Because of wireless service costs plummeting in the last year, and as

However, according to https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/foru ... 71-30.html, Ron mentioned that WITH + N-Ving also expresses an action happening AT THE SAME TIME as the main action as well.


So, my question is why "the last year" is considered concurrent with "now"?

OA : WITH the cost of wireless service plummeting in the last year and mobile phones becoming increasingly common, many people are now using...

Your understanding is fairly restrictive, and I'm not sure if I would fully endorse it.

But in any event, these things that have happened "in the last year" are continuing to happen -- the cost is still plummeting, and the service is still becoming more common. If you read "with + active participle" in this manner, then this is exactly how you should understand this modifier.

Dear AnthonyRitz,

I agree with you above.
But then we have no solid reasons to reject choice E. because WHILE clause and the MAIN clause are both happening at the same time, right?

Mitch said those 2 clauses are not concurrent. I'm confused here.

Something that has gone on for the past year is not "while" something is happening strictly now. But it is ongoing into the present. You're comparing two structures that are not equally burdensome in their requirements. I did suggest above that your understanding of "with + active participle" seems a bit too restrictive to me. Ongoing into the present seems fine there. But it doesn't work to say something going on over the past year is/was "while" something is happening just now.

As a bonus, this "while" could be read as "although," creating ambiguity and further illogic (these are not contrasting ideas).

I read "while" in E to mean "although", and not "at the same that", in part because "while" in E replaces "because" in A, so I expect each answer to somehow express a logical connection between the first clause and the second. The verb tenses in E also make that the only reasonable way to interpret "while". Then E becomes wrong because it makes no sense -- it doesn't make sense to say "although phones are cheaper, people are making more calls". You'd want to say something that means the opposite, something more like "because phones are cheaper, people are making more calls".

This amplifies the point Anthony made above, that learning specific rules is often a really restrictive way to approach SC. Simple English words like "while" almost always have multiple uses and multiple meanings. "While" can mean "at the same time as", and then naturally you'd normally (though not always) need matching verb tenses, because you usually need matching verb tenses when two things are happening simultaneously. But "while" has other meanings, and when it means "although" or "whereas", you do not need matching verb tenses. The point is, there's no English "rule" about the verb tenses you can use with the word "while". We choose our verb tenses because of the meaning we're trying to convey. "While" sometimes requires matching verb tenses because it sometimes means two things are happening at the same time.

is the usage of "with" in D correct?

With the Sales declining, CEO announced...
This is wrong usage of with sales declining is a separate event and the ceo has nothing to do with it.
Similarly in choice D, the cost of wireless is a separate event and many people have nothing to do with it.

If someone could help.

I don't think either of these is wrong. Who says I cannot say, "With sales declining, the CEO announced..."?

I am not quiet sure but from what I could read about the usage of with, the doer has to be the same for both actions.

https://magoosh.com/gmat/verbal/sentenc ... orrection/

Here is another question in which the usage of with is wrong because the doer of the with action is different, as explained by senior gmatclub members,
https://gmatclub.com/forum/with-the-mud ... l#p1665019

I would love to be corrected and finally know how to go about the usages of with.

Ah, I see. I don't fully agree with the rationale of Mike's post, even though I respect Mike a ton. The "with" modifier certainly requires a degree of logical relation, but I don't think you can fully rely on a "same actor" rule, and this official question pretty well establishes my point on the matter.

Here's another example regarded as correct by the New York Times:

"With the prevalence of fierce bidding wars for apartments in Manhattan, homes that get poached within a day of the open house, and interest rates that keep inching up, a buyer could become so frustrated by hunting for real estate in the [area] that he or she might just decide to give up."

As for the sentence in question in this thread, "many people" could, in some loose sense, "have" plummeting wireless service costs and increasingly common mobile phones. That's good enough for me.

I choose E because:
As the cost is reducing and mobile phones are becoming common, people are using more and more calls .
It indicates action can happen simultaneously in loose sense, so presence of while is not un-justified
Grammatically also I didn’t find any issue , while IC, IC(independent clause)

D. I rejected D
When I read ,it sounds like:
many people are now using their mobile phones, With the cost of wireless service plummeting xx
it sounds horrible to me as people are not using mobile with cost of wirless plumeeting xx
so I rejected D


Could you please advise whats wrong if we assume: while ( happening at same time duration ) and with ( with the cost) as explained above.

Thanks!

AndrewN EMPOWERgmatVerbal AjiteshArun GMATNinja

Hi imSKR,

I don't think I've understood your question, but we can take option E out because it appears to be introducing a contrast (while X, Y). That is not the intended meaning of the sentence.

i edited the question for better clarity.
Question1: why do not we take while happening at same time rather than contrast in E
Question2: Why do we not take meaning as: with xx, many people using ( sounds wrong that many people using mobile phones, with the cost xx) in D

Thanks!

Hello, imSKR. There are two issues with interpreting while in choice (E) as as, the first of which AjiteshArun has already pointed out: there is no way you can disprove the reading that while indicates a contrast instead. The second is more subtle, but even if you replace while with as, you can still see that a second verb is missing in the latter portion of the sentence that would qualify it as a parallel element to the first:

As the cost of wireless service has plummeted in the last year and mobile phones are increasingly common, many people are...

Tease out what this as is saying: 1) As the cost has plummeted and 2) as mobile phones are common. What? The second as reads more like a since. We need to insert another verb for the second part to work: as mobile phones are growing increasingly common. Now the second part better fits our interpretation.

With all of this said, the first point above, that while can be interpreted as although, still holds. The point of this exercise was to show you that even if you choose to interpret while as as, you still have a problem.

I hope that helps. Thank you for calling my attention to the question.

- Andrew

Hi could someone explain how is the parallelism working in option D
I eliminated D cause I felt that "Mobile phones becoming" is not parallels to "cost of service plummeting".
Would request some expert to help me understand what am I missing

What's happening to the cost of wireless service? It is plummeting

What's happening to mobile phones? They are becoming increasingly common.

So, these phrases are indeed parallel Vivek. What specific doubt do you have?

Hi mikemcgarry sir,

Tagging you for further guidance on OA - D; As per one of your articles, structure with + [noun] + [participle] can be tested if the sentence makes sense without the participle phrase, just “with” + [noun].

Link: https://magoosh.com/gmat/with-noun-part ... orrection/

After removing participle in the OA, the sentence will become: With the cost of wireless service and mobile phones, many people are now using their mobile phones to make calls across a wide region at night and on weekends, when numerous wireless companies provide unlimited airtime for a relatively small monthly fee.

This, in my understanding, doesn't convey the original meaning. Could you please look into the same & guide?

Regards
Rohit

Why "using" is not a verb of "people" in (B)?