As business grows more complex, students majoring in specialized areas

Question

As business grows more complex, students  majoring in specialized areas like those of finance and marketing have been becoming increasingly  successful in the job market.

(A) majoring in specialized areas like those of finance and marketing have been becoming increasingly

(B) who major in such specialized areas as finance and marketing are becoming more and more

(C) who majored in specialized areas such as those of finance and marketing are being increasingly

(D) who major in specialized areas like those of finance and marketing have been becoming more and more

(E) having majored in such specialized areas as finance and marketing are being increasingly

nick0203 · Answer

The stimulus talks of specialized areas and those areas should be described as ‘areas such as’ or 'such areas as'. Use of 'like' is wrong to denote examples; it is usable only for comparisons. So A and D are out. 
Among B, C and E: 
C is wrong in using past tense ‘who majored’, because use of past tense implies that success belongs only to those who majored in the past and not relevant to present day majors. 
E by using the perfect tense limits the success to those who have majored in the past until now and excludes the likely entrants in the present and in the future. 
B conveys the idea that popularity of those students is increasing day by day. ‘As business grows’ indicates an on-going process; the second leg maintains parallelism by saying ’are becoming successful...’

MartyTargetTestPrep · Answer

Finance and marketing are areas. So, "those" is redundant.

With "those" in the sentence, we have the following:

majoring in specialized areas like those of finance and marketing have been becoming increasingly

The structure of the above is similar to the following:

majoring in specialized areas like the areas of this area and this other area have been becoming increasingly

energetics · Answer

As business grows more complex, (Subj) students  majoring in specialized areas  like  those of finance and marketing (V) have been becoming increasingly  (Mod) successful ...

1. Verb tense 
(A) majoring in specialized areas like those of finance and marketing  have been becoming  increasingly
(D) who major in specialized areas like those of finance and marketing  have been becoming  more and more
Use of present perfect progressive doesn't make sense when "business grows" is in simple present. It makes it seem like they have stopped becoming successful as business grows.

(B) who major in such specialized areas as finance and marketing  are becoming  more and more
Simple present to present progressive, OK

(C) who  majored  in specialized areas such as those of finance and marketing  are being  increasingly
simple present "Business grows" to simple past "who majored" back to present progressive "are being" doesn't make sense

(E)  having majored  in such specialized areas as finance and marketing  are being  increasingly
Present perfect doesn't make sense, why would ONLY those who majored in the past be successful as business grows.

deep31993 · Answer

I rejected B because it uses the construction - such X as Y. It didnt sound intuitive to me. Is this the correct idiom? @VeritasPrep  GMATNinja .

RafiqueMunna · Answer

'Having majored' and ' increasingly' incorrect 
But, why? 
Experts opinion needed.

Posted from my mobile device

SDW2 · Answer

In D- apart from the error of "like those of..", is "have been becoming" an error too? If yes then how does the meaning changes because of the use of "have been becoming" in this option?

GMATNinja · Answer

Yup, this construction is totally fine! There's absolutely no reason why we can't separate "such" from "as."

For more examples, check out  this  question and  this  question and  this question .

I hope that helps!

GMATNinja · Answer

Here's (E) in full:
 
"Having majored" indicates that only students who majored in finance/marketing/etc  in the past  will be successful in the job market. That doesn't quite fit with the beginning of the sentence: "As business grows more complex...". Instead, it makes more sense to say that students who major in these areas  now and in the future  are becoming more successful as business grows more complex.

There's really not a major issue with the word "increasingly" in this sentence -- not every split makes a certain answer choice right and another one wrong! The answer choices that include "increasingly" can be eliminated for other reasons, so there's no need to worry about that specific split.

I hope that helps!

GMATNinja · Answer

"Those of" is the clearest error in (D), but yes -- "have been becoming" is not great either. Check out  this  post for an explanation of this issue.

TargetMBA007 · Answer

Guys,
I dropped B due to the use of "More and more" which sounded wordy. It was obviously not the right choice, as B is the OA, but I wonder, if in general "more and more" is considered wordy?

GMATNinja · Answer

GMAT SC is all about priorities, and "wordiness" should be a  very low  priority as you eliminate answer choices. There are a couple of reasons for this:

1) Wordiness is a bit subjective, and you risk eliminating a correct answer that YOU think is wordy, but the GMAT thinks is fine. 
2) If you focus on something squishy like wordiness, you might miss out on much more glaring issues with the grammar or meaning of the sentence.

Overall, it's best to narrow your focus to definite errors and meaning issues first, and then ONLY if all else fails do you have to consider wordiness as a reason to eliminate an answer choice. For this question, there are high-priority grammar errors in (A), (C), and (D) ("like" is incorrect in (A) and (D), "those of" is incorrect in (C)). (E) distorts the meaning of the sentence as described in  this  post.

So, while "more and more" might not be a phrase that you or I would choose to put in this sentence, (B) is the only option left. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter whether "more and more" would generally be considered wordy -- it is a low-priority reason to eliminate an answer choice, and here it doesn't come into play at all.

For more on this overall approach to SC, check out  this  article.

I hope that helps!

sam12rawat · Answer

Nevernevergiveup  Hi, I read your explanation and understood all the points, although my doubt is regarding "more and more" used in answer choice B. Wouldn't this phrase be considered redundant on the gmat? I thought this would be considered colloquial English. Kindly guide me where I might be wrong here so that I can understand better. Thank you.

brianmontanaweb · Answer

A uses "have been becoming" when the sentence is about present.

C and E incorrectly use "being increasingly successful", which is an awkward phrase.

D has the same issue as A but with more words.

B is the most correct because the option uses the correct tense "are becoming"

krndatta · Answer

KarishmaB  Ma'am,

I wanted to understand the meaning of tenses used here. 
In this question stem the non-underlined part of the sentence is in simple present tense, so we should use the same tense. Hence, the usage of present perfect tense is incorrect here. Right? 
Now the meaning conveyed in the options that use present perfect tense is that business is growing complex today, but the students had been majoring much earlier than that. The original meaning is that as the business grows complex, the students who are majoring in the present will be successful in the job market. Not students who majored in the past or who have been majoring before the current time.

Does my reasoning make sense? 
Please evaluate and share your two cents.

KarishmaB · Answer

The sentence conveys an ongoing process of cause and effect. 
As business grows more complex, students who major in finance are becoming more and more successful.

We do not use present perfect because the success is not limited to students who majored in the past up till now. It is an ongoing process so those who major in the future too will benefit. Hence we say "students who major in ..."
This is the same reason we don't use present perfect continuous 'have been becoming...' It doesn't give the sense of a process which will continue in the future too.

woohoo921 · Answer

egmat Is there a preference between "students majoring" vs. "students who major"? The correct answer choice obviously has "students who major" but "students majoring" is simpler. I did not see this split mentioned. Thank you

egmat · Answer

Hey  woohoo921

Thank you for the question.

Yes,  there is indeed a difference between "students majoring" and "students who major" . Allow me to explain:

The verb-ing modifier "majoring" is essentially rooted in the present continuous tense, hence the name "present participle". It  generally  refers to actions in continuity, even though there are other applications as well. So, in itself, the phrase 'students majoring' also hints at  students currently pursuing a certain major  (finance and marketing). For example:

a. Students majoring in Finance and Marketing have placement drives in December this year. (A more appropriate use of the verb-ing modifier)

However, as per the context of the official question, we're talking about the success of business school students in the job market after graduation and not during college.

Choice B: As business grows more complex, students who major in such specialized areas as finance and marketing  are becoming more and more successful in the job market .

This means we're talking about the successful careers of students who specialize in finance and marketing. In order to describe such students, we need to use the simple present tense "who major" to indicate that we're referring to  students who graduate with majors in finance and marketing .

So, yes, "students who major" is certainly better than "students majoring".

I hope this helps improve your understanding of verb-ing modifiers and simple present tense verbs.

Happy Learning!

Abhishek

Sneha2021 · Answer

Hi  KarishmaB

(E) having majored in such specialized areas as finance and marketing are being increasingly
Why E is incorrect?

Having majored..., students are being increasingly conveys a logical meaning. Why it is incorrect then?

Is the usage of "Are being" correct in this sentence?

Thank you!

KarishmaB · Answer

It doesn't show continuity. We are using perfect participle here "having majored ...". It shows that an event happened before another.
Students majored in these areas and are now becoming increasingly successful.

But what about those students who are majoring now and will major in the future?

'As business grows more complex' - simple present shows continuity and that is what the main clause should show too. 'As A happens, B happens'

Also, I don't like the use of 'being' here. It shows a temporary state e.g. 'He is being over sensitive' (normally he isn't)
So 'becoming successful' is better than 'being successful'

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As business grows more complex, students majoring in specialized areas

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As business grows more complex, students majoring in specialized areas

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