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Created in 1945 to reduce poverty and stabilize foreign currency 21 Aug 2021, 00:13
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Haryem
(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?
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Haryem, I feel like it is parallel. Parallelism doesn't mean that you have to use the exact some words. The act of struggling to meet the expectations is parallel to the act of neglecting beneficiaries.
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Created in 1945 to reduce poverty and stabilize foreign currency 21 Aug 2021, 16:25
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I'm sorry, my main question is not about parallelism, it's about 'those of', why is it not needed here for beneficiaries? is it because it's not a direct comparison?
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Created in 1945 to reduce poverty and stabilize foreign currency 21 Aug 2021, 22:18
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Haryem
I'm sorry, my main question is not about parallelism, it's about 'those of', why is it not needed here for beneficiaries? is it because it's not a direct comparison?
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Haryem, the presence of those of won't be wrong here IMO. The author just chose not to mention those of as he is trying to show a different meaning/comparison (the one I mentioned in my previous post).
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Created in 1945 to reduce poverty and stabilize foreign currency 27 Aug 2021, 22:19
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Hi GMATNinja , daagh
I rejected C and E, because the statement between the dashes is trying to refer to the "shareholders expectation", while it should refer to "shareholder". So C and E is straight out.
Am I correct ??
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Created in 1945 to reduce poverty and stabilize foreign currency 01 Sep 2021, 11:31
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piyushluniya
Hi GMATNinja , daagh
I rejected C and E, because the statement between the dashes is trying to refer to the "shareholders expectation", while it should refer to "shareholder". So C and E is straight out.
Am I correct ??
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Yup! Check out this post for an explanation of this issue in (C), and this post for an explanation of the same thing in (E).
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Created in 1945 to reduce poverty and stabilize foreign currency 04 Sep 2021, 19:25
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Option C & E can be eliminated as both has "shareholder's expectation - a group". Here shareholder's expectation is not a group and thus can be eleminated.

Correct me if I am worng.

Hope it helps.

Thanks!
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Hi, I have a question.

Why BUT is the conjunction? " but" is used to connect two ideas that are opposite...

The Monetary Fund have: struggled.. and neglected ...

I think and should be use instead of BUT...

I dont find the sense of the sentence.... Help me...
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Created in 1945 to reduce poverty and stabilize foreign currency 20 Jan 2022, 07:19
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valeriacastro11
Hi, I have a question.

Why BUT is the conjunction? " but" is used to connect two ideas that are opposite...

The Monetary Fund have: struggled.. and neglected ...

I think and should be use instead of BUT...

I dont find the sense of the sentence.... Help me...
Show more

Hello valeriacastro11,

We hope this finds you well.

Having gone through the question and your query, we believe we can resolve your doubt.

As the sentence mentions, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund's major shareholders are "a group comprising many of the world’s rich nations"; thus, the sentence subtly implies that the shareholders' expectations run counter to the interests of the organization's "intended beneficiaries".

Therefore the meaning we get is that the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have failed to meet the expectations of the wealthy nations, but also neglected the countries in the developing world that they are supposed to help.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
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Created in 1945 to reduce poverty and stabilize foreign currency 20 Jan 2022, 11:15
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valeriacastro11
Hi, I have a question.

Why BUT is the conjunction? " but" is used to connect two ideas that are opposite...

The Monetary Fund have: struggled.. and neglected ...

I think and should be use instead of BUT...

I dont find the sense of the sentence.... Help me...

Hello valeriacastro11,

We hope this finds you well.

Having gone through the question and your query, we believe we can resolve your doubt.

As the sentence mentions, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund's major shareholders are "a group comprising many of the world’s rich nations"; thus, the sentence subtly implies that the shareholders' expectations run counter to the interests of the organization's "intended beneficiaries".

Therefore the meaning we get is that the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have failed to meet the expectations of the wealthy nations, but also neglected the countries in the developing world that they are supposed to help.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
Experts' Global Team
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Te question was written with but, not with "but also"... the meaning is the same?
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Created in 1945 to reduce poverty and stabilize foreign currency 22 Jan 2022, 08:23
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valeriacastro11
Hi, I have a question.

Why BUT is the conjunction? " but" is used to connect two ideas that are opposite...

The Monetary Fund have: struggled.. and neglected ...

I think and should be use instead of BUT...

I dont find the sense of the sentence.... Help me...
Show more
I feel your pain here. "Struggle" certainly can have a negative connotation, but here it seems to convey something positive, more like "strived to x" or "worked really hard to x." In other words, The World Bank and IMF worked really hard to meet shareholder expectations, but basically did the opposite for the intended beneficiaries.

In another context, "struggled to meet the needs" could very well mean "tried and failed to meet the needs," so the real question is how the heck are you supposed to know what the writer intended? And the answer is that you might not know at first. The key is to either 1) hang on to the answer if there's a possibility of a logical interpretation, even if you're unsure or 2) return to this answer once you realize all of the other options have a concrete error.

I hope that helps a bit!
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Created in 1945 to reduce poverty and stabilize foreign currency 11 Mar 2022, 00:17
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In the options C & E does the phrase after dash correctly modifies the major shareholders??
I think it???s incorrect as it tries to modify the expectations

GMATNinja plz help
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Created in 1945 to reduce poverty and stabilize foreign currency 11 Mar 2022, 05:14
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SushantSaini
In the options C & E does the phrase after dash correctly modifies the major shareholders??
I think it???s incorrect as it tries to modify the expectations

GMATNinja plz help
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Hello SushantSaini,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, the modification in these two answer choices is, indeed, incorrect.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
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Why there is no confusion here of what second "their" refers in correct answer? Their can possibly refer to both major shareholders and "World Bank & IMF"
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Why there is no confusion here of what second "their" refers in correct answer? Their can possibly refer to both major shareholders and "World Bank & IMF"
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Hello saketkandoi,

We hope this finds you well.

To clarify, "their" cannot refer to "shareholders", as it is a possessive pronoun that is used to indicate that the "shareholders" belong to "the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund"; thus, it makes no sense for "their" to refer to "shareholders".

We hope this helps.
All the best!
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The GMAT exam does not test pronoun ambiguity.

Incorrectly used pronouns on the GMAT will actually be incorrect.
Either
/1/ the intended referent of such a pronoun will appear in a grammatical form that's incompatible with the pronoun (= the wrong one of singular/plural, or not a noun at all)—
or else
/2/ there just won't be a sensible referent at all (as in the case of unnecessary pronouns that are added to some versions of a sentence that works perfectly well without a pronoun).


Also worth repeating: You will often need to combine the given context with your normal, everyday common sense from the real world to determine the proper referents for pronouns.


saketkandoi
Why there is no confusion here of what second "their" refers in correct answer? Their can possibly refer to both major shareholders and "World Bank & IMF"
Show more


"The World Bank and the IMF" is the only referent that makes any sense in this context. These organizations have "beneficiaries in the developing world"; in fact, that's the main reason why of multinational NGOs like those two exist.


Remember, you won't be given ambiguous pronouns on this exam. If there are two nouns that could both grammatically serve as the referent, then you WILL be able to decide between them on the basis of context + common sense.
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Created in 1945 to reduce poverty and stabilize foreign currency 02 Sep 2022, 17:24
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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 neglected

(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

(C) continually struggled to meet their major shareholders’ expectations—a group comprising many of the world’s rich nations—but neglected that of

(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

(E) struggled continually in trying to meet their major shareholders’ expectations—a group comprising many of the world’s rich nations—and neglecting
Show more



Does option E here have meaning issues too??
Because the words continually struggled and struggled continually get interchanged?
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Created in 1945 to reduce poverty and stabilize foreign currency 06 Sep 2022, 07:09
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Sash143
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 neglected

(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

(C) continually struggled to meet their major shareholders’ expectations—a group comprising many of the world’s rich nations—but neglected that of

(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

(E) struggled continually in trying to meet their major shareholders’ expectations—a group comprising many of the world’s rich nations—and neglecting



Does option E here have meaning issues too??
Because the words continually struggled and struggled continually get interchanged?
Show more
Yep! Take another look:

Quote:
Created in 1945 to reduce poverty and stabilize foreign currency markets, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have, according to some critics struggled continually in trying to meet their major shareholders’ expectations—a group comprising many of the world’s rich nations—and neglecting their intended beneficiaries in the developing world.
Show more
The phrase "and neglecting" creates the impression that "neglecting" should be parallel to another word playing the same role. Here, the only real candidate is "trying." But that makes no sense. The World Bank and IMF struggled in trying and also struggled in neglecting?

Leave aside the goofy idiom. What would it mean to struggle "in neglecting?" The World Bank is trying to neglect something, but failing? Nah.

So, you're right. It's completely valid to eliminate (E) on the basis of illogical meaning.
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Created in 1945 to reduce poverty and stabilize foreign currency 06 Sep 2022, 22:51
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saketkandoi
Why there is no confusion here of what second "their" refers in correct answer? Their can possibly refer to both major shareholders and "World Bank & IMF"
Show more

For one big reason - it is not underlined.
So common sense will decide who 'their' is talking about in this context. Since 'major shareholders' are rich countries and we have a contrast here (meet the expectations vs neglected ...), the intended beneficiaries in the developing world would be the beneficiaries of World Bank and IMF.

If the second 'their' were underlined too, then we would have looked for the best possible option considering all decision points.
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Here the word "Struggled" is creating all the confusion people are having I think.

Here the word "Struggled" doesn't mean these orgs were NOT able to do a particular thing, but it means they were constantly striving to do that thing. This makes the contrast easy to understand and the reason why choice A is correct!
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Created in 1945 to reduce poverty and stabilize foreign currency 19 Dec 2022, 17:33
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Hello Friends,

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.

As we always say, it is important to pay attention to the non-underlined portion of the sentence to understand the usages in the underlined portion. Both these parts together build the complete story in a sentence. The sentence begins by stating the purpose for creating the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The purpose was to "reduce poverty and "stabilize foreign currency markets". But these financial institutions neglected the intended beneficiaries in the developing world. Rather they were struggling hard to meet the expectations of their major shareholders. So, these financial institutions were not serving the purpose they were meant to. Hence, the contrast makes all the sense in the sentence. These institutions were trying really hard to cater to the rich nations, but they neglected those to whom they were meant to cater.

Hope this helps. :)
Thanks.
Shraddha
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