This question tests your ability to recognize a Parallel construction and maintain the parallelism of a sentence.

When we see a sentence with the construction "A or B" - we are dealing with parallelism. The items - A and B - must be the same part of speech, logically and grammatically parallel. In other words, if A is a noun, B must be a noun. If A is a verb, B must be a verb, etc.

In the current sentence, we see that the word "or" is used, but the A and B items are not parallel in the original sentence. "By keeping" is wrongly placed in parallelism with a conditional clause "even if they push". For the parallelism to be correct, we need a B item that parallels "by keeping".

This criterion is sufficient for eliminating A, D, and E.

The only answer choices in which "by keeping" is correctly paralleled are B and C ("by keeping "// "by pushing"). However, answer choice B is wordy, unclear and has superfluous words. We don't need "its' or "their" to achieve clarity. Therefore C is the correct answer choice.

I read somewhere (most probably in MGMAT SC Guide) that whenever we have comma - FANBOYS, both the sentences must be ICs.

Over here we have ",or perhaps even by pushing them lower", which is not IC. I am unable to understand where I am getting wrong.

Please guide.
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Because the budget package in Congress promises a combination of higher taxes and reduced spending that may slow economic growth, many in the credit markets wonder whether the Federal Reserve will compensate and help the economy by keeping interest rates low, or perhaps even if they push them lower.

A. by keeping interest rates low, or perhaps even if they push -- parallelism issue , they can't refer to singular Federal reserves
B. by its keeping interest rates low, or perhaps even by their pushing -- parallelism issue , their can't refer to singular Federal reserves
C. by keeping interest rates low, or perhaps even by pushing - Correct
D. through their keeping interest rates low, or perhaps even push -- parallelism issue , their can't refer to singular Federal reserves
E. through their keeping interest rates low, or perhaps it will even push -- parallelism issue , their can't refer to singular Federal reserves

Answer C
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This is a question for beginners, a gift of a topic that can be decided by just a pupil's knowledge of subject-pronoun number agreement. In four out of the five choices except for C, one can't miss the mismatch of the plural pronoun 'they' or 'their' with the singular 'the Fed Reserve'.

More important is that one shouldn't judge GMAT based on this topic.
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I eliminated every option except C because of the usage of plural pronoun.

Answer must be C

Posted from my mobile device

possesive+doing+noun never exist in english
if doing is pure noun, it can be preceded by possessive
this country's learning of english is bad.

First I chose C by parallelism " by keeping... or by pushing... "

Because the budget package in Congress promises a combination of higher taxes and reduced spending that may slow economic growth, many in the credit markets wonder whether the Federal Reserve will compensate and help the economy by keeping interest rates low, or perhaps even by pushing them lower.

But I ended up choosing E. I thought "whether" should require parallelism instead.
"Because the budget package promises bla bla, many .... wonder whether the Fed will compensate ....., OR perhaps it will even push them over."

This was very wrong and bad parallelism. I looked up Whether VS. Whether or not and mcelroytutoring explained it well.

"The "or not" portion of "whether or not" is often unnecessary and can be removed, but sometimes it is essential. Here's the trick: "Whether or not" should be used when one's response is the same, regardless of the outcome. Conversely, "whether" should be used by itself to indicate only that the outcome itself is undetermined.

Think of the expression that children use when playing hide-and-seek: "Ready or not, here I come!" Without the "or not," it would have an entirely different meaning.

For example:

"I am not sure whether or not I can attend" / "I am not sure whether I can attend or not" could be shortened to read "I am not sure whether I can attend". In these cases, the "or not" can be safely removed.

However,

"I will be there whether or not I am prepared" / "I will be there whether I am prepared or not" cannot be shortened to read "I will be there whether I am prepared".


mcelroytutoring post:
https://gmatclub.com/forum/whether-vs-whether-or-not-67367.html

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