Citing increasing worker mobility between companies, poor financial

Question

Citing increasing worker mobility between companies, poor financial planning by workers, and finding that the plans themselves are excessively complex, the authors of a recent study have found that most eligible American workers had not made the maximum allowed contribution to their employer-offered retirement plans. 
 
(A) Citing increasing worker mobility between companies, poor financial planning by workers, and finding that the plans themselves are excessively complex, the authors of a recent study have found that most eligible American workers had not made the maximum allowed contribution to their employer-offered retirement plans.
 
(B) Increasing worker mobility between companies, poor financial planning on the part of workers, and excess complexity in the plans themselves have been explained by a recent study finding the majority of eligible American workers who do not make the maximum allowed contribution to their employer-offered retirement plans.

(C) Citing increasing worker mobility between companies, poor worker financial planning, and excessively complex plans themselves as possible explanations, a majority of American workers had failed to make the maximum allowed contribution to their employer-offered retirement plans, a recent study has found.

(D) The authors of a recent study, citing increasing worker mobility between companies, poor financial planning by workers, and finding that the plans themselves are excessively complex, have found that most eligible American workers do not make the maximum allowed contribution to their employer-offered retirement plans.
 
(E) A recent study has found that most eligible American workers fail to make the maximum allowed contribution to their employer-offered retirement plans; among the explanations cited are increasing worker mobility between companies, poor financial planning on the workers' part, and excess complexity in the plans themselves.

egmat · Accepted Answer

Hi there

Citing increasing worker mobility between companies, poor financial planning by workers, and finding that the plans themselves are excessively complex, the authors of a recent study have found that most eligible American workers had not made the maximum allowed contribution to their employer-offered retirement plans.

https://e-gmat.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Grammar.png

Error Analysis

1. There are three reasons cited by the “authors” of the study that says that most eligible American workers don’t make the maximum allowed contribution to their employer-offered retirement plans. These three reasons are:
a. increasing worker mobility between companies,
b. poor financial planning by workers, and
c. finding that the plans themselves are excessively complex.
If we study the structure of these three entities carefully, we will find that the first two are noun entities while the last entity is a clause. This structure makes the list un-parallel.

2. Use of part perfect tense “had not made” is incorrect. The study has found out a fact that should be written in simple present tense. There are no two past events in the sentence that we need sequencing.

PoE:

Choice A: Incorrect  for the reasons discussed above.

Choice B:  Increasing worker mobility between companies, poor financial planning on the part of workers, and excess complexity in the plans themselves have been explained by a recent study finding the majority of eligible American workers who do not make the maximum allowed contribution to their employer-offered retirement plans.  Incorrect:  
1. This choice says that three reasons have been explained by a recent study. It seems to suggest that study has explained these three topics. The choice fails to establish these three factors as the reason for most eligible Americans failing to contribute to their employer-offered retirement plans. 
2. The choice also suggests that the study found majority of eligible American workers. This choice distorts the intended meaning.

Choice C:  Citing increasing worker mobility between companies, poor worker financial planning, and excessively complex plans themselves as possible explanations, a majority of American workers had failed to make the maximum allowed contribution to their employer-offered retirement plans, a recent study has found.  Incorrect:  
1. This choice has a modifier error. Verb-ing modifier “citing” is illogically modifying “a majority of American workers”. This modifier should modify “a recent study”.
2. Same verb tense error as in choice A.
3. Two independent clauses have been connected using comma.

Choice D:  The authors of a recent study, citing increasing worker mobility between companies, poor financial planning by workers, and finding that the plans themselves are excessively complex, have found that most eligible American workers do not make the maximum allowed contribution to their employer-offered retirement plans.  Incorrect. 
1. This choice has changed the intended list. Now “citing” and “finding” have become parallel instead of the three reasons cited by the study.
2. The choice is wordy.

Choice E:  A recent study has found that most eligible American workers fail to make the maximum allowed contribution to their employer-offered retirement plans; among the explanations cited are increasing worker mobility between companies, poor financial planning on the workers' part, and excess complexity in the plans themselves.  Correct.  This choice is an error free concise choice. This choice has removed “the authors” but that does not hamper the meaning of the sentence. This choice says that the study had found out. It is obvious that has been written by someone. The authors have out the findings into the study. So the study has found implies that the authors of the study has found. The finding of the study is of importance here.

Hope this helps.
Thanks.
Shraddha

daagh · Answer

Yes! E may the best among the bunch. However, why is E ignoring the authors and just mentioning the study alone? Can an inanimate study stand to replace a dynamic body of authors? In other words, does E carry the mantle of the original?

gmatsaga · Answer

Ahh these are the types of questions that ask for the intended meaning of the author. With that I go with E. I love simple sentences and, generally, the simpler the sentence the better. I mean come to think of it, why prolong your sentences when you could cut them up into smaller pieces.

dexerash · Answer

Lengthy question but easy one. Got E.

Btw E is keeping the meaning intact as it is the study made by author himself.

anordinaryguy · Answer

Why I am odd one out who thinks D is better than E?

E is not even covering all the aspects (one of them mentioned above by daagh) of the original sentence.

So my question is why D is so bad? is it because of placing of multiple commas OR it is because of placing of "Citing" and "Finding"?

Please enlighten me....

macjas · Answer

Seems like a lot of you find this one easy; then please do explain why E is the best choice? That way we can have a more productive thread! :panel

dexerash · Answer

..., citing increasing worker mobility between companies, poor financial planning by workers, and finding that the plans themselves are excessively complex

...increasing worker mobility between companies, poor financial planning on the workers' part, and excess complexity in the plans themselves.

Clearly in D the three parts are not parallel but that is not the case with E.
This is one of the reason to avoid D.

librrra · Answer

A: I can't warrant the use of the past perfect
B: the study found the majority of Americans - the wrong meaning
C: again, past and present perfect
Now the difference between D and E is different subjects. "The authors of a study have found" vs "A recent study has found". I got this one wrong. I guess "the authors of a study" is redundant: we shouldn't care about the people behind the study, only results matter. Also, the semicolon makes the better structure of a sentence (but that's just my feeling)

shivanigs · Answer

My 2 cents...

A is wrong because of this - "and finding that the plans themselves are excessively complex" : This part is not parallel to the 
2 earlier portions of the list

and because the order of the sentence is awkward thereby it is a writing style error."The study" which is the main point of the sentence should logically be the subject and the list should be mentioned thereafter with all 3 points being parallel.

E - is concise,logically written and takes care of the above 2 points

macjas · Answer

Here is daagh's excellent explanation:

This is a complex question involving modification and meaning

A Citing increasing worker mobility between companies, poor financial planning by workers, and finding that the plans themselves are excessively complex, the authors of a recent study have found that most eligible American workers had not made the maximum allowed contribution to their employer-offered retirement plan  ---Modification is ok. However, the use of past perfect had not made is erroneous. The setting is present tense. So present perfect have not made will be most ideal

B Increasing worker mobility between companies, poor financial planning on the part of workers, and excess complexity in the plans themselves have been explained by a recent study finding the majority of eligible American workers who do not make the maximum allowed contribution to their employer-offered retirement plans ----Meaning change. The study cites and not explains

C Citing increasing worker mobility between companies, poor worker financial planning, and excessively complex plans themselves as possible explanations, a majority of American workers had failed to make the maximum allowed contribution to their employer-offered retirement plans, a recent study has found  --- who are citing? Not the majority of the workers but the authors of the study; so misplaced modification. After explanations, the authors should come. Another problem is the majority of the workers. The original says the most eligible American workers. Drop it

D The authors of a recent study, citing increasing worker mobility between companies, poor financial planning by workers, and finding that the plans themselves are excessively complex, have found that most eligible American workers do not make the maximum allowed contribution to their employer-offered retirement plans. --- Modification is ok but the modifier phrase has serious problem. citing increasing worker mobility between companies, poor financial planning by workers is an adverbial modifier while finding ( a gerund here) that the plans themselves are excessively complex, is a noun phrase. They are not parallel. 
 
E A recent study has found that most eligible American workers fail to make the maximum allowed contribution to their employer-offered retirement plans; among the explanations cited are increasing worker mobility between companies, poor financial planning on the workers' part, and excess complexity in the plans themselves.  – E is perhaps an escape route from this complex topic. Finding it too hot to handle the topic in a single sentence, the authors have split it into two and somehow got out of it. Still I am not happy because, the choice does not even mention the authors.

I need to brush up on identifying noun forms of verbs!

mikemcgarry · Answer

A good challenging SC.

Citing increasing worker mobility between companies, poor financial planning by workers, and finding that the plans themselves are excessively complex, the authors of a recent study have found that most eligible American workers had not made the maximum allowed contribution to their employer-offered retirement plans.

Notice, this has a failed parallel structure:
/Citing
//increasing worker mobility between companies
//poor financial planning by workers
and
/finding
That's a variant of parallelism that the GMAT does not accept. We don't simply have three element in parallel, but some bizarre 2 vs. 1 split. No good.

A) Citing increasing worker mobility between companies, poor financial planning by workers, and finding that the plans themselves are excessively complex, the authors of a recent study have found that most eligible American workers had not made the maximum allowed contribution to their employer-offered retirement plans.
Wrong for the failure in parallelism.

B) Increasing worker mobility between companies, poor financial planning on the part of workers, and excess complexity in the plans themselves have been explained by a recent study finding the majority of eligible American workers who do not make the maximum allowed contribution to their employer-offered retirement plans.
The awkward wordy passive construction "have been explained by a recent study finding" is anathema on GMAT SC.

C) Citing increasing worker mobility between companies, poor worker financial planning, and excessively complex plans themselves as possible explanations, a majority of American workers had failed to make the maximum allowed contribution to their employer-offered retirement plans, a recent study has found.
Misplaced modifier. "Citing blah blah ...., a majority of American workers ...." The American workers were not doing the citing. The American works are experiencing the problems, but the majority is not writing about the problem. It is the study, or the authors of the study, that did the citing --- they have to be the target of this modifier.

D)The authors of a recent study, citing increasing worker mobility between companies, poor financial planning by workers, and finding that the plans themselves are excessively complex, have found that most eligible American workers do not make the maximum allowed contribution to their employer-offered retirement plans.
This answer choice repeats the faulty parallelism construction of the prompt.

E) A recent study has found that most eligible American workers fail to make the maximum allowed contribution to their employer-offered retirement plans; among the explanations cited are increasing worker mobility between companies, poor financial planning on the workers' part, and excess complexity in the plans themselves.
Clear, direct, active, and the parallelism is handled correctly. This one is flawless.

Let me know if anyone reading this has any questions.

Mike :-)

grumpytesttaker · Answer

E sounded and read flawless, indeed. Proper usage of ; and "workers' part" were especially of note.

vsprakash2003 · Answer

Hi Mike,
 There are no parallel markers between citing and increasing. So where is the question of parallelism? They don't seem to be in a list.

mikemcgarry · Answer

I'm sorry --- I really don't understand what you are asking. Please make extremely clear what you are asking, and I will be happy to help. Mike :-)

nanishora · Answer

He has pointed out the parallelism between nouns versus all the items in -ing form but one of them is actually a verb. But I got to say, that was easy to miss.

mikemcgarry · Answer

Yes, this is a tricky sentence to sort out. I will try to explain. Citing increasing worker mobility between companies, poor financial planning by workers, and finding that the plans themselves are excessively complex, the authors o f a recent study have found that most eligible American workers had not made the maximum allowed contribution to their employer-offered retirement plans. The participles "citing" and "finding" modify "the authors" (i.e. the main subject of the sentence). These both describe actions of the authors. Those two, by themselves, properly could be in parallel with each other. The participle "increasing" merely modifies the noun "mobility" --- it's not part of any parallelism in and of itself. The noun "mobility" and the gerund "planning" are in parallel --- these are the two objects of the participle "citing" --- they are the things that the authors cited. Then problem is ----- we have three terms joined by "and" ---- "... mobility ..., ... planning ...., and finding ....." Term is supposed to be in parallel with "citing", whereas terms & are objects of the participle "citing" in parallel with each other. This is a gross violation of parallelism. Does all this make sense? Mike :-)

rohantiwari · Answer

very nice question!! nouns such as worker mobility cannot be parallal to verbs such as finding.
Option E eliminates this issue

imhimanshu · Answer

Dear Mike,

Would you please help in understanding the usage of the verb "Had not made". Is it correct. 
I have seen instances where it is not used as a Past Perfect but simple a past tense of Have+ ed verb tense.

example:
  In an attempt to attract more tourists,the Swiss government commissioned several life-size fiberglass cow statues, had
them decorated by local artists, and set them up on the streets of Zurich.

Can you please post your reasoning.

Thanks
Himanshu

mikemcgarry · Answer

Dear Himanshu, Yes, I'm happy to help. :-)

Let's distinguish precisely between two very closely related things (1) "had" + "past participle of verb" = ALWAYS is the past perfect tense; for more on the perfect tenses, see: https://magoosh.com/gmat/2012/gmat-verb- ... ct-tenses/ had bought had sold had carried had decorated All past perfect (2) "had" + + "past participle of verb" = NEVER the perfect tense; this is an idiomatic construction for a command being carried out. had the items bought had the old car sold had the books carried had the fiberglass cow decorated None of these are past perfect. In each case, the subject of the verb is someone who gave the command or the instructions for the action, and someone else entirely is actually carrying out the action. The person who performs the action could be the subject of a "by" preposition. The Swiss government had several life-size fiberglass cow statues decorated by local artists . The main subject = The Swiss government = the folks who gave the order, provided the conditions to allow the action to occur (probably paid money to make things happen) The main verb = " had " The direct object = " several life-size fiberglass cow statues " participial phrase = decorated by local artists --- the local artist are the one who actually perform the action of decorating the cows, following the command or incentive of the Swiss government. You see, in construction #1, the " had " and the past participle together form a single verb, which can be the main verb of a sentence or the verb of any subordinate clause. In construction #2, " had " is the whole verb all by itself, followed by a direct object, followed by a participial phrase. Here, the past participle opens the participial phrase, the noun modifier, and plays absolutely no part in the main verb of the sentence. Does this distinction make sense? Mike :-)

Citing increasing worker mobility between companies, poor financial

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Citing increasing worker mobility between companies, poor financial

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