of the action "allocating"; remember, for referring to the purpose/intent of an action, the infinitive verb form ("to + base form of verb") is the preferred construction.

Hence, A is the best answer choice.

To understand the concept of "Simple Tenses" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~2 minutes):



To understand the concept of "Simple Continuous Tenses" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~1 minute):



To understand the concept of "Infinitive" vs "Present Participle" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~1 minute):



All the best!
Experts' Global Team

[quote="eyunni"]290. Faced with an estimated $2 billion budget gap, the city’s mayor proposed a nearly 17 percent reduction in the amount allocated the previous year to maintain the city’s major cultural institutions and to subsidize hundreds of local arts groups.

(A) proposed a nearly 17 percent reduction in the amount allocated the previous year to maintain the city’s major cultural institutions and to subsidize
(B) proposed a reduction from the previous year of nearly 17 percent in the amount it was allocating to maintain the city’s major cultural institutions and for subsidizing
(C) proposed to reduce, by nearly 17 percent, the amount from the previous year that was allocated for the maintenance of the city’s major cultural institutions and to subsidize
(D) has proposed a reduction from the previous year of nearly 17 percent of the amount it was allocating for maintaining the city’s major cultural institutions, and to subsidize
(E) was proposing that the amount they were allocating be reduced by nearly 17 percent from the previous year for maintaining the city’s major cultural institutions and for the subsidization

IMO C

It's A.

B and C violate parallelism: "to maintain"/"for subsidizing" or "for the maintenance"/"to subsidize."

D and E contain unclear pronouns: "it" in D and "they" in E both lack clear antecedents.

The question reads - Faced with an estimated $2 billion budget gap, the city's mayor proposed a nearly 17 percent reduction in the amount allocated the previous year to maintain the city's major cultural institutions and to subsidize hundreds of local arts groups.

This is the correct answer - A is the correct choice.

Here 'proposed' is the verb in the clause 'faced with .....mayor proposed...'

My question is since 'proposed' is a command subjunctive verb, why isn't it being used in the format 'mayor proposed that ....'?

Any help in understanding command subjunctive better is much appreciated.

Hi abm03,

Please note that there is no verb in the part of the sentence after “proposed”.

• Faced with an estimated $2 billion budget gap, the city's mayor proposed a nearly 17 percent reduction in the amount allocated the previous year

o to maintain the city's major cultural institutions and
o to subsidize hundreds of local arts groups.

“allocated” in the highlighted entity is a verb-ed modifier. Since allocated is not a verb, it cannot be written in subjunctive form.

Since allocated is not in subjunctive form, the above sentence stands correct even without the usage of “that”.

Also note that “propose” is not the subjunctive verb. “propose” requires a subjunctive verb after it i.e. the next verb should be in subjunctive form.

Note that the following is an example of subjunctive usage.

a. The parliament members demanded that the President resign immediately.

In this sentence “resign” is the verb in subjunctive form.

Notice that there is no verb after “proposed” in the OG sentence you presented. So the noun phrase “a nearly 17 percent reduction in the amount” is the object to the verb “proposed”.
“allocated…” is the verbed modifier, adding more information about the “amount”.

Hope this helps!

Regards,
Krishna

The subjunctive can be a bit tricky.

No, we do not have to use 'that' after 'propose' in all cases. The word 'propose' by itself is not a subjunctive mood verb, but it can trigger the subjunctive mood in subordinate clauses immediately following 'propose' (starting with 'that'). If we don't have a subordinate clause, we don't use 'that' and we haven't triggered the subjunctive mood.

Not subjunctive:
I propose charging new customers a setup fee.

Subjunctive:
I propose that we charge new customers a setup fee.

You will notice that in the first sentence I am just proposing a fee - there is just a noun after the word 'propose', so there isn't another clause with a verb to put in the subjunctive mood. In the second sentence, I have another clause that starts with 'that' and includes a verb ('charge') that is in the subjunctive mood.

In the example you provided, there is just a noun following propose, so we don't have a clause, we don't use 'that', and we don't have the subjunctive mood.

KW

(a) has correct parallelism.
the words that APPEAR parallel in (c) are not words that are supposed to be parallel in the first place, so that "decoy parallelism" is irrelevant.

if you are interpreting “reduce” and “maintain” as parallel elements, then that means you aren't thinking about the meaning of the sentence.

not considering the meaning of sentences in SC is a huge, huge mistake, since so many things (parallel elements, usage of modifiers, verb tenses, etc.) necessarily flow from the meaning of the sentence! if you don't consider what the sentence means -- i.e., if you simply analyze it from the standpoint of grammar alone -- then you are shutting yourself out of reliably being able to find any of these mistakes.
when you read the prompt of an SC problem, READ FOR MEANING FIRST!
don't worry about being able to pick out mistakes in the prompt -- you'll find the mistakes when you compare the answer choices to each other.

(A) proposed a nearly 17 percent reduction in the amount allocated the previous year to maintain the city’s major cultural institutions and to subsidize

Maintains the parallelism ----- to maintain AND to subsidize
Well constructed and every word is placed in right order so no modification issue in this part ---- “A nearly 17% reduction in the amount allocated the previous year”

(B) proposed a reduction from the previous year of nearly 17 percent in the amount it was allocating to maintain the city’s major cultural institutions and for subsidizing

(C) proposed to reduce, by nearly 17 percent, the amount from the previous year that was allocated for the maintenance of the city’s major cultural institutions and to subsidize
parallelism issue ---- for the maintenance AND to subsidize

(D) has proposed a reduction from the previous year of nearly 17 percent of the amount it was allocating for maintaining the city’s major cultural institutions, and to subsidize

(E) was proposing that the amount they were allocating be reduced by nearly 17 percent from the previous year for maintaining the city’s major cultural institutions and for the subsidization

Faced with an estimated $2 billion budget gap, the city’s mayor proposed a nearly 17 percent reduction in the amount allocated the previous year to maintain the city’s major cultural institutions and to subsidize hundreds of local arts groups.

Issue: Parallelism | Construction

Analysis:
1. The non-underlined portion of the sentence shows that the mayor was faced with the budget gap and that gap prompted him to propose a reduction. These two actions should be parallel. The temporal relationship is implied here by the construction, "Faced with ... budget gap, the mayor proposed..."
2. In the underlined portion of the sentence, the reduction is in the amount allocated to maintain ... and to subsidize... The two allocation actions should be parallel.

Faced with budget gap ---> the mayor proposed a reduction in budget
                                                              |
                                                           allocated_____________
                                                          /                      \
                                                    to maintain...   (and)    to subsidize...

(A) proposed a nearly 17 percent reduction in the amount allocated the previous year to maintain the city’s major cultural institutions and to subsidize

(B) proposed a reduction from the previous year of nearly 17 percent in the amount it was allocating to maintain the city’s major cultural institutions and for subsidizing
- "reduction from the previous year of nearly 17 percent in the amount" - is wordy.
- "to maintain" and "for subsidizing" - parallelism issue

(C) proposed to reduce, by nearly 17 percent, the amount from the previous year that was allocated for the maintenance of the city’s major cultural institutions and to subsidize
- "for the maintenance" and "to subsidize" - parallelism issue

(D) has proposed a reduction from the previous year of nearly 17 percent of the amount it was allocating for maintaining the city’s major cultural institutions, and to subsidize
- "has proposed" - changes meaning
- "for maintaining" and "to subsidize" - parallelism issue

(E) was proposing that the amount they were allocating be reduced by nearly 17 percent from the previous year for maintaining the city’s major cultural institutions and for the subsidization
- "was proposing" - changes meaning
- "maintaining" and "subsidization" - parallelism issue

Answer: (A)

Faced with an estimated $2 billion budget gap, the city’s mayor proposed a nearly 17 percent reduction in the amount allocated the previous year to maintain the city’s major cultural institutions and to subsidize hundreds of local arts groups.

(A) proposed a nearly 17 percent reduction in the amount allocated the previous year to maintain the city’s major cultural institutions and to subsidize. CORRECT

(B) proposed a reduction from the previous year of nearly 17 percent in the amount it was allocating to maintain the city’s major cultural institutions and for subsidizing -Incorrect. (pronoun error)

(C) proposed to reduce, by nearly 17 percent, the amount from the previous year that was allocated for the maintenance of the city’s major cultural institutions and to subsidize -Incorrect. Changes the intended meaning of the original sentence. The intended meaning is that the mayor wants to reduce the budget by 17% so that he can continue supporting institutions and art groups. However, this option says that the mayor wants to reduce the amount that was allocated to the institutions and art groups.

(D) has proposed a reduction from the previous year of nearly 17 percent of the amount it was allocating for maintaining the city’s major cultural institutions, and to subsidize -Incorrect. (reduction in the amount is correct idiom)

(E) was proposing that the amount they were allocating be reduced by nearly 17 percent from the previous year for maintaining the city’s major cultural institutions and for the subsidization -Incorrect. (past continuous is not required)

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Kudos if it helps!

Faced with an estimated $2 billion budget gap, the city’s mayor proposed a nearly 17 percent reduction in the amount allocated the previous year to maintain the city’s major cultural institutions and to subsidize hundreds of local arts groups.

(A) proposed a nearly 17 percent reduction in the amount allocated the previous year to maintain the city’s major cultural institutions and to subsidize

(B) proposed a reduction from the previous year of nearly 17 percent in the amount it was allocating to maintain the city’s major cultural institutions and for subsidizing

(C) proposed to reduce, by nearly 17 percent, the amount from the previous year that was allocated for the maintenance of the city’s major cultural institutions and to subsidize

(D) has proposed a reduction from the previous year of nearly 17 percent of the amount it was allocating for maintaining the city’s major cultural institutions, and to subsidize

(E) was proposing that the amount they were allocating be reduced by nearly 17 percent from the previous year for maintaining the city’s major cultural institutions and for the subsidization

I do not think one needs to stretch beyond the infinitive parallelism in this topic. Only A sticks to the infinitive to parallelism while all the rest falter on that.

Notwithstanding what is just in front of the relative pronouns, the ultimate decider is the logic behind such references. This has been made abundantly clear by GMAT as seen from the OG topic below.


OA is 'A' and 'that' is preceded by a prepositional phrase, but the true referent of 'that' is the 'reactions', beyond the prepositional phrase

Hi experts,
Any one can clarify “Faced with an estimated $2 billion budget gap, the city’s mayor proposed… to subsidize hundreds of local arts groups.” No, s/he probably didn’t. It’s grammatically parallel, but it’s also illogical.
The mayor can propose to reduce something, why it is illogical that (s)he proposed to subsidize something?

Thanks in advance
Have a nice day
>_~

Hey zoezhuyan ,

Understanding the meaning of the original sentence is very important here.

Original meaning is Mayor proposed to reduce some amount that is used to maintain XYZ and subsidize PQR.

But option C is saying Mayor proposed to reduce some amount AND to subsidize something.

Do you see the change in meaning?

In the first case, we are reducing amount that is used to do 2 things.

While in the 2nd case, we are doing two things - 1)Reducing amounts 2) Subsidizing something.

Hence, C is wrong. Meaning change is not allowed if we have a grammatically and logically correct answer choice.

By illogical, GMATNinja Sir meant, I believe, meaning change as it can be inferred from his statement "As we said in our long-winded Beginner’s Guide to SC, meaning can be pretty darned important."

Does that make sense?

Thanks so much for your quick answer, abhimahna

I totally understand meaning is the key, and i try to approach SC by meaning
at first, i picked up C because i thought it is logical to say a mayer prosed to reduce something and (proposed) to subsidize something, that's why i haven't gotten that it is illogic to say “Faced with an estimated $2 billion budget gap, the city’s mayor proposed… to subsidize hundreds of local arts groups.” No, s/he probably didn’t. It’s grammatically parallel, but it’s also illogical.

I think i must miss something, would you please clarify further?

Thanks in advance
Have a nice day

>_~

Hey zoezhuyan ,

By illogical, we meant change in meaning. C is simply changing the meaning.

Please note that meaning change is NOT ALLOWED when you have the correct option that is maintaining the original meaning AND is both grammatically and logically correct.

Since I have A in place, I won't even look bother much about C.

Does that make sense?

Shouldn't "proposed" require subjunctive mood here: proposed + that + be?
In what cases can we ommit this rule? Thanks