A President entering the final two years of a second term is likely to

Question

A President entering the final two years of a second term is  likely to be at a severe disadvantage and is often unable to  carry out a legislative program.

(A) likely to be at a severe disadvantage and is often unable to

(B) likely severely disadvantaged and often unable to

(C) liable to be severely disadvantaged and cannot often

(D) liable that he or she is at a severe disadvantage and cannot often

(E) at a severe disadvantage, often likely to be unable that he or she can

nsspaz151 · Accepted Answer

I see this one sat unanswered over the weekend so I'll attempt to explain the best I can.

You're correct, "liable" is not the problem, though a less common in the English vernacular.

I believe what the point is here is that "at a (severe) disadvantage" and "severely disadvantaged" imply two entirely different things. In this case, being "at a disadvantage" is a comparative observation between either the President and Congress (assuming US politics) or between the President in his/her final two years in office and the President in his/her term before his/her final two years. Being "disadvantaged" implies the President has some long-standing hardship to overcome. Does reaching the final two years of a President's term inhibit his/her ability to legislate? Assuming no other variables are entering, the answer is "no", so an idiom is used to describe the situation.

Example: GMAT test-taker scores 700+ consistently on GMAT exams. However, on the next exam, the test-taker is sick with the flu. The test-taker is "at a disadvantage" while ill but obviously not necessarily "disadvantaged".

Alternatively, the "disadvantaged" test-taker (perhaps learning disability, no formal education, etc.) is in an entirely different boat than the ill test-taker.

See explanation for #2 - President vs. Congress or President vs self at another point in time

I would argue this explanation as incorrect. The second problem I see with C is the omission of "is" following "and". The name for this escapes me (as have most technical terms to describe the English language outside of noun, verb, etc).

Hope this helps.

KarishmaB · Answer

There are two things that the President is:
 - likely to be at a disadvantage
- often unable to carry out a legislative program

(A) likely to be at a severe disadvantage and is often unable to

No errors. The 'is' is repeated to clarify that these are the two things that the President is.

(B) likely severely disadvantaged and often unable to

'disadvantaged' means deprived (economically, physically etc). It is a characteristic of people. 
'at a disadvantage' means the circumstances are against him. This is what we mean here.

Also, when we use 'likely' to mean 'probably' we usually use an infinitive after it as done in option (A).

(C) liable to be severely disadvantaged and cannot often

Use of 'disadvantaged' is a problem. Also, 'cannot often carry out a legislative program' seems to say that he can sometimes carry out a legislative program but not carry it out again and again (often). But what we want to say is that he often (usually/likely) cannot carry out a legislative program. So 'is often unable to...' in (A) makes more sense.

(D) liable that he or she is at a severe disadvantage and cannot often

Usage of 'liable that clause' is not correct. We use 'liable for' or 'liable to'. It also has the same 'cannot often' problem that (C) has.

(E) at a severe disadvantage, often likely to be unable that he or she can

This is a train wreck. 'often likely' together don't make sense. 'unable that' is not correct. We need to use 'unable to'

Answer (A)

krittapat 
 GMATyodasimran

tarek99 · Answer

The tested idiom here is "likely to be", so keep that in mind:
a) seems fine so hold it
b) "likely" without the "to", so it's wrong
c) I don't think that "liable to be" even exists
d) because of the use of "that", it would make better sense to have "so" before "liable", but we don't have that, so wrong
e) "often" and "likely" are redundant.

So option A remains as the correct answer.

aagar2003 · Answer

Disadvantage is a NOUN or a TRANSITIVE VERB with following usage
a) were  at a disadvantage 
b) worked  to their disadvantage 
c) was  a serious disadvantage

I found that disadvantaged is also used sometimes like:
The disadvantaged are becoming more economically  disadvantaged .

A - CORRECT
Aren't B and C wrong because "severely disadvantaged" is incorrect?
D - liable that seems incorrect
E -often likely to be unable is wordy and awkward

Forgot to mention that I am really confused with this one!

eybrj2 · Answer

A President entering the final two years of a second term is  likely to be at a severe disadvantage and is often unable to  carry out a legislative program.

(A) likely to be at a severe disadvantage and is often unable to
(B) likely severely disadvantaged and often unable to
(C) liable to be severely disadvantaged and cannot often
(D) liable that he or she is at a severe disadvantage and cannot often
(E) at a severe disadvantage, often likely to be unable that he or she can

I picked c as an answer, but I couldn't find anybody who picked c when I googled this question.
People mentioned several reasons why c wasn't the answer, but I am confused with a couple of those reasons.

1. "liable" is incorrect. 
 ( I looked up this word and found the exact same meaning as "likely")

2. "disadvanged" is not idiomatic.

3. "at a disadvantage." 
According to "Dictionary.com", it means "in a position that gives one person an advantage over another." 
This is an example. Having too little money to spend has put me at a disadvantage with my friends.

Is this correct? Cannot apply this definition to A. If I do, the sentence doesn't make sense to me.

4. "cannot often" changed the meaning of the original sentence slightly.

TGC · Answer

After going through the archives of RON videos and the use of 'and' as a connector here is my doubt:

A President entering the final two years of a second term is likely to be at a severe disadvantage and is often unable to carry out a legislative program.

AND should connect independent IDEAS. However, in this sentence the disadvantage is not followed by what type of disadvantage , but it is explicitly stated.

A President Blah Blah.........is likely to be at a severe disadvantage, Something about disadvantage.

Enlighten Plz !!

kapslock20 · Answer

The correct idioms are:

X is likely to Y 
X is at a disadvantage 
X is unable to Y

Only answer choice A give us all of these correct idioms.

In answer choice A, likely is an adjective.

Any form of the verb to be indicates a state of being. The subject, which is a noun, cannot be an adverb. The subject can be only an adjective or another noun.

Mary is happy. (noun = adjective)

Mary is an astronaut. (noun = noun)

Not: Mary is quickly. (A noun cannot = adverb).

Hope this helps!

thangvietname · Answer

disadvantaged.
is not a participle 2 of a verb. it is purely an adjective. it mean having no education money to succeed.

at a disadvantage 
mean not a good position to do something

so "at a disadvange" is correct meaning here.

the dictionary offer explanation of these two meanings.

dabaobao · Answer

(A) likely to be at a severe disadvantage and is often unable to  - Correct: Idiomatic. No issues. Clear meaning and parallelism.

(B)  likely severely disadvantaged  and often unable to  - Wrong: 1) "likely severely disadvantaged" is unidiomatic. Adjective "likely" can only modify a noun and not another adjective "disadvantaged". 2) GMAT prefers choices with repeated helping verb such as "is", which is missing in B but used in A.

(C)  liable  to be severely disadvantaged and cannot often  - Wrong: "liable" distorts meaning.

(D)  liable  that he or she is at a severe disadvantage and cannot often  - Wrong: "liable" distorts meaning.

(E) at a severe disadvantage,  often likely  to be  unable that  he or she can  - Wrong: 1) "often likely" together are redundant. 2) Unidiomatic: "unable that". Correct idiom is "unable to". 3) Wordy

anshgupta · Answer

In options C and D, is the word 'liable' incorrect?

sayantanc2k · Answer

Generally the words 'liable' and 'likely' can be used interchangably when used alongwith an infinitive, e.g.,

likely to be at a disadvantage = liable to be at a disadvantage

Moreover it is recommended to use the word 'liable' specifically for undesirable situations. In that respect also 'liable' is alright here.

However, in D 'liable' is wrong because there is no infinitive after the word 'liable' and hence it is not interchangable with 'likely'.

Of course there are several other issues with C and D, which I am not discussing here, since they are not related to your question.

ExpertsGlobal5 · Answer

Hello  anshgupta ,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, the use of "liable" is correct in Option C, but it is incorrect in Option D because the phrase "liable that" is unidiomatic.

All the best!
Experts' Global Team

niyatisuri · Answer

Hello  egmat ,  GMATNinja

A President entering the final two years of a second term is likely to be at a severe disadvantage and is often unable to carry out a legislative program.

(A) likely to be at a severe disadvantage and is often unable to

(B) likely severely disadvantaged and often unable to

(C) liable to be severely disadvantaged and cannot often

(D) liable that he or she is at a severe disadvantage and cannot often

(E) at a severe disadvantage, often likely to be unable that he or she can

Could you please help me with the analysis of this question.

Regards,

krittapat · Answer

GMATNinja   egmat   KarishmaB   mikemcgarry 
Could you please give us detailed explanation for all choices?
Thank you in advance.

GMATyodasimran · Answer

Hey experts

KarishmaB   GMATNinja   AjiteshArun   DmitryFarber   ExpertsGlobal5  @mikemcgary  sayantanc2k

I rejected options C,D and E because of the word liable. However, i read in above posts that it is correct. Can you please help me understand the actual errors in these options?

Thanks in advance!

ExpertsGlobal5 · Answer

Hello  GMATyodasimran ,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, Option C is not actually incorrect, but the usage of “severely disadvantaged” (meaning: to be in a generally unfavorable position) is inferior to “to be at a severe disadvantage” (meaning: to be in a position of disadvantage relative to others) for the intended meaning. Further, the usage of “liable” (meaning: responsible/obligated) is inferior to the usage “likely” (meaning: probably) for the intended meaning.

Option D incorrectly uses the unidiomatic construction “liable that” rather than the idiomatic construction “liable to be”; please remember “liable to be” is correct, idiomatic usage.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
Experts' Global Team

VerbalBot · Answer

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A President entering the final two years of a second term is likely to

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