Last visit was: 20 Nov 2025, 06:33 It is currently 20 Nov 2025, 06:33
Home
GMAT
Messages
Tests
Schools
Events
Rewards
Chat
My Profile
Close
GMAT Club Daily Prep
Thank you for using the timer - this advanced tool can estimate your performance and suggest more practice questions. We have subscribed you to Daily Prep Questions via email.

Customized
for You

we will pick new questions that match your level based on your Timer History

Track
Your Progress

every week, we’ll send you an estimated GMAT score based on your performance

Practice
Pays

we will pick new questions that match your level based on your Timer History
Not interested in getting valuable practice questions and articles delivered to your email? No problem, unsubscribe here.
Go to My Error Log Learn more
Close
Request Expert Reply
Confirm Cancel
Back to Forum
Create Topic
   1   2   3   4   
User avatar
GMATBusters
User avatar
GMAT Tutor
Joined: 27 Oct 2017
Last visit: 14 Nov 2025
Posts: 1,924
Own Kudos:
6,649
Given Kudos: 241
WE:General Management (Education)
Expert
Expert reply
Posts: 1,924
Kudos: 6,649
Created in 1945 to reduce poverty and stabilize foreign currency 05 Jun 2018, 21:36
Kudos
Add Kudos
Bookmarks
Bookmark this Post
Hi GMATNinja


"(C) continually struggled to meet their major shareholders’ expectations—a group "
Do you think that there is modifier error also in this... what does "a group" refer to?

GMATNinja
I tend to get a lot of questions about dashes, and that’s part of why we chose this question for a QOTD. In general, I don’t think you need to waste much time worrying about them: I’ve never seen an official GMAT question in which the presence or absence of a dash was a deciding factor. (For more on dashes and colons and other punctuation on the GMAT, check out this video.)

And in this particular sentence, the dashes aren’t doing anything terribly interesting. They’re just separating a modifier from the rest of the sentence. So we’ll focus on more interesting stuff.

Quote:
(A) continually struggled to meet the expectations of their major shareholders—a group comprising many of the world’s rich nations—but neglected
I don’t see any problems here at all. “Their” jumps out at me, but it seems to refer to the two organizations, so that’s perfectly OK. Let’s keep (A).

Quote:
(B) continually struggled as they try to meet the expectations of their major shareholders—a group comprising many of the world’s rich nations—while neglecting that of
For starters, there are some unnecessary extra words in the beginning of the underlined portion: why say “struggled as they try to meet the expectations” when we could just say “struggled to meet the expectations”?

The bigger problem is the singular pronoun “that” at the end of the underlined portion. The trouble is, I don’t really see any singular nouns “that” could possibly refer to. Logically, “that” should refer to “the needs” (which is not stated anywhere in the sentence) or maybe “the expectations”, but those are both plural, anyway.

So we can eliminate (B).

Quote:
(C) continually struggled to meet their major shareholders’ expectations—a group comprising many of the world’s rich nations—but neglected that of
The first part of the underlined portion looks fine, but we still have exactly the same problem with the singular pronoun “that” at the end of the underlined section. “That” is singular, and there are no logical singular referents.

So we can eliminate (C), too.

Quote:
(D) had to struggle continually in trying to meet the expectations of their major shareholders—a group comprising many of the world’s rich nations—while neglecting that of
Once again, the singular pronoun “that” has no logical referent. See the explanation for (B) for more on that issue.

The first part of the underlined section also has some problems. There’s really no reason to say that the organizations “had to struggle continually in trying to meet the expectations” when we could just say “continually struggled to meet the expectations”, as in (A).

So we have plenty of reasons to get rid of (D).

Quote:
(E) struggled continually in trying to meet their major shareholders’ expectations—a group comprising many of the world’s rich nations—and neglecting
We still have some wasted words at the beginning of the underlined portion: “struggled continually in trying to meet… expectations” is a lousy substitute for the version in (A), which just says “continually struggled to meet expectations.”

There’s also a parallelism problem after the dashes in (E). The parallelism trigger “and” is followed by the participle “neglecting” – and nothing could possibly be parallel to “neglecting” here. It makes much more sense to use a nice, normal verb form (“neglected”) that can be parallel to “struggled.”

So (E) can be eliminated, and we’re left with (A).
Show more
User avatar
GMATNinja
User avatar
GMAT Club Verbal Expert
Joined: 13 Aug 2009
Last visit: 19 Nov 2025
Posts: 7,443
Own Kudos:
69,788
 [3]
Given Kudos: 2,060
Status: GMAT/GRE/LSAT tutors
Location: United States (CO)
GMAT 1: 780 Q51 V46
GMAT 2: 800 Q51 V51
GRE 1: Q170 V170
GRE 2: Q170 V170
Products:
GMAT Club Tests Forum Quiz
Expert
Expert reply
GMAT 2: 800 Q51 V51
GRE 1: Q170 V170
GRE 2: Q170 V170
Posts: 7,443
Kudos: 69,788
 [3]
Created in 1945 to reduce poverty and stabilize foreign currency 09 Jun 2018, 20:35
3
Kudos
Add Kudos
Bookmarks
Bookmark this Post
Quote:
Hi GMATNinja


"(C) continually struggled to meet their major shareholders’ expectations—a group "
Do you think that there is modifier error also in this... what does "a group" refer to?
Show more

Yup, there's a modifier error!

Quote:
continually struggled to meet their major shareholders’ expectations—a group comprising many of the world’s rich nations—but neglected that of
Show more

It sounds as though "a group" is referring to the "shareholders' expectations". And if "a group... of the world's rich nations" is describing "shareholders' expectations", that's pretty messed up, on all sorts of levels.

I hope this helps!
User avatar
LordStark
User avatar
Current Student
Joined: 31 Aug 2016
Last visit: 28 Feb 2023
Posts: 293
Own Kudos:
1,126
Given Kudos: 911
Status:Valar Dohaeris
GMAT 1: 700 Q49 V37
Products:
My Reviews
GMAT 1: 700 Q49 V37
Posts: 293
Kudos: 1,126
Created in 1945 to reduce poverty and stabilize foreign currency 08 Mar 2019, 10:00
Kudos
Add Kudos
Bookmarks
Bookmark this Post
PP777
Created in 1945 to reduce poverty and stabilize foreign currency markets, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have, according to some critics,continually struggled to meet the expectations of their major shareholders—a group comprising many of the world’s rich nations—but neglected their intended beneficiaries in the developing world.
Show more
A. continually struggled to meet the expectations of their major shareholders— a group comprising many of the world’s rich nations—but neglectedCorrect

B. continually struggled as they try to meet the expectations of their major shareholders—a group comprising many of the world’s rich nations—while neglecting that ofverb tense error - "as they try should be as they tried", pronoun number mismatch- "that" doesn't match with plural "expectations"

C. continually struggled to meet their major shareholders’ expectations—a group comprising many of the world’s rich nations—but neglected that of"a group comprising many of the world’s rich nations" this group is not expectations, pronoun number mismatch- "that" doesn't match with plural "expectations"

D. had to struggle continually in trying to meet the expectations of their major shareholders—a group comprising many of the world’s rich nations—while neglecting that of pronoun number mismatch- "that" doesn't match with plural "expectations", parallelism error

E. struggled continually in trying to meet their major shareholders’ expectations—a group comprising many of the world’s rich nations—and neglecting"a group comprising many of the world’s rich nations" this group is not expectations, parallelism error

GMATNinja, generis

My doubt is regarding option D and E
Can you explain what is the issue in use of "had" here?
"in trying to meet their expectations" is this usage correct in option E?
avatar
martinod20
avatar
Joined: 09 Sep 2018
Last visit: 03 May 2019
Posts: 11
Own Kudos:
6
Given Kudos: 23
Posts: 11
Kudos: 6
Created in 1945 to reduce poverty and stabilize foreign currency 14 Mar 2019, 19:18
Kudos
Add Kudos
Bookmarks
Bookmark this Post
Why is it ok to use but, a contrast word, in the correct choice (A)? It doesn't seem logical to use a contrast word to say that the WB and the IMF have not met their shareholders' expectations nor succeded in its purpose..
User avatar
AjiteshArun
User avatar
Major Poster
Joined: 15 Jul 2015
Last visit: 18 Nov 2025
Posts: 5,949
Own Kudos:
5,080
 [2]
Given Kudos: 732
Location: India
GMAT Focus 1: 715 Q83 V90 DI83
GMAT 1: 780 Q50 V51
GRE 1: Q170 V169
Expert
Expert reply
GMAT Focus 1: 715 Q83 V90 DI83
GMAT 1: 780 Q50 V51
GRE 1: Q170 V169
Posts: 5,949
Kudos: 5,080
 [2]
Created in 1945 to reduce poverty and stabilize foreign currency 14 Mar 2019, 21:31
2
Kudos
Add Kudos
Bookmarks
Bookmark this Post
martinod20
Why is it ok to use but, a contrast word, in the correct choice (A)? It doesn't seem logical to use a contrast word to say that the WB and the IMF have not met their shareholders' expectations nor succeded in its purpose..
Show more
That's not the right meaning. You're probably going for the "have a tough time with" meaning of struggle (to struggle with something), whereas the sentence is going for the "try extremely hard to do something" meaning.

What the sentence is trying to say is that the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have tried very hard to help their shareholders, but have neglected those countries that were actually supposed to receive their help.
User avatar
GMATNinja
User avatar
GMAT Club Verbal Expert
Joined: 13 Aug 2009
Last visit: 19 Nov 2025
Posts: 7,443
Own Kudos:
69,788
 [4]
Given Kudos: 2,060
Status: GMAT/GRE/LSAT tutors
Location: United States (CO)
GMAT 1: 780 Q51 V46
GMAT 2: 800 Q51 V51
GRE 1: Q170 V170
GRE 2: Q170 V170
Products:
GMAT Club Tests Forum Quiz
Expert
Expert reply
GMAT 2: 800 Q51 V51
GRE 1: Q170 V170
GRE 2: Q170 V170
Posts: 7,443
Kudos: 69,788
 [4]
Created in 1945 to reduce poverty and stabilize foreign currency 04 Apr 2019, 08:51
3
Kudos
Add Kudos
1
Bookmarks
Bookmark this Post
LordStark
PP777
Created in 1945 to reduce poverty and stabilize foreign currency markets, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have, according to some critics,continually struggled to meet the expectations of their major shareholders—a group comprising many of the world’s rich nations—but neglected their intended beneficiaries in the developing world.
A. continually struggled to meet the expectations of their major shareholders— a group comprising many of the world’s rich nations—but neglectedCorrect

B. continually struggled as they try to meet the expectations of their major shareholders—a group comprising many of the world’s rich nations—while neglecting that ofverb tense error - "as they try should be as they tried", pronoun number mismatch- "that" doesn't match with plural "expectations"

C. continually struggled to meet their major shareholders’ expectations—a group comprising many of the world’s rich nations—but neglected that of"a group comprising many of the world’s rich nations" this group is not expectations, pronoun number mismatch- "that" doesn't match with plural "expectations"

D. had to struggle continually in trying to meet the expectations of their major shareholders—a group comprising many of the world’s rich nations—while neglecting that of pronoun number mismatch- "that" doesn't match with plural "expectations", parallelism error

E. struggled continually in trying to meet their major shareholders’ expectations—a group comprising many of the world’s rich nations—and neglecting"a group comprising many of the world’s rich nations" this group is not expectations, parallelism error

GMATNinja, generis

My doubt is regarding option D and E
Can you explain what is the issue in use of "had" here?
"in trying to meet their expectations" is this usage correct in option E?
Show more
No problem! "Had," can be used to mean "obligated to." For example, "Janice had to do her homework before her parents would allow her to spend nine hours playing Fortnite." In (D), this usage doesn't make any sense: no one obligated the World Bank and the IMF to struggle!

As for your question about (E), "struggled... in trying to meet their expectations" is idiomatically incorrect, but it's better to avoid using idioms as a decision point. There are far too many to learn, and question writers, in general, try to avoid producing questions that would require knowledge of any particular idiom.

As others have noted, a far better reason for eliminating (E) is to recognize that the modifier "a group comprising many of the world’s rich nations" seems to be describing "expectations," and this is clearly illogical.

If I remember correctly, we also went through this question in this video on GMAT punctuation. But don't quote me on that. I became a father five days(!!) after we recorded that video, and many brain cells have died in tragic, sleep-deprived bourbon accidents since then...

I hope this helps!
User avatar
daagh
User avatar
Major Poster
Joined: 19 Feb 2007
Last visit: 16 Oct 2020
Posts: 5,264
Own Kudos:
42,419
 [1]
Given Kudos: 422
Status: enjoying
Location: India
WE:Education (Education)
Expert
Expert reply
Posts: 5,264
Kudos: 42,419
 [1]
Created in 1945 to reduce poverty and stabilize foreign currency 22 Apr 2019, 11:09
1
Kudos
Add Kudos
Bookmarks
Bookmark this Post
The shortest route is to remove B, C, and D, for using a wrong pronoun 'that' rather than 'those of' because the contrast is between the plural expectations of two arms.
It is a walkover for A since the other contender E is not using the correct contrast marker 'but'. When we want to do something and then when we do it, we use 'and". However, If we want to do something but in fact do something else, then we say 'but'.
avatar
VishalGoyal
avatar
Joined: 22 Aug 2018
Last visit: 30 Aug 2023
Posts: 3
Given Kudos: 21
Posts: 3
Kudos: 0
Created in 1945 to reduce poverty and stabilize foreign currency 25 Apr 2019, 05:22
Kudos
Add Kudos
Bookmarks
Bookmark this Post
Hi
I want to know if I got the answer on the right reasons or not.
Eliminating C and E because of the part in the dash which is modifying stakeholders and not their expectations.
Eliminating B and D because while cannot be used to show contrast.
Hence A has to be correct.
Thanks in Advance.
User avatar
AjiteshArun
User avatar
Major Poster
Joined: 15 Jul 2015
Last visit: 18 Nov 2025
Posts: 5,949
Own Kudos:
5,080
 [2]
Given Kudos: 732
Location: India
GMAT Focus 1: 715 Q83 V90 DI83
GMAT 1: 780 Q50 V51
GRE 1: Q170 V169
Expert
Expert reply
GMAT Focus 1: 715 Q83 V90 DI83
GMAT 1: 780 Q50 V51
GRE 1: Q170 V169
Posts: 5,949
Kudos: 5,080
 [2]
Created in 1945 to reduce poverty and stabilize foreign currency 25 Apr 2019, 07:00
2
Kudos
Add Kudos
Bookmarks
Bookmark this Post
VishalGoyal
Hi
I want to know if I got the answer on the right reasons or not.
Eliminating C and E because of the part in the dash which is modifying stakeholders and not their expectations.
Eliminating B and D because while cannot be used to show contrast.
Hence A has to be correct.
Thanks in Advance.
Show more
You're absolutely right about looking at the information introduced by the dash. While, however, can be used to mean although/whereas (it also has a "during" meaning). In options B and D, the that in that of is singular, but the noun it refers to (expectations) is plural.
User avatar
priyanshu14
User avatar
Joined: 25 Jan 2017
Last visit: 20 Dec 2024
Posts: 74
Own Kudos:
13
Given Kudos: 71
Location: India
Schools: IIMC MBAEx'23
Schools: IIMC MBAEx'23
Posts: 74
Kudos: 13
Created in 1945 to reduce poverty and stabilize foreign currency 24 Jun 2019, 23:27
Kudos
Add Kudos
Bookmarks
Bookmark this Post
hello egmat,

I am convinced with option A as correct answer. I will like to know whether in option A, ellipsis is considered. as following?

Option A: continually struggled to meet the expectations of their major shareholders—a group comprising many of the world's rich nations—but neglected the expectation of their intended beneficiaries in the developing world

This will help me in developing my concept on ellipsis.

Thanks in advance
User avatar
DmitryFarber
User avatar
Manhattan Prep Instructor
Joined: 22 Mar 2011
Last visit: 08 Nov 2025
Posts: 3,020
Own Kudos:
8,564
 [2]
Given Kudos: 57
Expert
Expert reply
GMAT Focus 1: 745 Q86 V90 DI85
Posts: 3,020
Kudos: 8,564
 [2]
Created in 1945 to reduce poverty and stabilize foreign currency 01 Aug 2019, 00:09
2
Kudos
Add Kudos
Bookmarks
Bookmark this Post
priyanshu14

We definitely can't read A as using ellipsis. We have a noun directly after "neglected," so that needs to be what is getting neglected. If we meant to say that they were neglecting the EXPECTATIONS of their beneficiaries, we'd at least need to say "neglected those of their intended beneficiaries." In this case, "those" would be a relative pronoun standing in for expectations.

(As a side note, I don't think you can neglect expectations. You can ignore them or fail to meet them, but expectations aren't really something you can neglect.)
avatar
Darselle
avatar
Joined: 05 Sep 2019
Last visit: 01 Oct 2019
Posts: 5
Own Kudos:
1
Given Kudos: 4
Posts: 5
Kudos: 1
Created in 1945 to reduce poverty and stabilize foreign currency 10 Sep 2019, 14:19
Kudos
Add Kudos
Bookmarks
Bookmark this Post
Hi guys, can anyone tell me why in this case "beneficiaries" is parallel with "major shareholders" instead of "expectation of the shareholders". I know we can omit C) by detecting the word "that" but I want to understand how does parallelism work here.
Is there any grammatical rule to know what parallel with what or do you have to use a bit of logic to figure that out cases by cases ?
Also, most of my Verbal errors right now are Sentence Correction with either parallelism or grammars, so is there any resource you guys recommend to work on that?
User avatar
GMATNinja
User avatar
GMAT Club Verbal Expert
Joined: 13 Aug 2009
Last visit: 19 Nov 2025
Posts: 7,443
Own Kudos:
69,788
 [1]
Given Kudos: 2,060
Status: GMAT/GRE/LSAT tutors
Location: United States (CO)
GMAT 1: 780 Q51 V46
GMAT 2: 800 Q51 V51
GRE 1: Q170 V170
GRE 2: Q170 V170
Products:
GMAT Club Tests Forum Quiz
Expert
Expert reply
GMAT 2: 800 Q51 V51
GRE 1: Q170 V170
GRE 2: Q170 V170
Posts: 7,443
Kudos: 69,788
 [1]
Created in 1945 to reduce poverty and stabilize foreign currency 28 Sep 2019, 11:06
1
Kudos
Add Kudos
Bookmarks
Bookmark this Post
Darselle
Hi guys, can anyone tell me why in this case "beneficiaries" is parallel with "major shareholders" instead of "expectation of the shareholders". I know we can omit C) by detecting the word "that" but I want to understand how does parallelism work here.
Is there any grammatical rule to know what parallel with what or do you have to use a bit of logic to figure that out cases by cases ?
Also, most of my Verbal errors right now are Sentence Correction with either parallelism or grammars, so is there any resource you guys recommend to work on that?
Show more
We only worry about parallelism when we see certain triggers. In this case, we have the conjunctions "and" and "but," both of which should connect like forms. In the OA the following elements are parallel:

1) to reduce.. and stabilize
2) the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund
3) struggled...but neglected

The takeaway: don't go looking for parallelism where none is called for! If you see a trigger word, you want to make sure that grammatically similar elements are being connected and that it's logical to pair these elements together.

For more on parallelism, you might also want to check out this video.

I hope that helps!
User avatar
Ganeshmantri
User avatar
Joined: 30 Aug 2020
Last visit: 15 Aug 2022
Posts: 23
Own Kudos:
11
Given Kudos: 95
Location: India
Concentration: Healthcare, General Management
Schools: ISB '23 (WL)
GRE 1: Q168 V157
GPA: 3.36
Schools: ISB '23 (WL)
GRE 1: Q168 V157
Posts: 23
Kudos: 11
Created in 1945 to reduce poverty and stabilize foreign currency 26 Sep 2020, 13:02
Kudos
Add Kudos
Bookmarks
Bookmark this Post
GMATNinja
I tend to get a lot of questions about dashes, and that’s part of why we chose this question for a QOTD. In general, I don’t think you need to waste much time worrying about them: I’ve never seen an official GMAT question in which the presence or absence of a dash was a deciding factor. (For more on dashes and colons and other punctuation on the GMAT, check out this video.)

And in this particular sentence, the dashes aren’t doing anything terribly interesting. They’re just separating a modifier from the rest of the sentence. So we’ll focus on more interesting stuff.

Quote:
(A) continually struggled to meet the expectations of their major shareholders—a group comprising many of the world’s rich nations—but neglected
I don’t see any problems here at all. “Their” jumps out at me, but it seems to refer to the two organizations, so that’s perfectly OK. Let’s keep (A).

Quote:
(B) continually struggled as they try to meet the expectations of their major shareholders—a group comprising many of the world’s rich nations—while neglecting that of
For starters, there are some unnecessary extra words in the beginning of the underlined portion: why say “struggled as they try to meet the expectations” when we could just say “struggled to meet the expectations”?

The bigger problem is the singular pronoun “that” at the end of the underlined portion. The trouble is, I don’t really see any singular nouns “that” could possibly refer to. Logically, “that” should refer to “the needs” (which is not stated anywhere in the sentence) or maybe “the expectations”, but those are both plural, anyway.

So we can eliminate (B).

Quote:
(C) continually struggled to meet their major shareholders’ expectations—a group comprising many of the world’s rich nations—but neglected that of
The first part of the underlined portion looks fine, but we still have exactly the same problem with the singular pronoun “that” at the end of the underlined section. “That” is singular, and there are no logical singular referents.

So we can eliminate (C), too.

Quote:
(D) had to struggle continually in trying to meet the expectations of their major shareholders—a group comprising many of the world’s rich nations—while neglecting that of
Once again, the singular pronoun “that” has no logical referent. See the explanation for (B) for more on that issue.

The first part of the underlined section also has some problems. There’s really no reason to say that the organizations “had to struggle continually in trying to meet the expectations” when we could just say “continually struggled to meet the expectations”, as in (A).

So we have plenty of reasons to get rid of (D).

Quote:
(E) struggled continually in trying to meet their major shareholders’ expectations—a group comprising many of the world’s rich nations—and neglecting
We still have some wasted words at the beginning of the underlined portion: “struggled continually in trying to meet… expectations” is a lousy substitute for the version in (A), which just says “continually struggled to meet expectations.”

There’s also a parallelism problem after the dashes in (E). The parallelism trigger “and” is followed by the participle “neglecting” – and nothing could possibly be parallel to “neglecting” here. It makes much more sense to use a nice, normal verb form (“neglected”) that can be parallel to “struggled.”

So (E) can be eliminated, and we’re left with (A).
Show more

Hi GMATNinja,

Since both the actions, viz. struggle to meet the expectations and neglecting intended beneficiaries, convey that the WB and IMF did not accomplish these, shouldn't 'AND' be used instead of BUT? I read it in a way that BUT gives a contrast and says that it struggled to meet its expectations 'BUT' it neglected intended beneficiaries. Maks no sense to me. It should ideally say, according to me, 'it struggled to meet its expectations 'AND' it neglected intended beneficiaries'.

I tried to read it in the manner explained by folks in the explanations, but couldnt digest it. Thanks in advance!
User avatar
GMATNinja
User avatar
GMAT Club Verbal Expert
Joined: 13 Aug 2009
Last visit: 19 Nov 2025
Posts: 7,443
Own Kudos:
69,788
 [3]
Given Kudos: 2,060
Status: GMAT/GRE/LSAT tutors
Location: United States (CO)
GMAT 1: 780 Q51 V46
GMAT 2: 800 Q51 V51
GRE 1: Q170 V170
GRE 2: Q170 V170
Products:
GMAT Club Tests Forum Quiz
Expert
Expert reply
GMAT 2: 800 Q51 V51
GRE 1: Q170 V170
GRE 2: Q170 V170
Posts: 7,443
Kudos: 69,788
 [3]
Created in 1945 to reduce poverty and stabilize foreign currency 31 Oct 2020, 09:57
3
Kudos
Add Kudos
Bookmarks
Bookmark this Post
Quote:
Hi GMATNinja,

Since both the actions, viz. struggle to meet the expectations and neglecting intended beneficiaries, convey that the WB and IMF did not accomplish these, shouldn't 'AND' be used instead of BUT? I read it in a way that BUT gives a contrast and says that it struggled to meet its expectations 'BUT' it neglected intended beneficiaries. Maks no sense to me. It should ideally say, according to me, 'it struggled to meet its expectations 'AND' it neglected intended beneficiaries'.

I tried to read it in the manner explained by folks in the explanations, but couldnt digest it. Thanks in advance!
Show more
I sympathize with you on this one. I initially interpreted the sentence the same way you did, thinking the "but" was problematic, before having to double-back after seeing errors in the other options. The confusion stems from the different definitions of the verb "struggle."

If you think of "struggle" as meaning "to experience difficulty," the "but" seems strange. You correctly note that we'd want "but" to introduce a contrast, but it just doesn't make sense to argue that having difficulty meeting the expectations of one group contrasts with neglecting a different group -- they're both types of failure.

However, another definition of "struggle" is "to strive to attain." With this definition, we do get a contrast: the World Bank and IMF are now striving to help one group BUT neglecting the needs of another. If we read the sentence this way, the "but" is fine.

The takeaway: this type of question can feel disheartening, but please don't come away thinking that you have to consider every possible definition of every word your encounter in an SC question -- your head will explode. Instead, anytime you think you see an error, but eliminating all instances of that error leaves you with even worse options, you need to consider the possibility that you overlooked something in your initial analysis.

I hope that helps!
User avatar
pinklemonhat
User avatar
Joined: 25 Sep 2019
Last visit: 29 Mar 2021
Posts: 10
Own Kudos:
3
Given Kudos: 20
Posts: 10
Kudos: 3
Created in 1945 to reduce poverty and stabilize foreign currency 21 Jan 2021, 05:57
Kudos
Add Kudos
Bookmarks
Bookmark this Post
Just wondering why we can't just use parallelism to eliminate B, D, and E.

and then C is wrong for 2 reasons:
"continually struggled to meet their major shareholders' expectations—a group comprising many of the world's rich nations—but neglected that of"

em dash mod structurally modifying expectations = wrong
shareholders' <--- possessive is a little awk on gmat
but neglected that of <-- that pronoun missing antecedent


and another question: although i understand A is correct - why isn't 'their' structurally incorrect since the closest plural noun is critics? I understand that the intended meaning is to describe the bank & fund, but just wanted to pick someone's brain for this one
User avatar
GMATNinja
User avatar
GMAT Club Verbal Expert
Joined: 13 Aug 2009
Last visit: 19 Nov 2025
Posts: 7,443
Own Kudos:
69,788
 [1]
Given Kudos: 2,060
Status: GMAT/GRE/LSAT tutors
Location: United States (CO)
GMAT 1: 780 Q51 V46
GMAT 2: 800 Q51 V51
GRE 1: Q170 V170
GRE 2: Q170 V170
Products:
GMAT Club Tests Forum Quiz
Expert
Expert reply
GMAT 2: 800 Q51 V51
GRE 1: Q170 V170
GRE 2: Q170 V170
Posts: 7,443
Kudos: 69,788
 [1]
Created in 1945 to reduce poverty and stabilize foreign currency 03 Feb 2021, 16:55
1
Kudos
Add Kudos
Bookmarks
Bookmark this Post
Quote:
Just wondering why we can't just use parallelism to eliminate B, D, and E.
Show more
It's important to make sure an answer choice has a parallelism trigger before you consider whether the parallelism is faulty. In (E), we get "and." Because "and" must connect like forms, it's perfectly valid to decide that "struggled... and neglecting" isn't parallel, and is therefore wrong.

In (B) and (D), however, the "and" is replaced by "while," which isn't a parallelism trigger. For example, you could write:

    Tim and Betty watched several old episodes of Breaking Bad while neglecting their children, who may as well have been cooking meth in an Easy Bake Oven in the kitchen.

Though you can certainly take issue with Tim and Betty's parenting here, you wouldn't want to determine that "watched... while neglecting" was a grammatical error. "While" is just an adverb, so there's no need for parallelism.

That said, you noticed the problem with the construction "that of," which we see in (B), (C), and (D). This issue is a perfectly legitimate reason to kill those options.

Quote:
and another question: although i understand A is correct - why isn't 'their' structurally incorrect since the closest plural noun is critics? I understand that the intended meaning is to describe the bank & fund, but just wanted to pick someone's brain for this one
Show more
Your litmus test when evaluating a pronoun is really just whether there's a logical antecedent somewhere in the sentence. If there is, don't treat the pronoun as a concrete error.

Also, if you read the relevant clause in (A) without modifiers, it looks like this:

Quote:
The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have continually struggled to meet the expectations of their major shareholders.
Show more
It's clear here that "their" refers to "The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund." No other antecedent would make sense.

Now, imagine that you didn't remove the modifier and were wondering about "critics." Hopefully, you'd immediately realize that it would be awfully strange for critics to have shareholders and so the antecedent for "their" must be somewhere else in the sentence. If it's a struggle to find this antecedent is that worth noting? Sure. But it's not fundamentally wrong, and so, for the time being, you'd hold on to the option. Because every alternative has a concrete error here, there's no reason to revisit the pronoun usage. A logical antecedent exists, and that's good enough.

The takeaway: There's no rule that a pronoun has to refer to the closest eligible noun. More generally, if you see an issue that you think is somewhat problematic, but isn't a technical grammar error and doesn't create an incoherent meaning, try not to use that issue as a decision point.

I hope that helps!
User avatar
rick121
User avatar
Current Student
Joined: 25 Jan 2020
Last visit: 05 Dec 2023
Posts: 58
Own Kudos:
22
Given Kudos: 4
Location: India
Schools: IIMC MBAEx'23 (A)
GMAT 1: 700 Q48 V38
GPA: 3.25
Products:
My Reviews
Schools: IIMC MBAEx'23 (A)
GMAT 1: 700 Q48 V38
Posts: 58
Kudos: 22
Created in 1945 to reduce poverty and stabilize foreign currency 26 Jun 2021, 02:00
Kudos
Add Kudos
Bookmarks
Bookmark this Post
C and E are easy eliminations as well. Surprised @e-gmat, [b]GMATNinja, and the rest missed it[/b]

So, the dashes contain the text "a group" in the following manner
- a group xxxxxxxx -

However, in C and E, the term "major stakeholders" is not stated but "major stakeholder's expectations" is stated, hence "a group" doesn't have anything to refer to..

Hence C and E are out as well.
User avatar
avigutman
User avatar
Joined: 17 Jul 2019
Last visit: 30 Sep 2025
Posts: 1,293
Own Kudos:
1,931
 [1]
Given Kudos: 66
Location: Canada
Schools: NYU Stern (WA)
GMAT 1: 780 Q51 V45
GMAT 2: 780 Q50 V47
GMAT 3: 770 Q50 V45
Expert
Expert reply
Schools: NYU Stern (WA)
GMAT 3: 770 Q50 V45
Posts: 1,293
Kudos: 1,931
 [1]
Created in 1945 to reduce poverty and stabilize foreign currency 27 Jun 2021, 14:37
1
Kudos
Add Kudos
Bookmarks
Bookmark this Post
Video solution from Quant Reasoning starts at 00:11:35
Subscribe for more: https://www.youtube.com/QuantReasoning? ... irmation=1
avatar
Haryem
avatar
Joined: 16 Aug 2021
Last visit: 05 Jun 2023
Posts: 32
Own Kudos:
14
Given Kudos: 1
Location: Australia
GMAT 1: 710 Q49 V38
GPA: 2
Products:
My Reviews
GMAT 1: 710 Q49 V38
Posts: 32
Kudos: 14
Created in 1945 to reduce poverty and stabilize foreign currency 20 Aug 2021, 20:23
Kudos
Add Kudos
Bookmarks
Bookmark this Post
(A) continually struggled to meet the expectations of their major shareholders—a group comprising many of the world’s rich nations—but neglected


Hi all, I don't get why 'those of' is not needed after 'neglected', I mean we're comparing 'expectations of their major shareholders' to 'beneficiaries' here...
or is parallelism not needed here after neglected?
   1   2   3   4   
Moderators:
GMATNinja
GMAT Club Verbal Expert
7443 posts
GMATNinjaTwo
GMAT Club Verbal Expert
231 posts
miag
189 posts