The decision by one of the nation's largest banks to admit to $3 billi

I agree C sounds better


could mean less lending by commercial banks to developing countries and increasing the pressure on
multigovernment lenders to supply the funds

If you remove coloured part , you can see that the increasing preassure does not make sense
could mean less lending by the increasing pressure on
multigovernment lenders to supply the funds

less lending and increasing the pressure

less lending = complex gerund
Increasing pressure = simple gerund.

As per rule mentioned in MGMAT SC chapter 11, such parallelism is not allowed.

Between B and C.

B) the increasing pressure -- complex gerund
C) increased pressure -- action noun

action noun is preferred to complex gerund AND complex gerund || action noun is allowed.

Therefore C is the best answer.

Elaborating on the explanation, as it is not complete. The issue with option B is - it gives impression of both complex gerund and simple gerund.

If it were "the increasing of pressure" then it would be a perfect complex gerund, but it is not.
If it were "increasing pressure" then it would be a perfect simple gerund, but it is not.

That's why B is wrong.

A is wrong because it is simple gerund and we can't parallel simple gerund with complex gerund (less - adj lending - noun/gerund).

C is action noun and is the correct answer.

I mark c. this is a question on topic of superficial parallelism, as explained in MGMAT SC guide.
As per the sentence, the nation's largest bank admits ... due to which commercial bankers will lessen lending to other countries.
AND
due to Commercial bankers lessening their loans multigovernment lenders have to increase their loan sanctions.

In C "INCREASING pressure" parallels "at same level" with "less LENDING". This changes the meaning of sentence : The nation's largest bank admits... has two impacts
1. commercial bankers will give less loans.
2. pressure will increase on government lenders.

In D "INCREASED pressure" is at a subordinate level to "less LENDING" . Means : the effect of less lending will be an increase of pressure.

Hello Experts,

Please clarify. I am unable to choose between Answer choices A,B and C.

Please explain what is the difference between

(A) increasing the pressure
(B) the increasing pressure
(C) increased pressure

Thankyou
Arunabh

This is a good case of parallelism.

We need to pay attention to the two items that are being compared.
It would be a mistake to think that ‘lending’ and ‘increasing’ should be parallel.
I feel this is what is confusing to most of the readers.

The two items being compared are ‘less lending’ and ‘increased pressure’.

When you scan the options, you see that Option C is the best choice.

Hope this helps!

The decision by one of the nation's largest banks to admit to $3 billion in potential losses on foreign loans could mean less lending by commercial banks to developing countries and increasing the pressure on multigovernment lenders to supply the funds.
Notice the parallelism marker and. So the first step would be to identify the parallel structures.
X portion is less lending.
So the Y portion should be on similar lines.

(A) increasing the pressure
(B) the increasing pressure
Increasing denotes an action that is still taking place.
(C) increased pressure
Less is parallel to increased. Also, Increased denotes an action that has already taken place.
So Correct Choice.
(D) the pressure increased
(E) the pressure increasing

GMATNINJA EGMAT
can you explain the difference between option B and Option C. Why B is wrong?

Hi Mukesh

Analyzing (B) & (C), we can see that both use the simple noun form "pressure". The difference is in the adjective that this used for "pressure" in both these options.

(B) uses a continuous form of the adjective "increase". This implies that the increase in the pressure is ongoing. Option (C), meanwhile, uses "increased", which indicates that the increase was a one-time occurrence.

Separately, we can also identify that the increase in the pressure on multigovernment lenders is part of a list, which also includes "less lending by commercial banks". Therefore, the structure used to denote this increased/ing pressure must be parallel to that used earlier in the non-underlined portion.

Since the non-underlined portion states "less lending", it would not be appropriate parallelism to use a continuous form of "increasing pressure" for another item in the same list. Therefore this makes option (B) incorrect. Option (C), using "increased pressure", is parallel to "less lending", and hence is the correct answer.

Hope this helps.

Why B is wrong and C is right. Why cant the action be ongoing

Hi Vinodhini

The problem with using "increasing lending" as an ongoing action comes due to the other item in the list of what the admission of losses "could mean"; "less lending" is a gerund ie; an -ing verb acting as a noun. Hence the other item in the list must also be a noun. Therefore, "increased pressure" is the correct usage in this context.

Hope this helps.

HI AjiteshArun VeritasKarishma

I need some aid here.

My analysis:

Sentence Structure :
The decision........could mean ....... X and Y.
X= less lending
Y= increasing the pressure

Both X and Y are gerunds. Then why are they non-parallel? And how is "increased pressure" parallel to X?

Hi thereisaFire,

I generally recommend that we treat noun and "noun-like" elements as capable of being made parallel to each other, and then check which combination is appropriate.

1. ... the decision could mean less lending and increased pressure on X to do Y.
is the same as
2. ... the decision could mean less lending and additional (more) pressure on X to do Y.

In this case, I recommend that we look at what the author is trying to say. The author is trying to tell us that something could mean less lending and more pressure. Less X, and more Y. Increasing the pressure is an unnecessarily complicated structure, and shifts the focus away from the "less of one thing and more of another thing" meaning of C.

Dear IanStewart

Could you please share your thoughts on answer choice B? Is it incorrect because of the time period mismatch? “could mean” refers to the events that have yet to take place while “the increasing pressure” talks about the pressure that’s already happening.

And does “the” make sense here?

We're comparing "less lending" with, in some phrasing, something that means "more pressure" (I'm just repeating what AjiteshArun said perfectly above). If you simply rephrase "less lending" in a synonymous way -- "reduced lending" -- it is immediately clear it is parallel with "increased pressure". Inserting the word "the" in one of those two phrases would disrupt that parallelism, so the "the" alone is decisive here.

If we delete the word "the" from B, you'd need to do a more subtle analysis of meaning. If we said the bank's admission will mean "increasing pressure", we'd be saying this single admission will lead to an ongoing increase in pressure. The sentence probably means that the pressure will increase at once to a new higher level. So we probably want to say it will lead to "an increase in pressure", or "increased pressure", and not that it will lead to "increasing pressure". But I think there's a reason the question didn't offer an answer choice like "increasing pressure"; if it had, you could probably justify two different answers. A post above cites some rule about types of gerund that I don't think actually exists (though I might be wrong about that -- I've never found any use for obscure rules like that).

If the "and" in the sentence immediately before the underlined portion were changed, then other answers might have been right. As written, the sentence lists two things, "lending and pressure". If instead the "and" became a comma, and the second half modified the first, we might have wanted a construction like this:

"The bank's admission could lead to less lending, increasing the pressure on governments..."

or if the "and" were used to join two complete clauses, then "increase" would become a verb, and we then might have wanted a different construction (though the earlier verb "could mean" would somehow need to agree in time with the later verb). So this construction would have been fine:

"The banks admission meant less lending, and increased the pressure on governments..."

but these two examples completely change the structure of the sentence, and we'd only have been looking for them among the answer choices if more of the sentence had been underlined.

I'd add that this question is playing a typical SC trick. It wants test takers to think "lending" and "increasing" should be parallel. But we're comparing "lending" with "pressure" here.

I do not agree with the use of 'the' in this option.

The decision ... could mean less lending ... and increasing the pressure on ...

To say "increasing the pressure on multigovt lenders", we need to mention/explain this pressure beforehand. "The" pressure talks about a certain specific pressure.
But all we want to say is that the decision could mean less lending and more pressure.

Note that "lending" is the gerund and "less" modifies it. Also, "pressure" is the noun and "increased" modifies it.
So the amount of lending with reduce and the amount of pressure will increase. The parallel elements are "lending" and "pressure".

Even if we used "increasing", it would still modify the noun "pressure" but it would imply that the decision will start a chain reaction or something so the pressure will keep increasing. Whether we use increased or increasing will depend on what we want to convey.

Think of 'less lending' as decreased lending, which would be parallel to 'increased pressure'