Push for greater integration of global economy is not, like earlier

Thanks Mike.....both the posts are really great. I was not aware about the rule.

Just one more question, is the usage of has is right? Should we not use was as mentioned by dagh in his comment.

OK, am trying to make sense of your question. When you are asking about word choices, especially simple verbs like "has" and "was", please please please use quote marks for clarity. I believe what you were asking was:

Just one more question, is the usage of "has" right? Should we not use "was" as mentioned by dagh in his comment.

If this indeed is your question, then I would say: we have here a distinction of tense. The simple past tense ("was") connotes something that occurred at some point in the past (either a fixed point or an ongoing process), but which is definitely finished by the present time. The present perfect ("has been") connote past activity that continues, possibly even into the present moment. See this blog for the present progressive:
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2012/gmat-verb- ... ct-tenses/

Which tense is correct here? Well, that's not crystal clear. The prompt doesn't contain a verb at all --- often if there's an ambiguity like this on the GMAT SC, one would default to the way the prompt went, but we can't do that here. The question is really --- are the "complicated philosophical questions about the global fraternity" over and done, a thing of the past, no longer guiding us at all? or, are these questions still lingering, no longer the most important determinants of the global economy, but still playing into how we see things? That's far from a clear-cut question. I could easy imagine long intelligent arguments justifying either position. In general, you don't have to go down philosophical rabbit-holes to answer SC on the GMAT. The short answer is: if there's an intelligent argument to be made either way, then both tenses are fine. The GMAT will not ask you to make a choice like "was" vs. "has been" in a context in which they are not giving you obvious clues about that choice.

By contrast, the mistake pattern [subordinate conjunction] + [incomplete clause] is one of their favorites, because it's so common in colloquial speech ----
"although tired, he..."
"after running out of things to say, I ..."
"while driving, he would ..."
All probably sound perfectly normal, but all are dead-wrong on the GMAT SC.

Does all this make sense?
Mike

Hi Mike
can you please explain why the use of while+ participle is correct in choice b? The question is from GMAT prep. Choice b uses a subordinating conjunction without a subject and a verb.

Industrialization and modern methods of insect control have improved the standard of living around the globe while at the same time they have introduced some 100,000 dangerous chemical pollutants, having gone virtually unregulated since they were developed more than 50 years ago.

a. while at the same time they have introduced some 100,000 dangerous chemical pollutants, having
b. while at the same time introducing some 100,000 dangerous chemical pollutants that have
c. while they have introduced 100,000 dangerous chemical pollutants at the same time, and have
d. but introducing some 100,000 dangerous chemical pollutants at the same time that have
e. but at the same time introduce some 100,000 dangerous chemical pollutants, having

Dear zeeasl,
I'm happy to respond.

One way to think about this is the omitted words in parallelism. See the following post:
Dropping Common Words in Parallel on the GMAT

Of course, technically, the S+V of the main clause are not grammatically parallel to the S+V of the subordinate clause beginning with the word "while," but they have a logical relationship similar to the logic of parallelism (remember that parallelism is primarily a logical construction, and the grammar simply follows the logic). When the S+V inside the dependent clause is a pronoun referring to the main subject + a form of the verb "to be," then we can omit them, as we omit words in the second branch of parallelism. These omitted words are completely unambiguous in context.

1) ... while at the same time they have introduced ...
In this phrasing, there is no form of the verb "to be." This is perfectly correct grammatically, but a bit wordy.

2) ... while at the same time they were introducing...
We have changed the tense to the past progressive, which makes the phrase even wordier and more indirect, but now we have introduced a form of the verb "to be" as an auxiliary verb. Now we have a S+V pair that fits the pattern that we can omit.

3) ... while at the same time introducing...
Once we omit that S+V pair, we are left with this elegant version, which appears in the OA.

Does all this make sense?
Mike

Hi Mike

Thanks for the response.But if we change the tense to past progressive, will not that change the meaning of the sentence? i mean the sentence talks about something that started in the past and is still true. Should't the omitted part in 2 above be while at the same time they have been introducing chemicals ....?

Also what is wrong with choice D?

Thanks

Hi mike

Ron from mgmat seems to differ from what you saying in this post. According to him, although can be used with fragments. here is the link to one of his posts.
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/foru ... t7544.html

Also according to you, we dont need to repeat the the same verb and subject in the second part of the parallel structures. Then how these sentences that you worte above are wrong.

"although tired, he..."
"after running out of things to say, I ..."

The above sentences look just a short version of the following.

Although he was tired, he did.....
After I ran out of things to say, I did that

Can you please elaborate it in more detail.

Many thanks

Z

Dear zeeasl,
I'm happy to respond.

1) Changing the past tense verb inside the "while" clause to the past progressive does NOT change the meaning, because the 'while" clause already implies an activity that is in the process of happening.
While he cooked dinner, I did X.
While he was cooking dinner, I did X.
Those two sentence have essentially the same meaning.

2) In this SC question, let's look at choice (D):
Industrialization and modern methods of insect control have improved the standard of living around the globe but introducing some 100,000 dangerous chemical pollutants at the same time that have gone virtually unregulated since they were developed more than 50 years ago.
This is a trainwreck of parallelism. We have the massive failure of putting a participle in parallel with a full verb: "have improved . . . but introducing."

3) I looked at what Ron had to say. He is a brilliant man for whom I have considerable respect. I think he and I are more or less saying the same thing. His version of "although" with participles and other fragments easily could be construed as missing a pronoun + form of "to be."
James, although he was tired from working all day, went to the club with his friends.
I really like his point that we wouldn't use this construction with "even though." The structure "even though" provides much more emphatic contrast that requires more rhetorical focus on its own:
Even though James was tired from working all day, he went to the club with his friends.
It's emphatic enough that it doesn't feel right to relegate it to a parenthetical comment, as we did with "although" in the previous example.

Notice, also, that many subordinate conjunctions also are prepositions. For example, the words "before" and "after" can act as prepositions and be followed by an ordinary noun.
. . . before noon . . .
. . . after the baseball game . . .
Any preposition can take a gerund as its object
I read a book about skiing.
She has a plan for cooking dinner.
You gave the example,
After running out of things to say, I ...
This could be understood as a preposition + a gerund.

Does all this make sense?
Mike

Hi Mike,

Can you explain your concept with another example, the rule you've written is not clear.

Dear abhi1693,

I'm happy to respond.

My friend, I am going to challenge you to ask an excellent question. What you have asked is vague and ambiguous: it leaves open a number of points. First of all, I talked about a few rules in what you have quoted. Precisely which rule do you not understand? Have you followed all the links I have given? Most importantly, you should explain exactly what you understand and exactly what you don't understand.
Students may think that I am asking them to ask excellent questions for my own convenience, but really, the effort of articulating exactly what you don't understand promotes your own understanding.

Ask the best possible question you can about this, and I will answer it.

Mike

Hi Mike , can you please explain option E. Isnt it wrong for tense. AS has been the case earllier. How can we use has been for something which was in past? Thanks

Dear rakaisraka,

I'm happy to respond.

Here's the full OA, (E):
Push for greater integration of global economy is guided not by complicated philosophical questions about the global fraternity, as has been the case earlier, but by the practical matters of business: cost savings and efficiency.

First of all, the action of the main clause is in the present, and what was "the case earlier" is about what was true in the past. It would have made absolutely no sense to say "as is the case earlier"--that would be using the present tense to talk about the past.

Does all this make sense?
Mike

Thanks Mike - I agree that we cant use present tense for something in past, but AS HAS BEEN THE CASE EARLIER is also a present tense. The only difference is that it shows a time period which started in past bt may still be valid. Is this the reason for using AS HAS BEEN? Or this choice is correct because other options are totally wrong?
What would be the correct answer if we had another option like-
Push for greater integration of global economy is guided not by complicated philosophical questions about the global fraternity, as was the case earlier, but by the practical matters of business: cost savings and efficiency
In this case would this option be better than option E?
Thanks

Dear rakaisraka,

I'm happy to respond. The present perfect tense is tricky: while in some sense it is a "present" tense, its use is usually closest to the simple past tense. In many cases, either the simple past tense or the present perfect tense would be correct in context, and the only different would be subtle implications beyond what the GMAT would test.

In this sentence, both are 100% correct:
1) as was the case earlier
2) as has been the case earlier
At the level of grammar, both are flawlessly correct, and for the purposes of this question, each is fine. Neither is really better than the other: either could be part of the OA.

In general, the difference is very subtle and, again, not what the GMAT would test. Consider these two sentences:
3) I saw that movie.
4) I have seen that movie.
Both are 100% grammatically correct. Both agree on the same empirical fact: my seeing of the movie was at some time in the past. They differ in how they present or interpret that empirical fact. The first, sentence #3, presents it as "been there, done that!" In other words, the implication is that I saw the movie in the past, and whatever enjoyment I derived from it or impact it had on me is essentially zero now. My entire experience of the movie is in the past, and aside from the factual memory, it plays no meaningful role in my current life. By contrast, sentence #4 implies that even though the viewing of the movie was in the past, in some way, it still remains part of me. Perhaps its influence still acts in my life. Perhaps I still chuckle when I think of the humor in the movie. Perhaps I quote the movie regularly. Perhaps I model myself after one of the characters. The implication of sentence #4 is that the movie is still, in some way, an ongoing presence in my life, even though the literal act of seeing it was in the past. I cannot emphasize enough: distinctions such as these are NOT what the GMAT would ever test.

The subtle implication of using #2, "has been," in the SC problem is as follows. The older motivation for globalization concerned the "complicated philosophical questions about the global fraternity," what we might call the moral or spiritual perspective on globalization. While that older motivation is not the main priority any more, it is still in the background at the present time. In other words, even though practical economic concerns now drive globalization, the folks who have moral & spiritual ideals about how global cooperation is a good thing are still participating, and probably are quite excited about this newer economic trend. In that sense, the present perfect is much better choice than the simple past tense: both are grammatically correct, but the present perfect captures the subtle implications of the nature of the dynamics in the modern global market. Yet again, this is more than you would be expected to know, but understand that for these reasons, the present perfect, which appears in the OA, is actually a better choice than the simple past.

Does all this make sense?
Mike

"has been" sounded as to violate parallelism.

Option e
The confusion is between option c and option e.
Option c is incorrect because the idiomatic usage of as earlier is incorrect
Option d corrects this mistake by using as has been the case earlier

Posted from my mobile device

How is "as has been" correct. Sorry but this is a poor question.

mikemcgarry

I see that you said that these uses of subordinate conjunctions are dead wrong, but my feeling is that these either meet the criteria of omitting the S+V or are prepositional phrases. Can you explain where my reasoning is wrong?

"although tired, he..."
"after running out of things to say, I ..."
"while driving, he would ..."

"although [he is] tired, he..."
"After running out of things to say, I..." <= This is a prepositional phrase featuring a preposition and gerund ("after running..."), not subordinate clause
"While [he was] driving, he would..."