Although the rise in the Producer Price Index was greater than expecte

There is nothing wrong in the original.
We are looking at some CLAUSE after agreed, so agreed THAT abcd is correct.
The portion agreed that x and that y is correct and follows parallelism.
A

I can't understand why a hypothetical situation that is described in the past can simply use "was" and not "would" as a verb? I got confused, though all other answers are definitely wrong.

This question heavily relies on meaning.
While I am unable to tell you all the grammatical quirks, I would encourage everyone to challenge the answer choices on whether they preserve the
original meaning.

Doing so, AC A stands strong.

Regards,
Chris

Hi EMPOWERgmatVerbal


can you kindly share why it should be "remained" and not "remain"

secondly, in option B we have "for the index continuing to go up and for inflation to remain"... is this not parallel as well?

[quote="EMPOWERgmatVerbal"]Hello Everyone!

This is a great example of a GMAT question that focuses on PARALLELISM! Let's start off by doing a quick scan over the options and highlighting any major differences we see in orange:

Although the rise in the Producer Price Index was greater than expected, most analysts agreed that the index was unlikely to continue going up and that inflation remained essentially under control.

A. that the index was unlikely to continue going up and that inflation remained
B. that it was unlikely for the index continuing to go up and for inflation to remain
C. that the index was unlikely to continue to go up, with inflation to remain
D. on the unlikelihood that the index would continue going up and that inflation remained
E. on the unlikelihood that the index would continue to go up and for inflation to remain

After a quick scan over the options, a few key differences jump out:

1. that / on the unlikelihood that
2. continue / continuing / would continue
3. that / for / with
4. remained / to remain

If we look more carefully at the sentence, we can spot what type of question this is:

Although the rise in the Producer Price Index was greater than expected, most analysts agreed that the index was unlikely to continue going up and that inflation remained essentially under control.

When looking at the sentence as a whole, we see that the underlined portion contains the 2 things that analysts agree on - and those 2 things MUST be parallel! Any time you see a grouping of items, parallelism is a good place to start! Let's check each option to ensure the 2 items are parallel:

A. that the index was unlikely to continue going up and that inflation remained --> PARALLEL

B. that it was unlikely for the index continuing to go up and for inflation to remain --> NOT PARALLEL

C. that the index was unlikely to continue to go up, with inflation to remain --> NOT PARALLEL

D. on the unlikelihood that the index would continue going up and that inflation remained --> NOT PARALLEL

E. on the unlikelihood that the index would continue to go up and for inflation to remain --> NOT PARALLEL

There you have it - option A is the only one that uses parallel structure for both items! If you can identify what type of SC question you're dealing with, it is a lot easier to check for common mistakes (parallelism, modifiers, subject-verb agreement, etc.).


How is "Continue" parallel to "Remained" ? They are in different tenses ? Infinitive vs past tense. Kindly help me here.
Thanks in Advance

Hello rnn!

Thank you for your questions. I imagine other people are wondering about these as well! Let's go through them one at a time:

1. The verb should be the past tense "remained" to stay consistent with the non-underlined part of the sentence where it says "was greater than expected" and "most analysts agreed," both of which are also in past tense.

2. No, this is not parallel. When looking at parallelism with phrases or clauses, you need to include the entire clause - not just the parts that sound good:

B. that it was unlikely for the index continuing to go up and for inflation to remain

If the phrase "it was unlikely" wasn't part of this option, then it would be parallel. However, since we're talking about parallel phrases here, we must include both phrases in their entirety. The only other way this could have been parallel would be to say "it was unlikely for the index to continue going up and it was unlikely for inflation to remain."

I hope this clears things up!

Hello muditdadwal!

Thank you for your question! In this sentence, "continue" does not need to be parallel to "remained" because it's not acting as the main verb. It's part of a prepositional phrase, so it doesn't behave like a verb here:

Although the rise in the Producer Price Index was greater than expected, most analysts agreed that the index was unlikely to continue going up and that inflation remained essentially under control.

All the other verbs (in bold) are in past tense, and the two items that the analysts agreed on are written using parallel structure. Therefore, we can narrow down our choices to just option A.

I hope this clears things up!

Do you have a check list of the different types of SC questions? I have covered all material but not sure how to divide SC questions into a check list that I can just tick off mentally each time I see a SC question.

Hello jamalabdullah100!

We actually cover this as part of our Sentence Correct course at EMPOWERgmat! We break down the different types of SC questions that are on the GMAT, and we also break down which ones are the most/least common! You are welcome to head over to our site to learn more!

I hope that helps!

Hello experts,
I'm having an issue with the 2nd part of the parallelism , specifically we know 1) most analysts agreed that the index was unlikely to continue going up and 2) most analysts agreed that inflation remained essentially under control, so inflation is sth tha can be decided at the moment whether it should be reduced or increased ? If not, shouldn't it be "most analysts agreed that inflation will remain" I know that it has been discussed in previous posts , but I still have problem understanding the meaning and structure of the second part

I'm not 100% sure that I'm interpreting your question correctly, but I'll give it a shot. I think this is the heart of it: "... so inflation is sth tha can be decided at the moment whether it should be reduced or increased ?"

• At any moment, analysts can look at inflation trends and decide whether they think inflation is (A) under control (for example, increasing/decreasing moderately--no cause for alarm) or (B) NOT under control (for example, increasing exponentially with no end in sight--a cause for alarm).
• If we were talking about the present, we would say, "Most analysts agree that inflation remains under control." In other words, "Most analysts agree that inflation continues to be under control."
• But since we are talking about the past, we say, "Most analysts agreed that inflation remained under control." In other words, "Most analysts agreed that inflation continued to be under control."

I hope that helps!

GMATNinja first of all thank you for your detailed response and for your time you are really helpful. I now think that the issue that I have in this question is more of grammatical nature rather than meaning as I thought in the beginning , what "sounds" more correct for me is "most analysts agree that inflation will continue to be under control" and "most analysts agreed that inflation would continue to be under control" , the structure "most analysts agree that inflation remains under control " and "most analysts agreed that inflation remained under control" ,confuse me, so I was wondering if you could guide by telling me which grammatical section focuses on this structure so I could study it and fill the gap in knowledge that I have (is it just a part of "tenses" as a whole)?

I don't think there is a particular chunk of content that you need to study. I think the verb "remains" is just tripping you up here. So let's try replacing "remains" with "is":

• (1) "most analysts agree that inflation IS under control" - Analysts in the present agree that inflation is CURRENTLY under control.
• (2) "most analysts agree that inflation WILL BE under control" - Analysts in the present agree that inflation IN THE FUTURE will be under control.
• (3) "most analysts agreed that inflation WAS under control" - Analysts in the PAST agreed that inflation, also in the past, WAS under control.
• (4) "most analysts agreed that inflation WOULD BE under control" - Analysts in the PAST agreed about what WOULD happen with inflation at some later time.

My guess is that you are okay with these four examples. But you have a sense that the verb "to remain" implies that we are talking about what will happen later, as opposed to what is happening right now. But we can certainly use "to remain" in the present tense:

• "The student is calm." - Okay, the student is calm right now.
• "The student remains calm." - Similar meaning, but the use of "remains" implies a degree of continuity: the student CONTINUES TO BE calm.

Now let's look at 4 examples with "to remain" that parallel the 4 examples with "to be" above:

• (1) "most analysts agree that the student REMAINS calm" - Analysts in the present agree that the student CURRENTLY remains calm.
• (2) "most analysts agree that the student WILL REMAIN calm" - Analysts in the present agree that the student IN THE FUTURE will remain calm.
• (3) "most analysts agreed that the student REMAINED calm" - Analysts in the PAST agreed that the student, also in the past, REMAINED calm.
• (4) "most analysts agreed that the student WOULD REMAIN calm" - Analysts in the PAST agreed about what WOULD happen with the student at some later time.

All four examples are okay (though you are understandably more comfortable with #2 and #4), but each conveys a slightly distinct meaning because of the timeline differences.

If you want to suffer through a full hour on how to be intuitive with GMAT SC verb tenses, you could also check out this video.

I hope that helps!

Although the rise in the Producer Price Index was greater than expected, most analysts agreed that the index was unlikely to continue going up and that inflation remained essentially under control.

A. that the index was unlikely to continue going up and that inflation remained
This is correct and resolves all issues discussed below. First, the idiom "unlikely to" is correct. Additionally the second "that" in the second parallel makes the meaning clear and unambiguous. The analysts agreed THAT the index was unlikely to rise AND THAT inflation will remain the same. "xxx agreed THAT X is unlikely and THAT Y." If you don't include the second THAT, the inflation remaining the same would be unlikely, which is illogical to the rest of the sentence.

B. that it was unlikely for the index continuing to go up and for inflation to remain
This is incorrect because it poses a meaning issue. It was unlikely "for X and for Y." The logical meaning is that it was unlikely for the index to rise, but it was not unlikely that inflation was going to remain flat (it's the opposite). Also, the idiom is "unlikely to" not "unlikely for."

C. that the index was unlikely to continue to go up, with inflation to remain
This answer uses a "with" modifier, which modifies the clause before it. This has an ambiguous meaning. Does this mean that stable inflation makes it unlikely to see a rise in the index? Or is it the opposite? The true meaning of the sentence is that most analysts agreed on X and Y, not X, modified by Y. They are two separate things unless otherwise stated clearly.

D. on the unlikelihood that the index would continue going up and that inflation remained
Incorrect. This is a meaning issue. This answer is saying that there is an unlikelihood among analysts' thoughts that "x and y" will happen. The meaning of the sentence should be that it is unlikely the index will rise and that is inflation will remain the same. Both are not unlikely.

E. on the unlikelihood that the index would continue to go up and for inflation to remain
Incorrect. First, there is a parallelism issue as stated in answer choice D. Also, there is an idiom issue. The correct idiom is "unlikelyhood that" not "unlikelyhod for." The first component of the parallel structure uses this idiom correctly, but the second component, relating to inflation, uses the incorrect idiom.

Can someone explain the Parallelism in this question?

Not able to get how is A following parallelism and why C is incorrect

hi GMATNinja

Thanks for this super detailed post. i have a similar pestering question to ask though.

A says "that the index was unlikely to continue going up and that inflation remained"
i do try to be intuitive with SC verb tenses and my intuition (the little voice in my head) says it should be "Although the rise in the Producer Price Index was greater than expected, most analysts agreed that the index was unlikely to continue going up and that inflation WOULD/ WILL remained essentially under control."

I cant wrap my head around A without a "would" or a "will". Could you please correct my understanding?