A recent study has found that within the past few years, many doctors

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 many doctors have elected to retire early rather than face the threats of lawsuits and the rising costs of malpractice insurance.

Concepts tested here: Meaning + Tenses

• The present perfect tense (marked by the use of the helping verb “has/have”) is used to describe events that concluded in the past but continue to affect the present.
• The past perfect tense (marked by the use of helping verb "had") is used when a sentence contains two actions in the past; the helping verb "had" is used with the action in the "greater past".
• Any elements linked by a conjunction ("rather than" in this case") must be parallel.
• For referring to the purpose/intent of action the infinitive verb form ("to + base form of verb") is preferred over the present participle ("verb+ing").
• A general observation: “instead of” generally loses to “rather than” on GMAT.

A: This answer choice alters the meaning of the sentence through the phrase "elected early retirement"; the use of the noun phrase "early retirement" leads to an incoherent meaning; the intended meaning is that many doctors have elected to retire early rather than face the threats of lawsuits and the rising costs of malpractice insurance. Further, Option A incorrectly uses the past perfect tense verb "had elected" to refer to an action that concluded in the past but continues to affect the present; please remember, the present perfect tense (marked by the use of the helping verb “has/have”) is used to describe events that concluded in the past but continue to affect the present, and the past perfect tense (marked by the use of helping verb "had") is used when a sentence contains two actions in the past; the helping verb "had" is used with the action in the "greater past". Additionally, Option A fails to maintain parallelism between "early retirement" and "face the threats...insurance"; please remember, any elements linked by a conjunction ("rather than" in this case") must be parallel.

B: This answer choice alters the meaning of the sentence through the phrase "elected early retirement"; the use of the noun phrase "early retirement" leads to an incoherent meaning; the intended meaning is that many doctors have elected to retire early rather than face the threats of lawsuits and the rising costs of malpractice insurance. Further, Option B incorrectly uses the past perfect tense verb "had elected" to refer to an action that concluded in the past but continues to affect the present; please remember, the present perfect tense (marked by the use of the helping verb “has/have”) is used to describe events that concluded in the past but continue to affect the present, and the past perfect tense (marked by the use of helping verb "had") is used when a sentence contains two actions in the past; the helping verb "had" is used with the action in the "greater past". Additionally, Option B fails to maintain parallelism between "early retirement" and "facing the threats...insurance"; please remember, any elements linked by a conjunction ("instead of" in this case") must be parallel. Besides, a general observation: “instead of” generally loses to “rather than” on GMAT.

C: This answer choice uses the present participle ("verb+ing" - "retiring" in this sentence) to refer to the intent behind the action "have elected"; please remember, for referring to the purpose/intent of action the infinitive verb form ("to + base form of verb") is preferred over the present participle ("verb+ing" - "retiring" in this sentence). Besides, a general observation: “instead of” generally loses to “rather than” on GMAT.

D: This answer choice fails to maintain parallelism between "to retire early" and "facing the threats...insurance"; please remember, any elements linked by a conjunction ("rather than" in this case") must be parallel.

E: Correct. This answer choice uses the phrase "to retire early", conveying the intended meaning - that many doctors have elected to retire early rather than face the threats of lawsuits and the rising costs of malpractice insurance. Moreover, Option E uses the infinitive verb form ("to + base form of verb" - "to + retire" in this sentence) to refer to the intent of the action "have elected". Further, Option E correctly uses the present perfect tense verb "have elected" to refer to an action that concluded in the past but continues to affect the present. Additionally, Option E maintains parallelism between "retire early" and "face the threats...insurance". Besides, Option E uses the preferred construction "rather than".

Hence, E is the best answer choice.

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



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



To understand the concept of "Infinitive vs Present Participles" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~2 minutes):



All the best!
Experts' Global Team

Here's an attempt at an explanation...

In the sentence given, there isn't really a sequence of events, it's a stating a recent study.

Here's an example of where had will make sense,

The doctors had retired before the lawyers sued them for malpractice.

In this sentence, had is used to indicate that an event occured before another event. First the doctors retired, then the lawyers sued them. "Had" in this sentence establishes that sequence.

Hope this helps...

E is better because it is using present perfect tense. The passage is in the present tense so talking about an event that happened prior to another event in the present(and could be still ongoing), we use present perfect.

present perfect: ie I am playing scrabble but note that I have achieved my goal --> I achieved the goal and then, presently, I am playing scrabble
past perfect: ie I played scrabble but I had achieved my goal --> I played scrabble(in the past) but at some point before that, I achieved my goal.

Read on about present and past perfect(and verb tenses in general):
https://webster.commnet.edu/grammar/tens ... tm#perfect

You cannot elect early retirement, but you can elect to retire early.
Only (D) and (E) are possible choices.

(E) is the best for parallellism because "elected to retire" is parallel to "face"

Here I am talking about usage of verbs to maintain the parallelism.

"have elected to retire" is a verb or an action
"face" is also an action or a verb.

If you use "to" before "face" then it looks like the doctors have elected to face something. It looked awkward.

In all the other sentences verb and gerunds/participles are used. Those sentences are least parallel.


Parallellism means you should use similar class of sentence fragment/elements.

Noun/Noun Phrase + Noun/Gerund/Noun Phrase/Gerund Phrase
Verb + Verb

I hope I have clarified my point.

I have found this material when looking for instead of vs rather than:

The phrase rather than consists of an adverb and a conjunction and often means "and not," as in I decided to skip lunch rather than eat in the cafeteria again. It is grammatically similar to sooner than in that it is used with a "bare" infinitive—an infinitive minus to: I would stay here and eat flies sooner than go with them.

Rather than can also be used with nouns as a compound preposition meaning "instead of": I bought a mountain bike rather than a ten-speed. But some people object to this use, insisting that than should be used only as a conjunction. They therefore object to constructions in which rather than is followed by a gerund, as in Rather than buying a new car, I kept my old one.

In some cases, however, rather than can only be followed by a gerund and not by a bare infinitive. If the main verb of the sentence has a form that does not allow parallel treatment of the verb following rather than, you cannot use a bare infinitive, and you must use a gerund. This is often the case when the main verb is in a past tense or has a participle. Thus, you must say The results of the study, rather than ending (not end or ended) the controversy, only added to it. If the main verb was in the present tense (add), you could use the bare infinitive end.

Curiously, when the rather than construction follows the main verb, it can use other verb forms besides the bare infinitive. Thus you can say The results of the study added to the controversy rather than ended it.

The overriding concern in all of this should be to avoid faulty parallels, as in sentences like Rather than buy a new car, I have kept my old one and Rather than take a cab, she is going on foot.

Clearly, it is grammatically defensible to follow rather than with a gerund, but if you prefer to avoid the controversy, use instead of with gerunds.


Based on what the bolded paragraph says the answer I think is C.

you use 'rather than' to compare clauses and 'instead of' to compare 'nouns/noun phrases'.

But also remember you can use 'rather than' to emphasize priority over something.

in this question to maintain parallelism with 'retire' you have to have 'face' verb. so obviously you go for 'rather than'.

Hope that helps.

1. Whenever you have a choice between "instead of" and "rather than" in gmat, select "rather than". That rules out B and C.
2. A is out for wrong tense "had ....." for a recent activity...
3. D is out for not being parallel "retire ... and facing....".

So E remains...

1) When do we know that 'to' and be understood and can be omitted?
I eliminated E because I thought 2 structures are not parallel because you dont have a 'to' before face

2) What is wrong with C
retiring and facing are parallel.

Hi,

I am confused between (D) & (E), could anyone please explain?

Regards,

Hi there,

This is the sentence with choice D:

A recent study has found that within the past few years, many doctors have elected to retire early rather than facing the threats of lawsuits and the rising costs of malpractice insurance.

The original sentence means that according to a recent study, in the last few years many doctors have chosen to do X rather than Y. Here, X and Y should be parallel. Per this choice (D),
X = to retire early
Y = facing the threats of…
These two entities are not parallel because X is “to verb” while Y is written in verb-ing form. Hence, we have parallelism error in this sentence.

Choice E corrects this error. This is the sentence with choice E:

A recent study has found that within the past few years, many doctors have elected to retire early rather than face the threats of lawsuits and the rising costs of malpractice insurance.

X = to retire early
Y = (to) face the threats of…
The two entities are parallel here, and hence choice E is the correct answer.

Hope this helps.
Thanks.
Shraddha

Hi Sachin,

Whenever we have a list, the common items in the first entity of the list may not be repeated before all the entities in the list. OG questions are inundated with such parallel construction. For example the first question of OGV2:

Like ants, termites have an elaborate social structure in which a few individuals reproduce and the rest serve the colony by tending juveniles, gathering food, building the nest, or battling intruders.

This is the sentence with correct answer choice E. Notice the entities in the sub-list. Termites serve the colony by:
a. tending juveniles,
b. gathering food,
c. building the nest, or
d. battling intruders.

In the sentence, only the first entity is preceded by “by”. It is understood before other entities. This is a very common structure. Here comes the need to identify the correct entities that are intended to make the correct intended parallel list. Try out this official question:

The computer software being designed for a project studying Native American access to higher education will not only meet the needs of that study, but also has the versatility and power of facilitating similar research endeavors.

(A) but also has the versatility and power of facilitating
(B) but also have the versatility and power to facilitate
C) but it also has the versatility and power to facilitate
(D) and also have the versatility and power of facilitating
(E) and it also has such versatility and power that it can facilitate

Now let’s analyze, why choice C is incorrect.

C) have elected retiring early instead of facing: Notice the use of “elected” here. The way it has been used in this choice and the original sentence as well, it seems to suggest that the doctors have cast their votes for an entity named “retiring” instead of another entity “facing”. This is the incorrect use of the word. The intended meaning is that they have elected to – chose to – do one thing rather than the other. This incorrect use of “elected” makes this choice incorrect.

Hope this helps.
Thanks.
Shraddha

Tip : Usage of "Rather than" means preference of one over another and Usage of "instead of" means replacing one thing with another.Moreover instead of can only be used in case of Noun and verbs or actions so in below only

A recent study has found that within the past few years, many doctors had elected early retirement rather than face the threats of lawsuits and the rising costs of malpractice insurance.

(A) had elected early retirement rather than face --- no two actions are there so usage of had not correct.
(B) had elected early retirement instead of facing --- out instead of is used
(C) have elected retiring early instead of facing --- Out instead of is used
(D) have elected to retire early rather than facing --- to retire not parallel with facing
(E) have elected to retire early rather than face --- correct construction.

had to think between A and E which one is better got confused went with the gut feeling more then logical approach

A recent study has found that within the past few years, many doctors had elected early retirement rather than face the threats of lawsuits and the rising costs of malpractice insurance.

(A) had elected early retirement rather than face

had is not correct

(B) had elected early retirement instead of facing

had is not correct

(C) have elected retiring early instead of facing

"have elected retiring" does not sound right to me, also there is incorrect parallelism of "have elected" and "facing"

(D) have elected to retire early rather than facing

there is incorrect parallelism of "have elected" and "facing"

(E) have elected to retire early rather than face

correct. parallelism of elected and face is also correct, hence the OA.


Please correct me if I am wrong
Please Kudo me if my post helped you.

This might help:

1. https://www.manhattangmat.com/forums/instead-of-vs-rather-than-t7242.html
2. https://gmatclub.com/forum/instead-of-vs-rather-than-vs-oppose-to-104503.html
3. https://gmatclub.com/forum/instead-of-vs-rather-than-102935.html

A recent study has found that
within the past few years,
many doctors had elected early retirement rather than face the threats of lawsuits and the rising costs of malpractice insurance.

(A) had elected early retirement rather than face
(B) had elected early retirement instead of facing
(C) have elected retiring early instead of facing
(D) have elected to retire early rather than facing
(E) have elected to retire early rather than face

1. X rather than Y=> X and Y shall be ||. A & D are out.
2.Within the past few years means from past few year which means its still continuing hence A and B out.
3. elected to Vs elected => I elected to do something -> opted to do something.
People elected president. Here doctors opted so elected to is correct usage here. Hence C is out.

E is correct.

"Instead of" can be used only for nouns; "rather than" can be used for nouns or verbs. Here "retiring" and "facing" are gerunds (i.e. nouns), and hence both "instead of" and "rather than" are acceptable.

The problem with C is the incorrect idiom elect + gerund (verb-ing) . The correct idiom is elect + infinitive (to -verb).