By the time Tim appears for the GMAT, he will have completed a minimum

Question

By the time Tim appears for the GMAT,  he will have completed a minimum of eight practice tests, three hundred practice questions, and more than seventy hours spent  browsing through the various GMAT forums.

(A) he will have completed a minimum of eight practice tests, three hundred practice questions, and more than seventy hours spent

(B) he will complete a minimum of eight practice tests, three hundred practice questions, and he will spend more than seventy hours

(C) he would have completed a minimum of eight practice tests and three hundred practice questions, spending more than seventy hours

(D) he would complete a minimum of eight practice tests in addition to completing three hundred practice questions, having spent more than seventy hours

(E) he will have completed a minimum of eight practice tests and three hundred practice questions, and spent more than seventy hours

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szcz · Answer

By the time Tim appears for the GMAT, he will have completed a minimum of eight practice tests, three hundred practice questions, and more than seventy hours spent browsing through the various GMAT forums.

(A) he will have completed a minimum of eight practice tests, three hundred practice questions, and more than seventy hours spent
Incorrect parallelism. "a minimum of more than" does not mean anything.

(B) he will complete a minimum of eight practice tests, three hundred practice questions, and he will spend more than seventy hours
Incoreect parallelism and incorrect tense.

(C) he would have completed a minimum of eight practice tests and three hundred practice questions, spending more than seventy hours
Since we are talking about the future, we require future tense (will) rather than past tense (would).

(D) he would complete a minimum of eight practice tests in addition to completing three hundred practice questions, having spent more than seventy hours
Incorrect parallelism. Also the usage of having in this sentence is incorrect.

(E) he will have completed a minimum of eight practice tests and three hundred practice questions, and spent more than seventy hours
Correct option.

kelly_jacques · Answer

In option E, I am confused as to why you don't have to repeat "have"

Shouldn't it be "He will have completed a minimum of eight practice tests and three hundred practice questions, and HAVE spent more than seventy hours

anish777 · Answer

can you please explain why option E is the correct choice and not option B ?

szcz · Answer

First of all the correct sentence requires "have". Due to the presence of "by the time", we require future perfect tense and not simple future tense. Second, in option B the parallelism is incorrect. "He will complete a minimum of" is common for "eight practice tests" and "three hundred practice questions". But it cannot be common for "he will spend more than seventy hours". Because "He will complete a minimum of he will spend more than seventy hours" makes absolutely no sense. Which is why in option E, the first 2 terms "eight practice tests" and "three hundred practice questions" are seperated by "and". Further "he will have completed" is parallel to "he will have spent", again seperated by another "and".

szcz · Answer

The word "completed" is parallel to the word "spent". Hence, "he will have" will be common for both the words. Adding a "have" is not a necessity. By the same logic, we could add "will have" as well.

P.S. If you like the explanation, a kudos would go a long way.

Karan0912 · Answer

What you are suggesting is optional and not compulsory because even without repeating it, the sentence conveys exacts same meaning. For example, saying I ate Apples and Oranges is same as saying I ate Apples and I ate Oranges.

Karan0912 · Answer

Firstly, Option B has parallelism error since there is no conjunction between the two list item of parallelism ie between 8 Practise tests and 300 practise questions.
Secondly, Option B also has Verb Tense error. He will complete is Simple Future Tense and what we need here is Future Perfect Tense. Just think logically what the sentence is saying. By the time Tim appears for GMAT, he would/will have completed doing the tests and practise questions because only after doing them he would appear for the test..that is the meaning sentence is try to convey... whereas using "he will complete" the sentence is saying that he would complete them in the future at any time. Hope it clarifies.

Bunuel · Answer

Official Explanation:

Answer: E

(A) Since the sentence talks about a completed action in the future, you need to use the future perfect tense ( will have completed ). Another problem with this option is that it does not maintain parallelism by making the last part passive— and more than seventy hours spent —which doesn’t have any meaning.

(B) You require the future perfect tense ( will have completed ) and not the simple future tense ( will complete ). You need an  and  before  three hundred practice questions .

(C) Since we are talking about the future in the present time, the usage of  would  is incorrect.

(D) Same as C. The parallelism is also not maintained.

(E) The correct answer. He  will have completed...and spent  also gets the parallelism right.

vnmrk7788 · Answer

he will have completed ... and spent more than seventy hours browsing...

❌ This creates a tense mismatch:

“will have completed” vs. “spent” — not grammatically parallel.

If it said “will have spent” → fine.

❌ The “spent” here acts as a past tense verb, not a noun phrase like the others.

It implies two separate actions:

He will have completed X and Y

Separately, he spent hours — but the structure requires all three items to be part of what he will have completed.

By the time Tim appears for the GMAT, he will have completed a minimum

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By the time Tim appears for the GMAT, he will have completed a minimum

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