At nearly 38 million dollars, one of the least costly options being co

A gud ques from a reliable and trusted source, I.e Veritas Prep. Was able to narrow it down to B & C but after that I was pretty not sure , although I marked one along them. Pls someone tell me that in many a lot SC ques I am narrow it down to 2 options with high level of surity but I get confused after this between these 2 options. Pls somebody ( esp this verbal forum moderators) throw some light on this and help me get over my plight , so that even one more member is able to score in the high 700's.

C is wrong for two main reasons: first of all, the sentence lacks of the main verbe. When you have HAD this tense must be paired with the simple past to maintain the parallellism.

You have two actions in the past: the first one is expressed with the simple past, and the second one, which is antecedent to the same, logically comes before the first one.

Secondly: if you cut off the long modifier the sentence loses its meaning; you do have only part of the story that it wants to convey

Hope this helps

Good question! I think this one ultimately comes down to meaning ...

(A) At nearly 38 million dollars, one of the least costly options being considered, the delegate’s proposal was ultimately rejected not only on account of its sizable budget but also on account of its considerable risk. The subject of the sentence should be between the two modifiers. Placing two modifiers in a row makes the sentence feel awkward ... and "out of place".

(B) Even at nearly 38 million dollars, the delegate’s proposal was among the less costly options being considered; it was ultimately rejected not on account of its sizable budget but on account of its riskiness.
"less costly" is incorrect. It should be "least" ... And, the second half of the sentence changes the meaning of the author's initial take. There should be two reasons why the plan was rejected, not just one.

(C) The delegate’s 38-million-dollar proposal, which was ultimately not rejected on account of its sizable budget but on account of its riskiness, had actually been one of the less costly options being considered.
this one's incorrect for similar reasons as choice B. less costly ---> should be "least" costly ... And, this version only gives one reason for the plan's rejection.

(D) The delegate’s 38-million-dollar proposal, nevertheless among the least costly options being considered, was ultimately not rejected on account of its sizable budget, but its riskiness.
"nevertheless" is absolutely unnecessary in this sentence, and the second half of the sentence --- like choices B, C --- changes the original meaning.

(E) Ultimately rejected due not just to its sizable budget but also to its considerable risk, the delegate’s proposal, even at 38 million dollars, was one of the least costly options under consideration.
Even though this is not the prettiest of sentences, choice E is correct. At first, the first clause felt a little "clunky" during my initial read; however, the "not just...but also" construction fulfills the parallel structure rather fittingly. Also, the sentence maintains the original meaning of the author's take.

Hey Guyz,

I understand why A,D and E are wrong and why B is correct. But, i have doubts in C, which i need some help with.

(C) The delegate’s 38-million-dollar proposal, which was ultimately not rejected on account of its sizable budget but on account of its riskiness, had actually been one of the less costly options being considered.

Many of us pointed that there are no two past actions presented and that is why 'had' is incorrectly used. I look at it differently and hence am confused. Below are the two actions that happened in past and because of which the usage of past perfect- had is warranted.

Action 1 (happened earlier in past): Being one of the less costly options
Action 2 (happened later in past): Being rejected

Therefore, a past perfect 'had' used with the earlier past action (Action 1) makes sense to me. Please correct me!

Btw, is there any other issue with C?

Do we have an OE for this?

Thanks!

Action 1 (being a less costly option) did not happen before the action 2 ( being rejected). The proposal was still less costly while it was being rejected.

First:
The concept that "between" is used for two objects and "among" is used for more than two objects is wrong. Many people have this misconception and even certain prep books consist of this mistake.

I must choose a colour among red, blue and green: this sentence is grammatically incorrect.
I must choose a colour between red, blue and green: correct.
I must choose a colour between blue and green: correct.

Second:
It is perfectly alright to say:
My height is less than 50 other students of the class..... We are comparing one choice with 50 other choices. It is possible to use comparative adjective to compare one object with a group of objects.


Third:
Now let us come back to the subject question:
The delegate's proposal is one among a group of proposals (say group A). There is another group of proposals ( say group B), which are more costly than group A proposals. In this case it is perfectly alright to say that the delegate's proposal is one among the less costly proposals (i.e. group A proposals).

[Nevertheless we would preferably have a "than" along with the comparative adjective "less" ( in order to compare group A with group B).]

I would encourage you to continue this discussion if you do not agree with me.

In the mean time, I could find the following topics on the internet that would provide insight on the usages of "among" and 'between" - as per the opinion of each of the writers of the following topics, the distinction between " among" and "between" is not because of the number of choices being 2 or more, but because of having distinct choices or not - Each of the writers do agree that "between" can indeed be used for more than 2 items, if they are distinct:

https://grammar.about.com/od/alightersid ... etween.htm
https://www.espressoenglish.net/whats-th ... and-among/
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/grammar ... n-or-among
https://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learn ... allenge46/
https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/educat ... rsus-among

Can somebody please explain why is (E) wrong? I know that (B) is gramatically correct but it is also changing the meaning and we can change the meaning of original sentence if and only if every other option has atleast 1 gramatical error. Hence, the exercise boils down to finding error in every option.
So, My issues are
1. Original sentence says that it is "one of the least costly options being considered", meaning that there may be options that are less costly than the one rejected. So, a devil's advocate would say that it can be rejected because of the budget. Therefore, (B) is not necessarily changing the meaning in the Positive direction. It is simply canging the meaning.
2. Now analyse (E) - We have an opening modifier that is correctly modifying correct noun "the delegate's proposal", which in turn is further modified by an appositive "even at thirty-eight million dollars", and finally we have the main verb of the sentence.
Structure -> Fine at the minimum and prefered by GMAT in reality because of the presence of appositive.
3. The only (possible) error that I can try to point is the usage of "Due to". I am not sure if it is correctly used here or must we use "because of". Except for this everything is fine. There are no errors in parallelism, tenses, agreement, meaning, wordiness, redundancy and punctuation.

You are absolutely on the right track. "Due" is an adjective and must refer to a noun (or noun phrase). Here "due to" refers to the past participle "rejected" and hence wrong. "Rejection was due to" could have been correct,but then the entire structure would have been required to be modified.

Hi,

Could you please also explain why A is wrong?

One might put up the following explanation to eliminate A:

The subject "the delegate’s proposal " has two consecutive modifiers without a conjunction between them:
1. At nearly 38 million dollars
2. one of the least costly options being considered

Two consecutive modifiers without a conjunction and referring to the same noun / noun phrase is considered wrong. (note in this sentence I used "and" between "without a conjunction" and "referring to the same noun / noun phrase "). In absence of the conjunction the second modifier erroneously refers to a noun in the first modifier rather than the intended noun. (e.g. in my sentence, if I did not use "and", then "referring to the same noun / noun phrase" would wrongly refer to "conjunction" rather than "modifiers".).


However the problem with the above reasoning to eliminate A is that the second modifier "one of the least costly options being considered" can as well refer to "38 million Dollars" rather than "the delegate’s proposal". This construction makes sense too. Hence I do not see this as a solid reason to eliminate A.

The correct reasoning is that we need a contrast that shows that the proposal was one of the least costly options, YET it was rejected. This contrast is better projected in B because of the word "even".

Dear DmitryFarber IanStewart AnthonyRitz GMATGuruNY VeritasPrepBrian ccooley,

(A) At nearly 38 million dollars, one of the least costly options being considered, the delegate’s proposal was ultimately rejected not only on account of its sizable budget but also on account of its considerable risk.

Q1. For choice A., can the underlined portion modify "the delegate's proposal" - the following noun?

====================================================

(B) Even at nearly 38 million dollars, the delegate’s proposal was among the less costly options being considered; it was ultimately rejected not on account of its sizable budget but on account of its riskiness.

Q2. For choice B., what is the role of "being"? I thought it was correct when used as a noun or in passive continuous tense.

Q3. Why do we not need THAN after "less"?

==========================================================

(C) The delegate’s 38-million-dollar proposal, which was ultimately not rejected on account of its sizable budget but on account of its riskiness, had actually been one of the less costly options being considered.

Q4. For choice C., according to Veritas Advanced Verbal book's solution on Q42

In judging whether past-perf tense can be used, do we need to remove modifier every time?
Why can't another past even in past simple be in the modifier?

May I quote content from MGMAT? No judgment or bias here. I just would like to invite GMATClub verbal experts to discuss the content objectively and fruitfully.
According to MGMAT P. 125 Chapter 8 Verbs:

If we remove the modifier from the above sentence, there would definitely be only 1 verb. Hence the above sentence is wrong, right?

A is wrong on logical grounds. If it's "one of the least costly options being considered," why would it be "rejected... on account of its sizable budget"? Without so much as a hint of surprise about the contrast that inheres between those two facts? The initial modifiers didn’t bother me, though.

B is correct. It's one of the rare correct participial usages of "being" -- to describe, in certain cases, something that is happening, at the time, in an ongoing manner. "being" is a weird word that is often misused as a participle, but it's fine here and we had bigger fish to fry in all other answers here anyway. Oh, and Manhattan's example, "BY 1945, the United States HAD BEEN at war for several years," is perfectly grammatically correct.

Why would "less" need to be followed by "than"? There's no rule that says this. It is one of the "less costly" options, though perhaps not along the very "least costly" of them.

C fails parallelism with "not rejected on ... but on" -- the "rejected" is a problem as it has been placed. The verb tense doesn't bother me, though.

D dangles the "nevertheless" without something clear to contrast. Worse, it also butchers parallelism at the end ("but its riskiness").

E repeats the logic error of A.

To some earlier posters: Please do not ever, ever, ever make a decision based on the bogus "due to"/"because of" idiom split. This is not a GMAT issue. First of all, it's not even clearly agreed upon among language experts. And secondly, idioms are gross and stupid and not tested, qua idioms, on the modern (~past ten years or more) GMAT.

Also: Please stop talking about "original" or "intended" meaning. It's not a thing. The only standard of meaning on the GMAT is whether the meaning is logical or illogical.

Dear AnthonyRitz,

I'm not sure whether my understanding is right.
Do you mean that the full form of being is the one highlighted below?

(B) Even at nearly 38 million dollars, the delegate’s proposal was among the less costly options [THAT WERE] being considered; it was ultimately rejected not on account of its sizable budget but on account of its riskiness.

No. The full form of "being" is "being." It's not implying any words. It's a participle -- and, in this usage, a correct one. "that were being" is a totally different type of modifier: a relative clause. (I will grant that your version is analogous in this case.)

How can we use "among" with "less"? It should be "least" in option B to make it correct answer.
Request experts/moderators to review.
generis GMATNinja GMATNinjaTwo

Thanks for a good question. It's a perfect example to illustrate, once again, why judging idioms in sentence correction is a bad idea.

For one thing, there are just so many idioms, and just so many small but important variations of those idioms. And, by definition, those idioms don't follow any big, overarching rules. So it's basically impossible to learn them all totally correctly and never get tricked.

Yes, "less" is generally used to compare two things, whereas "least" is generally used to compare more than two. And yes, "least" would also be fine here. But "less" is not wrong. This sentence, by using "less," is essentially dividing the options into two categories: those that are "less costly" and those that are "more costly." It may be an unusual way to describe the situation, but it's not illogical or ungrammatical, so it's not wrong and we shouldn't cross it off.

Skip the idioms; judge the real stuff instead.

I hope this helps!