Developing East Asian information technology sectors, especially the o

Question

Developing East Asian information technology sectors, especially the ones in Vietnam, have been found by a consulting firm to be potential consumers for Cystar’s Hyperfast Server systems.

(A) Developing East Asian information technology sectors, especially the ones in Vietnam, have been found by a consulting firm to be potential consumers to Cystar’s Hyperfast Server systems

(B) According to a consulting firm, developing East Asian information technology sectors, particularly Vietnam, would be potential consumers for Cystar’s Hyperfast Server systems

(C) The potential consumers of Cystar’s Hyperfast Server systems, according to a consulting firm, are the developing East Asian information technology sectors, particularly those in Vietnam.

(D) Cystar’s Hyperfast Server systems has potential customers in the the developing East Asian information technology sectors, particularly those in Vietnam according to a consulting firm

(E) A consulting firm has found that developing East Asian information technology sectors, particularly in Vietnam, would be potential consumers of Cystar’s Hyperfast Server systems

Logic is very important on the GMAT SC. An answer choice cannot possibly be correct if it is logically flawed. For a discussion of the variety of logical problems on the GMAT SC, as well as the OE for this particular question, see:
Logical Splits on GMAT Sentence Correction

Mike

mikemcgarry · Accepted Answer

Dear ynk , The " those " in (D) is perfect correct. Choice (D) changes the meaning subtly. In the prompt, it's clear that the entire East Asian scenario was discovered & presented by the consulting firm. Choice (D) makes it sound as if Cystar already knew that East Asia was a hot market, and the consulting firm did no more than indicate that Vietnam was more promising than other options there. The role of the consulting firm is different in (D) than what it was in the prompt, and this is a change in meaning. That's why (D) is wrong. Dear robu Choice (C), like (D), is 100% grammatically correct, but logically flawed. Where are all the potential customers of Cystar? Well, the prompt indicates that some are in East Asia, but do we know that all of them are in East Asia? We don't know. This leaves the possibility open that other potential customers might be elsewhere in the world. Choice (C) changes that: it says the potential customers are in East Asia, period. It is considerably more definitive in its assertion, and in so doing, it excludes potential options left open by the prompt. It's like the different between these two sentences 1) Chris is one of my friends . 2) My one friend is Chris . Those are two very different sentences, even the the fact that Chris is my friend remains true in both. In a similar way, (C) changes the meaning and thus is wrong. Does all this make sense? Mike :-)

Mo2men · Answer

Hi Mike,

I excluded choices based on the following analysis

B) phrase 'particularly Vietnam' is incorrect. I should contain something relate to sectors in Vietnam. I think 'consumer for' is incorrect.

C) redundant 'are' or mybe type mistake. Also the pahrasing gives different meaning as if 'Developing East Asian information technology sectors' is sure for to be a consumer, while in the sentence in original sentence it 'would' be a consumer.

D) same problem in choice B

However, I found myself stuck between A & E. But I could not understand why E is correct? My confusion is that the phrase  'particularly in Vietnam'  misses any word such  'those'  to relate to 'sectors' in the previous part in ' Developing East Asian information technology sectors '

mikemcgarry · Answer

Dear Mo2men , Thank you, thank you, my friend, for finding that typo in (C), the two appearances of " are ." That was a mistake in question posted here and in the original blog: I fixed it in both places. Thank you very much for calling this to my attention. How does (C) look now? As for your question about (E)---this is an issue of what words we are allowed to omit in parallel. The " particularly " phrase is the second branch of parallelism. Think about it without dropping anything: ... that developing East Asian information technology sectors, particularly the developing information technology sectors in Vietnam, ... We are allowed to drop any repeated words in the second branch of the parallelism, as long as the nature of the parallelism remains clear. Here, we can drop everything in the second branch except for " in Vietnam ," which makes the entire missing structure clear. See: Dropping Common Words in Parallel on the GMAT Does all this make sense? Mike :-)

Mo2men · Answer

Dear Mike, Thanks a lot. The question is now perfect in both locations.

. it is really nice 700 question for its subtle issues in every choice. I understood now the omitting process. Just a quick question? is the phrase 'particularly those in Vietnam' considered correct? I think 'those' refers to 'developing information sectors' . Am I correct? Thanks in advance

mikemcgarry · Answer

Dear Mo2men , I'm happy to respond. :-)

Yes, the phrase " particularly those in Vietnam " is completely correct---just a one word longer than the tersest version. Because this proposed structure is easier to recognize, having this would make it a much simpler question. Mike :-)

ynk · Answer

Hi Mike,

Can you please elaborate as to why D is wrong?
Is it because of the pronoun ambiguity 'those'?

aditya8062 · Answer

hello Mike 
I somehow feel that option E is changing the intent of the original sentence (which BTW seems logical to me). Here is my thought process---> the ORIGINAL sentence is STRESSING that FACT that  Developing East Asian information technology sectors ARE POTENTIAL CONSUMERS to some XYZ  WHEREAS option E is STRESSING the FACT that  A consulting firm HAS FOUND some XYZ INFO

ALSO i fail to understand the usage of "WOULD" in such a case as is done in option E. "WOULD" is used in two cases:
1) when we talking about hypothetical case----> if I were rich I would ..... 
2)when we talking about an event that WAS STILL a future event at the time described in the sentence BUT IS NO LONGER a future event ---> last year, several posts predicted that Brazil would win the world cup

The situation that you have generated in this sentence REQUIRES the usage of WILL as it neither describes a HYPOTHETICAL case NOR a CASE 2( as described above).

Mike i will appreciate if you can please elaborate on above points

Thanks

robu · Answer

Dear Mike

can I know why C is incorrect?

mikemcgarry · Answer

Dear aditya8062 , I'm happy to respond. :-)

The original, (A), is logically sound, but off in other ways. It has the idiom mistake " potential consumers to Cystar’s Hyperfast Server systems . It is passive and stilted, awkward in funny way. I think you are picking on something subtle between (A) and (E). There is a way that (A) is almost dogmatic in discussing a future business deal---- we could almost say that (A) talks like a crazy person and (E) talks like a sane person. This is related to the use of the word " would ." This word is appropriate whenever there's an element of uncertainty. When is something in the future uncertain? Always, 100% of the time. Technically, absolutely nothing is certain in this life except that it won't last forever. Now, for a simple task, something over which I have full control, the simple future is the best option. " I will go to the store later ." Now, it may be that I will get run over by a bus, or that the store will burn down, or that northern CA will get hit by an earthquake, etc., but those are all relatively improbable scenarios. There's an extremely high probability that if I want to walk to a store a few block away, I will be able to have a successful trip. We use the simple future for that. By contrast, consider a business deal like the one in the question. We are talking about a company selling its server systems to information technology companies in South East Asia. This is not a one-day affair, just a handshake and pay with a credit car and done. We don't know everything that might be involved in a sale --- would it be $10M or $100M or $1B? how many days, weeks, months of negotiation would be necessary? What are the legal ramifications? The infrastructural needs? the language barriers? etc. etc. We don't know all those details, but it's enough to know that there are many many moving parts. The fact that Cystar and their consultants want to make sales to these East Asian companies doesn't necessarily mean that all the sales will go through without a hitch. In some sense, the caution and humility of (E), in using " would ," is a much more realistic perspective. Sure, Cystar may be gung-ho about making sales here, but dozens of things have to line up correctly in order for any such sale to come to fruition. The probability of failure is considerably higher here than in my walking to the store example. Simple wanting alone is not enough to guarantee success. Does all this make sense? Mike :-)

aditya8062 · Answer

Thanks Mike for putting an elaborate reply

Mo2men · Answer

Dear  mikemcgarry ,
 I just highlight that Choice A is different than the original question. There is a typo that I highlighted.

Ss6479118 · Answer

B is wrong because the phrase ‘particularly Vietnam’ doesn’t make any sense there. C uses two ‘are’s making it redundant. D has the same problem as B.I am a little confused between A and E but still going to try. Now, as far as I can see, the only real difference is that A is a lot wordier. So E is the better option, as it is more concise.
 
I will select E as my answer.

AkashM · Answer

Hi Mikemcgarry,

Doesn't the part 'would be a potential consumers' indicates that the sectors are going to be potential consumers in the future?

Where as the structure in A says they are potential consumers right now. This is why I choose option A.

Please correct me if I am wrong.

Any help is appreciated.

@Daag, VeritasKarishma, AjiteshArun - Request your expert inputs as well.

sarthakaggarwal · Answer

Dear  ynk , 
The " those " in (D) is perfect correct. Choice (D) changes the meaning subtly. In the prompt, it's clear that the entire East Asian scenario was discovered & presented by the consulting firm. Choice (D) makes it sound as if Cystar already knew that East Asia was a hot market, and the consulting firm did no more than indicate that Vietnam was more promising than other options there. The role of the consulting firm is different in (D) than what it was in the prompt, and this is a change in meaning. That's why (D) is wrong. 
 Dear Mike

Hi  mike  
Option D is wrong because it changes the meaning, but since the prompt is fully underlined and even though option D changes meaning(but that changed meaning also makes sense), so do we have to give preference to the meaning conveyed in the prompt?
Also in option D, "Cystar’s Hyperfast Server systems HAS potential customers" is there a sub-verb error? systems is plural so it should be have rather than has?
Thanks in advance!!

DmitryFarberMPrep · Answer

sarthakaggarwal

I would advise against ever using "changes the meaning" as an elimination criterion. Meaning is very important, but we don't want to eliminate an answer because it doesn't match the meaning of A. That meaning could be wrong! Rather, we want to look at all 5 choices to see what the author seems to be trying to say, and then choose an answer that conveys that meaning well. For that reason, we could say that D doesn't convey the meaning that the other choices imply.

Having said all that, I will also note that typically, the right answer will match the meaning of A as long as that meaning is clear and correct.

sarthakaggarwal · Answer

So basically I have to look fir the intended meaning
Thanks a ton  Dmitry  for solving my query!!

VerbalBot · Answer

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Developing East Asian information technology sectors, especially the o

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Developing East Asian information technology sectors, especially the o

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