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Added to the increase in hourly wages requested last July, the railroa 21 Sep 2019, 13:02
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A) Added to the increase in hourly wages requested last July, the railroad employees are now seeking an expanded program of retirement benefits. - incorrect modifier
(B) Added to the increase in hourly wages which had been requested last July, the employees of the railroad are now seeking an expanded program of retirement benefits. - incorrect modifier
(C) The railroad employees are now seeking an expanded program of retirement benefits added to the increase in hourly wages that were requested last July. - awkward
(D) In addition to the increase in hourly wages that were requested last July, the railroad employees are now seeking an expanded program of retirement benefits. were is incorrect as it is referring to the singular 'increase'
(E) In addition to the increase in hourly wages requested last July, the employees of the railroad are now seeking an expanded program of retirement benefits- correct
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wild_desperado
Added to the increase in hourly wages requested last July, the railroad employees are now seeking an expanded program of retirement benefits.


(A) Added to the increase in hourly wages requested last July, the railroad employees are now seeking an expanded program of retirement benefits.

(B) Added to the increase in hourly wages which had been requested last July, the employees of the railroad are now seeking an expanded program of retirement benefits.

(C) The railroad employees are now seeking an expanded program of retirement benefits added to the increase in hourly wages that were requested last July.

(D) In addition to the increase in hourly wages that were requested last July, the railroad employees are now seeking an expanded program of retirement benefits.

(E) In addition to the increase in hourly wages requested last July, the employees of the railroad are now seeking an expanded program of retirement benefits.

SC01561.01
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Official Explanation

Logical predication; Agreement

The phrase Added to the increase in hourly wages . . .
modifies what immediately follows the comma, the railroad employees. This would mean that the railroad employees themselves are being added to the increase in hourly wages, which is absurd.

The idea the sentence is intended to convey is that the railroad employees are now seeking to have an expanded program of retirement benefits added to the increase in hourly earnings requested last July.

The correct answer will be the choice that most clearly, idiomatically, and grammatically expresses this idea.

A. As indicated above, the phrase added to the increase in hourly wages requested last July . . . incorrectly modifies the railroad employees.

B. The phrase Added to the increase in hourly wages which had been requested last July modifies the railroad employees, which is not what is intended.

C. Unlike the prior two choices, this choice does not make any modification errors. However, seeking an expanded program . . . added is not correct; seeking to have an expanded program . . . added would be acceptable. In the other answer choices, seeking most nearly means trying to acquire. In this choice, however, because it is used in conjunction with another verb (added), seeking most nearly means trying. When used in this sense, seeking should be followed by an infinitive.

D. Like C, but unlike A and B, this choice does not have any modification errors. However, it has an agreement flaw: the noun the increase in hourly wages is singular, so the verb must be was requested rather than were requested.

E. Correct. This version clearly and correctly conveys the intended idea.

The correct answer is E.
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Added to the increase in hourly wages requested last July, the railroa 24 Sep 2019, 03:36
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Let's compare (D) and (E)

hazelnut
SC01561.01

D. In addition to the increase in hourly wages that were requested last July, the railroad employees are now seeking an expanded program of retirement benefits.

E. In addition to the increase in hourly wages requested last July, the employees of the railroad are now seeking an expanded program of retirement benefits.
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The only two differences are that (D) includes "that were" and (E) uses "the employees of the railroad."

Both (D) and (E) make sense logically, but there is a subtle subject/verb agreement error in (D).

Is plural verb "were" correct?

What if we changed the prepositional phrase? To something like "money" or "pay" rather than "hourly wages."

hazelnut
D. In addition to the increase in pay that were requested last July...
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Ahh, now that makes it more clear! We need the singular verb was.

Or, in the case of (E), we avoid the that were/was debate altogether. Tough question.
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Hi GMATExperts

Please enlighten me,

1) Option A has modifier issue as Added to the increase in hourly supply Can not modify Employees
2) Same error and use of Had
3) Chose this Option
4) In addition to increase hourly wages can not modify Employee
5) Same as 4

Here is an official Example which is causing me irritation ,

In addition to her work on the Miocene hominid fossil record, Mary Leakey contributed to archaeology with her discovery of the earliest direct evidence of hominid activity and painstakingly documenting East African cave paintings.


(A) Leakey contributed to archaeology with her discovery of the earliest direct evidence of hominid activity and painstakingly documenting

(B) Leakey contributed to archaeology by her discovery of the earliest direct evidence of hominid activity and by painstakingly documenting

(C) Leakey was a contributor to archaeology with her discovery of the earliest direct evidence of hominid activity and with her painstaking documentation of

(D) Leakey’s contributions to archaeology include her discovery of the earliest direct evidence of hominid activity and her painstaking documentation of

(E) Leakey’s contributions to archaeology include her discovering the earliest direct evidence of hominid activity and painstaking documentation of

OA: D
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Added to the increase in hourly wages requested last July, the railroa 24 Sep 2019, 05:31
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LoneSurvivor
Hi GMATExperts

Please enlighten me,

1) Option A has modifier issue as Added to the increase in hourly supply Can not modify Employees
2) Same error and use of Had
3) Chose this Option
4) In addition to increase hourly wages can not modify Employee
5) Same as 4
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This is a tough question to digest IMO.

(D) and (E) can not be eliminated due to the modifier error you are describing. The "in addition to" prepositional phrase is not the same as the modifier phrase in (A) and (B).

Imagine the sentence were something more simple, like below:

"In addition to the request for higher compensation, the employees are now requesting more paid time off."

There's nothing wrong with the above sentence.

Hope this helps.
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None of the choices in this question are very good. So, we have to choose from a group of flawed choices the one that is the most effective.

hazelnut
Added to the increase in hourly wages requested last July, the railroad employees are now seeking an expanded program of retirement benefits.

A. Added to the increase in hourly wages requested last July, the railroad employees are now seeking an expanded program of retirement benefits.
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This version is illogical because the opening modifier illogically modifies "employees," who would not be added to an increase in wages.

Quote:
B. Added to the increase in hourly wages which had been requested last July, the employees of the railroad are now seeking an expanded program of retirement benefits.
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This version is illogical because the opening modifier illogically modifies "employees," who would not be added to an increase in wages.

Also, in GMAT SC, "which" is used in nonrestrictive modfiers. If a modifier is nonrestrictive, it should be separated from the rest of the sentence by commas, but "which has been ..." is not separated from what precedes it by a comma. This is not a strong decision point, since there is some debate among linguists regarding whether using "which" at the beginning of a restrictive relative clause is acceptable.

Also, the use of the past past perfect "had been requested" does not make sense, since there is no prior past event that the requesting preceded.

Quote:
C. The railroad employees are now seeking an expanded program of retirement benefits added to the increase in hourly wages that were requested last July.
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While a bit awkward, this version could potentially be considered the best of these five flawed choices if it were not for the blatant flaw that the plural "were requested" does not agree with the singular "increase." Wages were not requested. The increase was requested.

Also, "seeking an expanded program of retirement benefits added to the increase in hourly wages" conveys the illogical meaning that the employeess are seeking a program of a specific type of benefits, benefits that are added to the increase. Thus, it does not effectively convey that the employees are seeking to have a program added to the wage increase. So, while this question includes no great version of the sentence, this version is clearly rather illogical.

Quote:
D. In addition to the increase in hourly wages that were requested last July, the railroad employees are now seeking an expanded program of retirement benefits.
Show more
This version isn't great, because the opening modiifier seems to modify "employees," with the result that the sentence seems to convey that the employees are in addition to the increase in hourly wages.

What clearly knocks this choice out is that the plural "were requested" does not agree with the singular "increase." Wages were not requested. The increase was requested.

Quote:
E. In addition to the increase in hourly wages requested last July, the employees of the railroad are now seeking an expanded program of retirement benefits.
Show more
This version isn't great, because the opening modiifier seems to modify "employees," with the result that the sentence seems to convey that the employees are in addition to the increase in hourly wages.

At the same time, none of the other choices are good either.

(B), (C), and (D) are out for sure because of flaws other than the opening modifier issue. So, we have to decide between (E) and (A).

The "added to" opening modifier in (A) is clearly a past participial phrase that has no logical target. Even if "added to ..." were moved to the end of the sentence, where it is in (C), the use of "added to ..." would not make sense.

On the other hand, "in addition to ...," in this version, could be understood to somehow modify what follows, as we can see by considering the fact that, if "in addition to ..." were moved to the end of the sentence, the sentence would work.

So, while (E) isn't great, it's clearly better than the blatantly incorrect (A).

So we choose (E).
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Added to the increase in hourly wages requested last July, the railroa 26 Dec 2019, 16:30
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Hello Everyone!

Let's tackle this question, one thing at a time, and narrow down our options quickly so we know how to answer questions like this when they pop up on the GMAT! To begin, let's take a quick look at the question and highlight any major differences between the options in orange:

Added to the increase in hourly wages requested last July, the railroad employees are now seeking an expanded program of retirement benefits.

(A) Added to the increase in hourly wages requested last July, the railroad employees are now seeking an expanded program of retirement benefits.
(B) Added to the increase in hourly wages which had been requested last July, the employees of the railroad are now seeking an expanded program of retirement benefits.
(C) The railroad employees are now seeking an expanded program of retirement benefits added to the increase in hourly wages that were requested last July.
(D) In addition to the increase in hourly wages that were requested last July, the railroad employees are now seeking an expanded program of retirement benefits.
(E) In addition to the increase in hourly wages requested last July, the employees of the railroad are now seeking an expanded program of retirement benefits.

After a quick glance over the options, there are a couple things we can focus on to narrow down our choices:

1. Where to place the modifier "added to the increase in hourly wages..."
2. Subject/Verb Agreement: requested / had been requested / were requested
3. the railroad employees / the employees of the railroad

Whenever you see an entire sentence underlined, and you also identify a modifier that's in more than one place, it's a good idea to do a quick check to see if the modifier and its antecedent are next to each other:

(A) Added to the increase in hourly wages requested last July, the railroad employees are now seeking an expanded program of retirement benefits.
(B) Added to the increase in hourly wages which had been requested last July, the employees of the railroad are now seeking an expanded program of retirement benefits.
(C) The railroad employees are now seeking an expanded program of retirement benefits added to the increase in hourly wages that were requested last July.
(D) In addition to the increase in hourly wages that were requested last July, the railroad employees are now seeking an expanded program of retirement benefits.
(E) In addition to the increase in hourly wages requested last July, the employees of the railroad are now seeking an expanded program of retirement benefits.

We can eliminate options A & B because their modifiers aren't in the correct place. They're trying to suggest the employees are added to the increase in hourly wages, which doesn't make sense.

Now that we've narrowed it down a bit, let's tackle #2 on our list: subject/verb agreement. In this case, the verb we choose must agree with the subject "increase," which is singular:

(C) The railroad employees are now seeking an expanded program of retirement benefits added to the increase in hourly wages that were requested last July.
(D) In addition to the increase in hourly wages that were requested last July, the railroad employees are now seeking an expanded program of retirement benefits.
(E) In addition to the increase in hourly wages requested last July, the employees of the railroad are now seeking an expanded program of retirement benefits.

We can eliminate options C & D because they use the plural "were," which doesn't match the singular subject "increase."


There you have it - option E is the correct choice because it uses modifiers and subject/verb agreement correctly!

So what about "the railroad employees" vs. "the employees of the railroad?"

They're both okay to use! Some of the more difficult GMAT SC questions will throw in splits that don't matter just to throw you off. Focus on bigger issues like modifiers, verbs, idioms, and the like to find your focus!

Don't study for the GMAT. Train for it.
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Added to the increase in hourly wages requested last July, the railroa 03 May 2020, 10:07
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In my opinion,

That can not modify the noun in the prepositional phrase.

"WERE" is referring to Increase.... which is wrong as it is singular.

Regards,
Rahul



rthothad
I will go with E

D - 'that' is modifying wages but the request cannot be made by 'wages', so IMO a singular verb is required.
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A - Incorrect. Faulty comparison between wages and employees.
B - Incorrect. Faulty comparison too.
C - Incorrect. Plural "were" used instead of singular "was"
D - Incorrect. Plural "were" used instead of singular "was"
E - Correct.
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Added to the increase in hourly wages requested last July, the railroa 14 Jun 2020, 06:34
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KyleWiddison
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I'm confused with the tenses here...suppose if we had following two options

X) In addition to the increase in hourly wages that was requested last July, the railroad employees are now seeking an expanded program of retirement benefits.
Y) In addition to the increase in hourly wages requested last July, the railroad employees are now seeking an expanded program of retirement benefits

Basically requested vs. was requested. Which one is better?

Actually, this isn't a verb tense issue, it's verb voice. Both options are in the past tense but they shift between passive and active voice: was requested (passive) and requested (active). The GMAT doesn't seem to have a preference between the two, so either one would be fine.

KW
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Hi, I didn't eliminate D as I thought 'requested' is a subjunctive verb. Obviously I was wrong. Could you explain what is the gap in my understanding?
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Added to the increase in hourly wages requested last July, the railroa 15 Jun 2020, 08:17
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[quote="wild_desperado"]Added to the increase in hourly wages requested last July, the railroad employees are now seeking an expanded program of retirement benefits.


(A) Added to the increase in hourly wages requested last July, the railroad employees are now seeking an expanded program of retirement benefits.

(B) Added to the increase in hourly wages which had been requested last July, the employees of the railroad are now seeking an expanded program of retirement benefits.

(C) The railroad employees are now seeking an expanded program of retirement benefits added to the increase in hourly wages that were requested last July.

(D) In addition to the increase in hourly wages that were requested last July, the railroad employees are now seeking an expanded program of retirement benefits.

(E) In addition to the increase in hourly wages requested last July, the employees of the railroad are now seeking an expanded program of retirement benefits.

*************************************************************
(A) Modifier error (Sentence before comma not talking about railroad employees
(B) Same as (A)
(C) Requirement added to hourly benefit or in addition to
(D) That modifies wages , only specific wages were requested. I do not think so.
(E) Correct
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Added to the increase in hourly wages requested last July, the railroa 18 Jul 2020, 22:30
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Sentence Analysis



The sentence intends to say that the railroad employees are seeking retirement benefits on top of the increase in hourly wages.

The problem with the sentence is that the verb-ed modifier “added” modifies the main subject “the railroad employees”, leading to a nonsensical meaning that the employees are added to the increase in hourly wages.

Option Analysis

A. Added to the increase in hourly wages requested last July, the railroad employees are now seeking an expanded program of retirement benefits.
Incorrect.For the reason mentioned above.

B. Added to the increase in hourly wages which had been requested last July, the employees of the railroad are now seeking an expanded program of retirement benefits.
Incorrect.This option has the same error as option A has. In addition, the use of past perfect tense ‘had been requested’ is not correct since there is no other past event.

C. The railroad employees are now seeking an expanded program of retirement benefits added to the increase in hourly wages that were requested last July.
Incorrect.There are two errors in this option:
  • The structure of this sentence is: The employees are now seeking x added to y. The only sense this construction makes is that the employees are demanding that x be added to y. (Not that they be given x in addition to y). A correct way to frame this sentence is: the employees are now seeking x, in addition to y.
  • The plural verb “were” is incorrect for the singular subject “increase”. If you think ‘that’ refers to ‘hourly wages’, you are not seeing the illogical meaning such reference would lead to. Such a reference would mean that the employees requested hourly wages last July. Were they not getting hourly wages before that? Were they working for free till then?

D. In addition to the increase in hourly wages that were requested last July, the railroad employees are now seeking an expanded program of retirement benefits.
Incorrect.This option repeats the second error of option C.

E. In addition to the increase in hourly wages requested last July, the employees of the railroad are now seeking an expanded program of retirement benefits.
Correct.
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Added to the increase in hourly wages requested last July, the railroa 06 Sep 2020, 02:48
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Hello TheGMATCo,
Isn't "requested" in E, referring to wages and produces the same illogical meaning as you mentioned it in C?
What am I missing here? Please help
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Hello GMATNinja sir,
Can you please give option-wise analysis like you did for other questions because I am not understanding as to how the beginning phrase is not modifying the subject?
Thank you in advance.
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Added to the increase in hourly wages requested last July, the railroa 25 Sep 2020, 19:47
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Added to the increase in hourly wages requested last July, the railroad employees are now seeking an expanded program of retirement benefits.

Meaning: Railroad employee requested an increase in hourly wages last July. In addition to that, they are now seeking an expanded program of retirement benefits.

(A) Added to the increase in hourly wages requested last July, the railroad employees are now seeking an expanded program of retirement benefits. railroad employee could not be added to the increase in wages

(B) Added to the increase in hourly wages which had been requested last July, the employees of the railroad are now seeking an expanded program of retirement benefits. railroad employee could not be added to the increase in wages

(C) The railroad employees are now seeking an expanded program of retirement benefits added to the increase in hourly wages that were requested last July. That should refer to "the increase", so singular verb should be used

(D) In addition to the increase in hourly wages that were requested last July, the railroad employees are now seeking an expanded program of retirement benefits. That should refer to "the increase", so singular verb should be used

(E) In addition to the increase in hourly wages requested last July, the employees of the railroad are now seeking an expanded program of retirement benefits. Not bad. "In addition to" modify the verb "seeking"
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Added to the increase in hourly wages requested last July, the railroa 07 Apr 2021, 11:05
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riteshgupta1
I will go with D on this..

(A) Added to the increase in hourly wages requested last July, the railroad employees are now seeking an expanded program of retirement benefits.

- Out. Seems to indicate that railroad employees added to the increase.

(B) Added to the increase in hourly wages which had been requested last July, the employees of the railroad are now seeking an expanded program of retirement benefits.
- Out. Same problem as A

(C) The railroad employees are now seeking an expanded program of retirement benefits added to the increase in hourly wages that were requested last July.

- Bad construction

(D) In addition to the increase in hourly wages that were requested last July, the railroad employees are now seeking an expanded program of retirement benefits

I will stick with D.

(E) In addition to the increase in hourly wages requested last July, the employees of the railroad are now seeking an expanded program of retirement benefits.
- Nothing is wrong here but "the employees of the railroad" does not make sense.
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D to be right should be "increases in hourly wages that were requested", because were requested modifies hourly wages. The intending meaning of this sentence is to say that increases in wages were requested.
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Added to the increase in hourly wages requested last July, the railroa 13 Sep 2021, 21:27
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You've done a great job guys! To summarize the issues in each answer...

Added to the increase in hourly wages requested last July, the railroad employees are now seeking an expanded program of retirement benefits.

(A) Added to the increase in hourly wages requested last July, the railroad employees are now seeking an expanded program of retirement benefits.
Always try to understand what the very first word or couple of words in the sentence are doing. "Added" is a past participle (V3), which is a descriptive word, like an adjective. So we are opening the sentence with a subject modifier that suggests that the subject of the sentence is the thing that was "added". But our subject is employees, and employees were not "added" to anything, so we can stop reading here.

(B) Added to the increase in hourly wages which had been requested last July, the employees of the railroad are now seeking an expanded program of retirement benefits.
Same subject-modifier problem as in A. ALSO, NOTE: There is no comma before the "which"!! "Which" must be preceded by a comma. The only exception is when you have a preposition+which (ex. to which, from which, by which, with which...etc.) This is the ONLY time "which" does not need to be be preceded by a comma.

(C) The railroad employees are now seeking an expanded program of retirement benefits added to the increase in hourly wages that were requested last July.
"program of retirement benefits added" indicates that the program really was added. Similarly "a cake baked on Sunday" is a cake that really was baked. But the program was not added; it was sought.

Also, the relative clause "that were requested" should refer to the increase (singular) that was requested.

(D) In addition to the increase in hourly wages that were requested last July, the railroad employees are now seeking an expanded program of retirement benefits.
The relative clause "that were requested" should refer to the increase (singular) that was requested.

(E) In addition to the increase in hourly wages requested last July, the employees of the railroad are now seeking an expanded program of retirement benefits.

"The increase... requested (V3)" is correct. The play between "employees of the railroad" and "railroad employees" in D is there only to distract you from the major issues.
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When I see "in addition to" I assume there is something parallel in the sentence. Can I assume that "In addition to INCREASE....., the EMPLOYEES...."- here INCREASE and EMPLOYEES seems paralel. That why I hesitated to choose (E).
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Added to the increase in hourly wages requested last July, the railroa 02 Jan 2022, 22:46
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What role is the highlighted part playing in the sentence? Is it adverbial phrase ?

(E) In addition to the increase in hourly wages requested last July, the employees of the railroad are now seeking an expanded program of retirement benefits.
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Namangupta1997
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Added to the increase in hourly wages requested last July, the railroa 15 Mar 2022, 02:30
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As suggested by the above comments, there is a misplaced modifier in A. But in he correct answer E, there is still misplacement of the modifier, as "in addition " seems to be incorrectly modifying "employees".

What am I missing ?
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Added to the increase in hourly wages requested last July, the railroa 15 Mar 2022, 06:22
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Namangupta1997
As suggested by the above comments, there is a misplaced modifier in A. But in he correct answer E, there is still misplacement of the modifier, as "in addition " seems to be incorrectly modifying "employees".
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All modifiers are not the same Naman.

There are various types of modifiers, and each modifier is rather unique in terms of what it can or cannot modify.

For example:

i) Adjectives can only modify Nouns

ii) Adverbs can modify verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs

iii) Prepositional phrases can act as adjectives or as adverbs (depending upon the intended meaning and the location of the Prepositional phrase)

iv) Participial phrases generally act as adjectives (and hence, will modify nouns)

v) Relative clauses always act as adjectives (and hence, will modify nouns)

etc.

"Added to...." is a participial phrase and such participial phrases, when used at the beginning of a clause/sentence, generally modify the subject of the clause. Hence, "Added to..." in the original sentence modifies "the railroad employees" (nonsensically in this case).

"In addition to..." is a Prepositional phrase. Prepositional phrases, when used at the beginning of a clause/sentence, generally are adverbial modifiers, and hence, this Prepositional phrase will not modify the Noun "the employees".
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