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555-605 Level|   Idioms/Diction/Redundancy|   Parallelism|   Verb Tense/Form|                        
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At the end of 2001, motion picture industry representatives said that 04 Jul 2018, 09:53
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I have a doubt regarding option E . comma with and ( ,and ) should present an Independent clause . Hpwever in option E , the sentence goes " ,and that they ..... widely available"
Is this to be considered a Independent clause with a relative pronoun "that"
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At the end of 2001, motion picture industry representatives said that 04 Jul 2018, 11:13
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gmat4

Because you have not a comma before 'and.' When you create another IC in a two-part sentence, then a comma is customary to indicate that a new IC is being made.

In the second, you might see that there is no IC after ' and.'
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At the end of 2001, motion picture industry representatives said that 04 Jul 2018, 22:59
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Is first sentence wrong?

1. I want to say that India is a great country and I love this country .

2. I want to say that India is a great country and that I love this country .
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Hi Varun, in regards to repetition of that, you might want to refer to my detailed response here.
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At the end of 2001, motion picture industry representatives said that Updated on: 29 Jan 2022, 16:35
Originally posted by DmitryFarber on 27 Feb 2019, 23:57.
Last edited by DmitryFarber on 29 Jan 2022, 16:35, edited 1 time in total.
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It's not an absolute rule that ", and" must introduce an independent clause. The GMAT will often throw an extra comma or two into a sentence in an attempt to improve clarity. For instance, see my comments on this one: https://gmatclub.com/forum/covering-71- ... s#p2233836
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At the end of 2001, motion picture industry representatives said that 04 Apr 2019, 01:12
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DmitryFarber AjiteshArun
Can you please brief why the use of would is wrong in D ?
I got the intuition that they expect ..... as the high-speed Internet connections will become more widely available
But my intuition is wrong since E don't have would so can you please tell where am I missing
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At the end of 2001, motion picture industry representatives said that 04 Apr 2019, 04:01
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DmitryFarber AjiteshArun
Can you please brief why the use of would is wrong in D ?
I got the intuition that they expect ..... as the high-speed Internet connections will become more widely available
But my intuition is wrong since E don't have would so can you please tell where am I missing
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This sentence tells us what the representatives expected (past) as something happened (also past). For example:

They expect piracy to increase as high-speed Internet connections become more widely available.
We should look at this as a process.

If we take the sentence above and shift it into the past, we get:
They expected piracy to increase as high-speed Internet connections became more widely available.
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At the end of 2001, motion picture industry representatives said that 29 Jun 2019, 16:10
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D isn't saying "expected of." Rather, it's saying they expected the increase. What increase? The increase of piracy. So the "of" part isn't wrong at all. However, "the increase" implies that there has already been an increase, and they expected it in advance. Compare this to something like "Kim predicted the broad industry downturn that reversed Company X's fortunes in 2012." There was an actual downturn, and when it happened, Kim had already predicted it. For something that has not happened (and may not happen), using the definite article ("the") is not appropriate.

As for "would," this is used either for a hypothetical--"IF x happened, y WOULD happen"--or as the past tense of "will" ("I will go to your party." "Dmitry said he would go to my party.") Let's consider each:

We're dealing with a simple prediction--high-speed connections WILL become more available and so piracy WILL increase--so the hypothetical "would" is not appropriate.

Now to determine if we want the past tense of "will," let's see how we'd say this in present tense:

Motion picture reps say that there are copies online, and that they expect piracy to increase as high-speed connections become more available.

Notice that our modifier ("as . . . available") stays in present tense. Since "as" in this context basically means "while" or "during a time in which," it's not appropriate to say "as connections WILL become more available." For that reason, when we switch the whole sentence to past tense, this modifier switches to past tense, too, and we don't use WOULD.
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At the end of 2001, motion picture industry representatives said that 04 Jul 2019, 10:06
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EducationAisle

Why in correct option E there is a comma before and? The sentence after and is a dependent clause: said that .... and that ....

Thank you
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At the end of 2001, motion picture industry representatives said that 04 Jul 2019, 22:10
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Yeah, but would definitely suggest you to not choose/reject an option based upon the usage of comma (except for run-on sentences).
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At the end of 2001, motion picture industry representatives said that 01 Dec 2019, 01:38
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I searched a lot about this question on the Internet and for the moment the only explanation that seems convincing enough for me:

An error in D that does not rely on idiomatic knowledge:
Generally, an as-clause must serve to modify an ACTION.
It cannot serve to modify a noun or noun phrase.
D: the increase of piracy as high-speed Internet connections would
become
Here, the as-clause in red incorrectly serves to modify not an action but a NOUN phrase (the increase of piracy).

So ELIMINATE D.
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At the end of 2001, motion picture industry representatives said that 01 Dec 2019, 01:39
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Mathisxy No, I'm afraid D can't be redeemed so easily. Wrong answers are usually wrong in several ways. My earlier objection about "expected the increase" would still stand--that usage just doesn't make sense. The use of "would" would also still be wrong. In any case, we can't read "as" as "because" here. We'd need to see in what situation high-speed connections would be expected to increase and bring about this rise in piracy.
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At the end of 2001, motion picture industry representatives said that 10 May 2020, 10:06
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daagh GMATNinja DmitryFarber EducationAisle EMPOWERgmatVerbal

How do we decipher the use of 'as' in this sentence i.e.
1) whether this is talking about simultaneaty of two events - they expected piracy to increase as high-speed Internet connections became more widely available
2) or, whether, this is talking about causality - they expected piracy to increase because high-speed Internet connections became more widely available


Also, will it still be incorrect to say "would become" in the second (causality) case?
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At the end of 2001, motion picture industry representatives said that 06 Jun 2020, 11:51
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daagh GMATNinja DmitryFarber EducationAisle EMPOWERgmatVerbal

How do we decipher the use of 'as' in this sentence i.e.
1) whether this is talking about simultaneaty of two events - they expected piracy to increase as high-speed Internet connections became more widely available
2) or, whether, this is talking about causality - they expected piracy to increase because high-speed Internet connections became more widely available


Also, will it still be incorrect to say "would become" in the second (causality) case?
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This really comes down to tense. The verb "expected" is past tense. If the motion picture industry representatives expected something to happen BECAUSE of something that happened earlier in the past (causality), we would want to use past perfect: "they expected piracy to increase because high-speed Internet connections had become more widely available."

But we have "became" instead of "had become", so the "simultaneity" interpretation makes more sense.
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At the end of 2001, motion picture industry representatives said that 06 Jun 2020, 18:46
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Hello, I am wondering why a comma is in E after "online"; shouldn't everything after a comma and "and" be an independent clause? That they expected... in option E is not. Can someone please explain this? Thank you!
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At the end of 2001, motion picture industry representatives said that 07 Jun 2020, 04:48
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jiaxin
Hello, I am wondering why a comma is in E after "online"; shouldn't everything after a comma and "and" be an independent clause? That they expected... in option E is not. Can someone please explain this? Thank you!
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Hello, jiaxin. Comma rules are surprisingly (and sometimes confusingly) flexible, and I prefer to think of this comma + and in a manner similar to the comma that is inserted between coordinate adjectives (e.g., I hope he lives a healthy, happy life, which could just as easily be written, I hope he lives a happy, healthy life), even though, to be clear, the two components in question in this sentence, the that clauses, are acting as direct objects (nouns) instead of adjectives. Notice that the sentence could just as easily be rewritten with the that clauses transposed:

At the end of 2001, motion picture industry representatives said that they expected piracy to increase as high-speed Internet connections became more widely available, and that there were about a million copies of Hollywood movies available online.

Of course, I think the second part could be modified a bit to add clarity, as in, there were already about a million copies..., but it could stand on its own without being incomprehensible. Further, GMATNinja says the following in a post just above:

As for your second question, a public service announcement: there are almost no hard rules governing comma usage. There are conventions, sure, but ultimately, commas can always be used if a writer feels as though a pause will help clarify the meaning of a sentence. So if you're debating about whether a comma is appropriate, remind yourself of this, and look for other decision points instead.

Finally, I happened to have recently come across another post in this thread, a response by daagh that addresses a similar comma + and + non-IC construct:

May be [sic] it is true that one does not have to use a comma when two short phrases are involved. But when a long modifier is involved, then it might be okay to use a comma. And the point to note here is that, the GMAC isn’t fastidious about comma in general, unless the intended meaning gets distorted. Does the meaning here get distorted because a comma has been used?

Again, to set the record straight, even though we are not dealing with modifiers in this sentence, but with dependent clauses instead, the same sort of admittedly arbitrary "length rule" could be applied. (How many words constitute a long enough phrase/dependent clause to warrant the use of a comma between parallel elements? Four? Five? Eight?)

I hope that helps. I know that studying for this test would be a lot easier without grammatical inconsistencies popping up now and then, but that is the nature of human language in general, organic by design, not programmed and uniform.

Good luck with your studies.

- Andrew
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At the end of 2001, motion picture industry representatives said that 24 Jun 2020, 04:59
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1. Can the "expect" be parallel to "said" ? That is, it is possible that motion pic representatives said ...and expected? What is wrong in that ?
2. Can the ",and" be used to join to 2 entities? As in this case.

My PoE was to eliminate C,D,E as ",and" is used to join 2 things. Should be simple "and".
And out of A & B, I found that expected can be parallel with "said", whereas "expect" is V1 which can't be parallel with anything.

Experts, please help.
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At the end of 2001, motion picture industry representatives said that 24 Jun 2020, 05:20
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Debayandc
1. Can the "expect" be parallel to "said" ? That is, it is possible that motion pic representatives said ...and expected? What is wrong in that ?
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Hi! At the very least, there would a tense issue in that case. Since the sentence is talking about 2001, the correct tense should be simple past (expected).
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At the end of 2001, motion picture industry representatives said that 27 Aug 2020, 08:22
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why ", and that" has been used instead of "and that" in D an E.
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At the end of 2001, motion picture industry representatives said that 28 Aug 2020, 16:09
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pankaj94GMAT
why ", and that" has been used instead of "and that" in D an E.
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The comma just helps organize this lengthy sentence, making it easier for the reader to understand (the GMAT is pretty lenient when it comes to this sort of comma usage -- here's another example).

If a sentence is missing a comma where one is NEEDED (i.e. joining two independent clauses with a conjunction), then the sentence is probably wrong. But if it's just an "extra" comma that helps improve the clarity and that doesn't cause any meaning issues, you should look for other decision points.

Much more on punctuation in this video.

I hope that helps!
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At the end of 2001, motion picture industry representatives said that 01 Nov 2020, 21:23
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copied from Manhatoon:

First glance

The clue here is very subtle. Each answer begins with the same two words (online and) but some choices place a comma between the two and some don’t. Something is going on with the structure of the sentence, which could be overall Sentence Structure or something more specific such as Parallelism or Modifiers. The word and indicates that the issue might be with Sentence Structure or Parallelism.



Issues

(1) Parallelism: X and Y

The original sentence contains this X and Y construction: there were a million copies … and expected piracy to increase.

The Y portion begins with a verb (expected), so the subject needs to come from the X portion. The X portion is an inverted sentence (the subject is placed after the verb), so the subject is a million copies—but it’s illogical to say that the copies expected piracy to increase. Logically, the representatives expected this. But representatives can’t be the subject for the Y portion; the structure of the sentence prohibits this:

Representatives said that there were a million copies … and expected piracy to increase.

This structure is Subject Verb THAT Subject Verb and Verb. In this construction, the first subject-verb pairing, before the word that, is essentially blocked off as its own structure. The and Verb parallelism cannot jump over the word that to go back to the first subject and verb. Answer (B) also has this same construction, so eliminate (A) and (B) for faulty parallelism.

The remaining choices all introduce an appropriate subject for the Y portion: the pronoun they, referring back to the representatives. The parallelism is now correct: representatives said X and Y, where X and Y are complete sentences. Look for another difference among the answers.

(2) Meaning / Verb

You may have noticed another issue in the original sentence. The final portion of the sentence is a bit unclear.

expected piracy to increase with high-speed Internet connections that become more widely available

The logical meaning is that, as high-speed Internet becomes more available, people will find it easier to download stolen content and, therefore, piracy will increase. In other words, one event causes the other.

The original sentence, however, does not actually state any kind of cause-effect relationship. It just says that both things are expected to happen at the same time. You’ve already eliminated choice (A), but check the remaining choices for this same issue.

(C) they expect more piracy to increase with the wider availability …

(D) they expected the increase of piracy as high-speed connections would become more widely available

(E) they expected piracy to increase as high-speed connections became more widely available

Answer (C) does have a meaning problem: more and increase mean the same thing, so it is redundant to use both words. It also uses the same with language as (A) and (B)—in other words, it doesn’t establish a cause-effect relationship. Eliminate (C) for faulty meaning.

Answers (D) and (E) both use as to indicate a cause-effect relationship. There are some other differences, though. First, examine expected the increase of piracy vs. expected piracy to increase. What’s the difference in meaning between She expected the increase of her salary and She expected her salary to increase?

In the first case, her salary already increased in the past (as she expected it to). In the second case, at some point in the past, she thought that her salary was going to increase in the future.

If the expected increase already occurred, as choice (D) says, then it’s not appropriate to say that high-speed connections would become more widely available. They must have already become more widely available in order for the increase in piracy to have occurred. Eliminate choice (D) for illogical meaning.

The Correct Answer

Correct answer (E) employs a parallel structure (representatives said X and Y). It also conveys a clear and logical meaning. The reps expected piracy to increase at some time in the future, after the reps made that statement, and this would occur because (as) high-speed Internet became more widely available.
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