A surge in new home sales and a drop in weekly unemployment claims

The answer to this question must be A:

A. This sentence has correct subject verb agreement. It also presents the "that..." clause in active voice.

B. The plural subject "a surge and a drop" does not agree with the singular verb suggests.

C. The use of the plural verb "have been" does not agree with the singular subject "the economy."

D. The verb-ing modifier after a comma should modify the preceding clause. However, the first part of this answer choice isn't even a clause because it does not contain a verb. So the use of the verb-ing modifier is incorrect in this case. Also, since the first part of the sentence isn't a clause, this entire sentence is actually a fragment.

E. Same as D - incorrect usage of verb-ing modifier and sentence fragment. In addition it uses the passive voice, which is unnecessary.




Highlighted parts are incorrect or not appropriate in the other options.

No this sentence is wrong as well for the same reason.
In active voice: It is not as good as they expected.
In passive voice: It is not as good as WAS expected by them.





The fact that everybody everywhere uses a construction in some particular way is not really a valid reasoning to determine whether that usage is correct. In fact such usages could act as traps in SC questions. If you are not convinced with the reasoning stated in the previous post then please post specifically why you differ in opinion.

[Another example of faulty construction that we see frequently is "less than 10 items" at the express counters at shopping malls. The frequent usage does not make this phrase correct - the correct usage is "fewer than 10 items". ("Less" is used for uncountable nouns, whereas "fewer" for countable.)]





Here "claims" is a noun - the main verb is "suggest", which is plural - the main subject for this verb is the noun phrase "A surge in new home sales and a drop in weekly unemployment claims".

Dear Friends,

Here is a detailed explanation to this question-

Concepts tested here: Subject-Verb Agreement + Tenses + Grammatical Construction + Idioms + Awkwardness/Redundancy

• 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 simple past tense is used to refer to actions concluded in the past.
• Two singular nouns joined by "and" form a plural noun phrase.
• “as A as B” is the correct, idiomatic usage.

A: Correct. This answer choice correctly acts upon the independent subject "A surge in new home sales and a drop in weekly unemployment claims" with the active verb "suggest" to form a complete thought, leading to a complete sentence. Moreover, Option A correctly refers to the plural noun phrase "A surge in new home sales and a drop in weekly unemployment claims" with the plural verb "suggest" and refers to the plural noun "analysts" with the verb "thought", which can refer to both plural and singular nouns. Additionally, Option A correctly uses the simple past tense verb "thought" to refer to an action that concluded in the past. Option A also correctly uses the idiomatic construction "as A as B". Besides, Option A is free of any awkwardness or redundancy.

B: This answer choice incorrectly refers to the plural noun phrase "A surge in new home sales and a drop in weekly unemployment claims" with the singular verb "suggests"; remember, two singular nouns joined by "and" form a plural noun phrase. Further, Option B incorrectly uses the present perfect tense verb "have...thought" to refer to an action that concluded in the past; please remember, the simple past tense is used to refer to actions that concluded in the past, and 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. Additionally, Option B incorrectly uses the unidiomatic construction "so A as B"; please remember, “as A as B” is the correct, idiomatic usage.

C: This answer choice incorrectly refers to the singular noun "economy" with the plural noun "have been...thought". Further, Option C incorrectly uses the present perfect tense verb "have been...thought" to refer to an action that concluded in the past; please remember, the simple past tense is used to refer to actions that concluded in the past, and 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. Additionally, Option C uses the passive voice construction "have been previously thought by some analysts", leading to awkwardness and redundancy.

D: This answer choice fails to form a complete sentence; as "suggesting" is a present participle ("verb+ing") acting as a modifier, there is no active verb to act upon the subject noun "A surge in new home sales and a drop in weekly unemployment claims". Further, Option D incorrectly uses the unidiomatic construction "so A as B"; please remember, “as A as B” is the correct, idiomatic usage. Additionally, Option D uses the needlessly wordy and passive phrases "suggesting about the economy" and "previously thought by some analysts", leading to awkwardness and redundancy.

E: This answer choice fails to form a complete sentence; as "suggesting" is a present participle ("verb+ing") acting as a modifier, there is no active verb to act upon the subject noun "A surge in new home sales and a drop in weekly unemployment claims". Further, Option D uses the needlessly wordy phrase "thought to be", leading to awkwardness and redundancy.

Hence, A is the best answer choice.

To understand the concept of "Present Perfect Tense" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~1 minute):



To understand the concept of "Simple Tenses" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~1 minute):



All the best!
Experts' Global Team
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I am quoting this from OG12




Agreement; Grammatical construction

The plural subject of this sentence (surge and drop) requires a plural verb, suggest. Th e object of this verb, the clause beginning with that, should be presented in as clear and direct a manner as possible.

1. Correct. The plural subject is matched with a plural verb.
   
   
2. The singular verb suggests does not match the plural subject of the sentence.
   
   
3. The sentence offers no plural subject to fit the passive verb have been thought.
   
   
4. This construction is awkward, wordy, and imprecise; it also lacks a main verb; there is no reason to use passive voice, and suggesting about the economy that it might … introduces extra words that contribute nothing to the meaning of this sentence fragment.
   
   
5. The passive construction makes this unnecessarily wordy; the lack of a main verb makes this a sentence fragment.

The subject is plural here because of the use of 'and'. so let us keep A and C. Eliminate D and E because the sentences seem to be fragment.

Because, in D and E there are two subjects 'surge' and 'drop' and a sentence should have a verb that makes sense with the subject.

Now between A and D-
for me the use of 'as have been previously thought' changes the voice and structure of the sentence. So the best ans is A

Between A and C
In A, looks like 'as weak as' is modifying how 'Analyst's thought'.
C corrects that err by comparing economy that is 'being suggested' to the one 'previously thought'.As the emphasis here is on object and not on the subject so passive voice is warranted here.

Request experts to please correct if I missed anything above.

The phrase "as weak as" is used in answer A correctly, since it refers to the whole clause "as some analysts previously thought." So we are comparing two clauses. Answer C is grammatically incorrect because the subject of the verb "have been previously thought" is missing.
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The idiom is "as X as Y," but this is not a comparison in the traditional sense. It's really a way of clarifying extent. The economy may be weak, but not as low as the analysts' earlier opinion would indicate. We aren't comparing the clauses "The economy might not be [as] weak" and "some analysts thought."

So, could we say "thought to be"? In short, no--that doesn't convey a clear meaning. You may be thinking of "though it to be." That would work, but the excess words aren't really needed. The shorter version is a very common English construction:

The guests were earlier than I expected.
The food was spicier than I wanted.
The experiment has produced more startling results than anyone could have predicted.
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Please kindly help!

I'm having a headache with this question, so expert please help me to sort out the 2 questions below:

1. Regarding the option "as weak as analyst previously thought". This structure is very clear. I can say it is a short form of: The economy is not as weak as analysts previously thought <It was>.

However, regarding the phrase "as previously thought by analyst", what was thought by analyst here? Is it a "virtual idea" like the experts in magoosh said or "the economy" like some replies from experts above?

If it is "the economy", how can we recover the long, full form of the sentence? Is it "the economy is not as weak as the economy, which was thought by analyst", which I think grammatically incorrect because we can not say that "the economy was thought by analyst"or in active form "analyst thought the economy". Should it be " As previously thought about by analyst" or "as previously thought to be by analyst", so that when we recover the full clause, it is more natural?. Don't mention about wordiness or something, I just want to find the grammar structure here.

If it is a virtual "idea", then the full clause is "the economy is not as weak as the idea, which was previously thought by analysts". The sentence is now very awkward.

2. The expert said we need to include "was" to the sentence to make it a correct passive form (as was previously thought by analyst). I disagree because it's unnecessary to have "was" in the sentence. Am I wrong?

As for your question 2, the expert's explanation is just superb - she explains perfectly why the "was" is required.

As for your question 1, consider the following:

The economy is not as weak as <it>was previously thought by the analysts. (1)

This sentence is the same as the the following except that the second clause has been made into passive:
The economy is not as weak as the analysts previously thought <it was>. (2)

The confusion arises because in the passive form (1) "it" no longer represents "economy" (as in active form (2)), but becomes placeholder "it".

It was thought by the analysts that the economy was weak. Here "it" acts as a placeholder for the whole clause that the economy was weak.

So in (1), you may think of the omitted "it" as the placeholder "it" rather than the pronoun for "economy":

You construction seems awkward because such passive voices cannot be constructed without a placeholder:
That the economy was weak was thought by the analysts...... this is awkward and hence the placeholder is used.

Thank you so much for your reply regarding question 1, it is an eye opener for me.
Regarding question 2, since you agree with the necessity of including "was" in the sentence to make it correct - ...not as week as was thought by analysts - , you may think this one is wrong :... not as weak as thought by analysts.

However, I see a lot of sentences with this structure, especially this one: "It is not as good as expected by them". I believe this sentence is grammatically correct, even though there is not "was" in it. Can you kindly shed light on this matter?

Again, thank you very much for your answer.

Hi Expert,

I read your posts for this question and understood the sentence well. Thanks

I understand that the usage of have been in choice C is incorrect.

choice C-- claims suggest that the economy might not be as weak as have been previously thought by some analysts

Just wanted to clear one doubt on eclipses.

If i write the eclipses, will the sentence be


claims suggest that the economy might not be as weak as it<economy> have been previously thought by some analysts

or

claims suggest that the economy might not be as weak as it<economy> might have been previously thought by some analysts

How to determine which is the intended one?

It should be the one highlighted above. Notice when you say "might have been previously thought", it changes the meaning. It implies They might have thought.

So, we are not sure whether they actually thought about it.

As per the original meaning, we must say they thought something (Say X) previously but now it might be Y such that Y<X.

I hope this makes sense.
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"A surge and a drop" are plural?
I need an expert view on this.

What is given: A surge {in new home sales and a drop in weekly unemployment claims} suggest that the economy might not be as weak as some analysts previously thought.

What I gathered: A surge **** suggests that the economy might not be as weak as some analysts previously thought.

Please help with this.

amitpandey25, if you have a compound subject (X and Y), you can never cut out one of the items. The subject is "a surge and a drop," and not just "a surge." As sasyaharry suggests, we can't say that the surge was in "home sales and a drop," so there's no choice but to include "a drop" in the subject. At this point, we can only have a singular verb if the subject is somehow interpreted as singular. This works if the subject can reasonably be interpreted as one thing ("Research and development for the new plane was expensive"), but this is very rare.
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I got the answer right but wanted to understand about the word "claims" here. Is it not a verb?

Hello santro789,


I will be glad to help you out with this one.

A surge in new home sales and a drop in weekly unemployment claims suggest that the economy might not be as weak as some analysts previously thought.


(Subjects = blue, Verbs = green)


The word claims is NOT a verb in this sentence. It acts as a plural noun entity.

It will be grammatically incorrect to place two verbs - claims and suggest - one after the other.


Hope this helps.
Thanks.
Shraddha
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Hello lakshya,

I will be glad to help you out with this one.

Choice A very succinctly presents the intended meaning through correct grammar.

Take a close look at Choice C. It uses the adverb previously. This word is used for an event that has taken place in the past. So the action that has already taken place in past, how can we use present perfect tense for that action?

Also active voice construction in Choice A is mush better than passive voice construction in Choice C as active voice constructions are precise (direct)and concise. Active voice structures present the meaning in a better way than passive voice structures.


Hope this helps.
Thanks.
Shraddha
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why option A is not used as subjunctive as "suggest that" is given.