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16 Mar 2023, 14:05
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MBAaustralia
This was exactly what happened to me. I felt it should be either interest expenses or an interest expense. Because of that it threw me completely off going for A. Can anyone take a stab at answering this?
27 Mar 2023, 18:17
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rezalotif
Ignoring the "fees" for a moment, the sentence starts off with, "Custodian expenses include..." This phrase presumably refers to multiple custodian expenses (plural), and you could imagine making a list of those custodian expenses: Custodian Expense #1, Custodian Expense #2, etc. (e.g. "cleaning expense, maintenance expense, mortgage expense, interest expense, etc.").
Each item in the list would represent an individual (singular) expense -- one of several custodian expenses (plural). So it's not unreasonable to refer to "interest expense" (singular) as a single, individual expense in that list of custodian expenses.
More importantly, are you 100% sure that you NEED an article before "interest expense"? Is there some ironclad rule governing this sort of thing? Nope -- so you have to be conservative and look for other decision points. For example:
- The referent for the pronoun "its" is much clearer in choice (A). That's not enough to eliminate (B) on its own, but it's certainly a solid vote against (B).
- In (B), we have "are to include" -- but why? Does this mean that the custodian fees and expenses do NOT currently include those things? Again, the meaning is clearer in (A), so we have another solid vote against (B).
- Lastly, what does "the fund incurred" modify in (B)? Does it modify "its custodian account", or "cash overdrafts", or "interest expenses"? (A) uses a much clearer construction ("interest expense incurred by the fund") to avoid that meaning ambiguity.
(B) has three issues that affect the meaning and clarity of the sentence. (A) might be missing an article -- but the presence or absence of that article doesn't really affect the meaning, and we don't have any ironclad rules for that sort of thing.
So what's more important: a (potentially) missing article that doesn't affect the meaning whatsoever or a series of meaning/clarity issues? The latter, so (A) wins.
I hope that helps!
23 Oct 2025, 01:07
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Thanks to another GMAT Club member, I have just discovered this valuable topic, yet it had no discussion for over a year. I am now bumping it up - doing my job. I think you may find it valuable (esp those replies with Kudos).
Want to see all other topics I dig out? Follow me (click follow button on profile). You will receive a summary of all topics I bump in your profile area as well as via email.
