A typical assertion of politicians who are up for reelection, particul

Question

A typical assertion of politicians who are up for reelection, particularly those embroiled in a battle against worth opposition, are that they are working overtime to help their constituents, even as they spend hours a day campaigning to keep their jobs.

A) are that they are working overtime to help their constituents, even as
C) are their working overtime to help their constituents, and

A) are that they are working overtime to help their constituents, even as
B) is their working overtime to help their constituents, but
C) are their working overtime to help their constituents, and
D) is that they are working overtime to help their constituents, even as
E) is, they are working overtime to help their constituents, but

AshutoshB · Answer

A typical assertion of politicians who are up for reelection, particularly those embroiled in a battle against worth opposition, are that they are working overtime to help their constituents, even as they spend hours a day campaigning to keep their jobs.

After Removing fluff: A typical assertion of P ---are that they are working overtime, even as[/u] they spend hours a day campaigning.

A) are that they are working overtime to help their constituents, even as We need IS because A typical Assertion is SINGULAR

B) is their working overtime to help their constituents, but WRONG ||'ism A typical assertion{Noun} is compared with Working{Simple gerund}

C) are their working overtime to help their constituents, and We need IS because A typical Assertion is SINGULAR

D) is that they are working overtime to help their constituents, even as CORRECT

E) is, they are working overtime to help their constituents, but Misplaced Modifier

DM if you have any queries.I would love to help

Anshurana · Answer

A) are that they are working overtime to help their constituents, even as -   S-V Agreement error "are" is incorrectly referring to assertion   
B) is their working overtime to help their constituents, but -  possessive pronoun their + gerund is a wrong combination in the context , its focusing on politician's  work  and NOT on politician also "But" is used in contrast ,if we see non- underlined line there is no contract the sentence is talking about.  
C) are their working overtime to help their constituents, and -  same error as A and as mentioned in B  
D) is that they are working overtime to help their constituents, even as -  CORRECT  , taking care of above mentioned errors
E) is, they are working overtime to help their constituents, but -  BUT is wrong

Russ19 · Answer

DmitryFarber ,  MentorTutoring ,  GMATNinja , Could you please clarify why B is not an answer and why D is the 
correct answer option?

What is the difference between 'but' and 'even as'? What is the meaning of 'even as' in the context above?

AshutoshB  mentioned ''in option B, A typical assertion{Noun} is compared with Working{Simple gerund}'' Why is it a problem? We know gerund acts as a noun too.

Thanks a lot for the responses!

AndrewN · Answer

Hello,  sjuniv32 . I appreciate the tag, especially given the company. This question took me 24 seconds to answer with  certainty . I mention the time to suggest that on some questions, you may be able to eliminate multiple answer choices almost simultaneously (since they may preserve elements you know to be incorrect), and that regardless of which flaw you may be able to tease out, if you find one in an answer choice, then you should look to other answers to see which one(s) may fix that issue. I will admit that my take on SC questions tends to be much less strict in its grammatical focus than that which is reflected in posts by many other members. I prefer to to combine a solid grammatical foundation with a keen eye on the meaning that is expressed, always looking for weaker iterations (to eliminate) of the same basic sentence. With that said, the following are my thoughts on all five answer choices.

The shell of the original sentence is,  A typical assertion...  are  that , and a clear subject-verb agreement violation is automatic grounds for dismissal. Both (A) and (C) can safely be eliminated. You asked about the role of  even as . You can think of it as  while , an action that is performed at the same time as another, with  even  tacked on for emphasis. The assertion these politicians make is that they are busy working extra hours to help the people they serve while at the same time campaigning so that they, the politicians, do not lose their positions to replacement elected officials.  Even as  conveys the idea well;  and  does not, making it seem as though we are simply getting extra information about politicians, not necessarily that they work tirelessly to do two things at once.

These two are on shaky ground as early as the second item in the underlined portion, where we should be expecting  that  to appear, as in,  assert  that    . But in (B), we get this difficult-to-comprehend  their  instead. Because  working... to help  appears after the pronoun, we may intuitively think of the homonym  they're  instead:  they are working overtime to help their constituents  would at least be defensible. If you want  their working overtime  to be a gerund, you would need to change  to help , as in the following variation:

A typical assertion of politicians who are up for reelection, particularly those embroiled in a battle against worth opposition,  is that their working overtime  helps  their constituents...

However, we have to go by what is presented on the screen, and  their working overtime  +  to help  does not work in this sentence. Even if you missed these points, though, there still exists the problem with  but  at the tail-end of the underlined portion. Like  and  in choice (C),  but  fails to convey concurrent actions, seeming to contrast one action with another instead:  they are working overtime to help their constituents, but they spend hours a day campaigning to keep their jobs .

The problems discussed above have all been addressed, and the sentence is seamless to follow. This is a clearcut winner, both in terms of grammar and meaning.

I hope that helps. If you have further questions, feel free to ask.

- Andrew

A typical assertion of politicians who are up for reelection, particul

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A typical assertion of politicians who are up for reelection, particul

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