Events & Promotions
|
|
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
Track
Your Progress
Practice
Pays
Not interested in getting valuable practice questions and articles delivered to your email? No problem, unsubscribe here.
Apr 1612:00 PM EDT
-11:59 PM EDT
You’re first to know: Save $200 on GMAT prep starting tomorrow, 4/13. Get 6 official practice tests and study with real questions. Be ready to save!
Apr 2610:00 AM EDT
-11:00 AM EDT
The Target Test Prep course represents a quantum leap forward in GMAT preparation, a radical reinterpretation of the way that students should study. Try before you buy with a 5-day, full-access trial of the course for FREE!
Apr 2711:00 AM EDT
-12:00 PM EDT
Prefer video-based learning? The Target Test Prep OnDemand course is a one-of-a-kind video masterclass featuring 400 hours of lecture-style teaching by Scott Woodbury-Stewart, founder of Target Test Prep and one of the most accomplished GMAT instructors
Apr 2808:00 AM PDT
-11:00 AM PDT
Whether you are just beginning your MBA journey or fine-tuning your path to a 700+ score, GMAT Day is designed to give you a competitive edge.
E
Be sure to select an answer first to save it in the Error Log before revealing the correct answer (OA)!
Difficulty:
75%
(hard)
Question Stats:
37% (01:15) correct
63%
(01:18)
wrong
based on 1130
sessions
History
Date
Time
Result
Not Attempted Yet
Economic theory fails to explain the extent to which savings from personal income has shifted to short term bonds, money-market funds, and other near term investments by the instability in the futures market.
A) to which savings from personal income has shifted
B) of savings from personal income that has been shifted
C) of savings from personal income shifting
D) to which savings from personal income have shifted
E) to which savings from personal income have been shifted
SOURCE: XAT 2013
I feel the answer must be instead of since the purpose of the sentence is served by the present perfect tense and there's no need to use the perfect continuous tense?
Experts please comment.
A) to which savings from personal income has shifted
B) of savings from personal income that has been shifted
C) of savings from personal income shifting
D) to which savings from personal income have shifted
E) to which savings from personal income have been shifted
SOURCE: XAT 2013
I feel the answer must be instead of since the purpose of the sentence is served by the present perfect tense and there's no need to use the perfect continuous tense?
Experts please comment.
03 Dec 2014, 21:32
Kudos
Bookmarks
E seems best: to which savings from personal income have been shifted
D is wrong because D says: to which savings from personal income have shifted----------->seems to suggest that "saving" have themselves shifted. this is not possible . this is precisely the reason as why u need a passive construction as is used in option E
D is wrong because D says: to which savings from personal income have shifted----------->seems to suggest that "saving" have themselves shifted. this is not possible . this is precisely the reason as why u need a passive construction as is used in option E
06 Mar 2019, 21:35
Kudos
Bookmarks
Quote:
Rakeshtewatia
applebear
Rakeshtewatia and
applebear , this sentence is dense.
It tests a number of issues, but the most important issue
is active versus passive voice.
Too often test-takers assume immediately that active is better than passive voice.
Be careful with the preference for active voice.
Sometimes it is better to use passive voice.
In this case, passive voice is better because the causal agent
is an inanimate thing. Things such as instability do not shift money. People do.
The question tests these concepts:
• Subject/verb agreement in (A) and (B)
"Savings" is plural. The verb must be plural.
• present participial modifiers [verbING] in option C
Shifting should modify savings.
Shifting incorrectly modifies income.
• whether we can recognize the instances in which
we should use passive voice.
Option D suggests that inanimate instability itself can shift money
from one market to another.
Instability cannot shift money anywhere.
People shift money.
In such cases, we should use the passive voice.
• Use passive voice to downplay agency. Use present perfect to talk about a recent event that is relevant in the present
Option E correctly uses the present perfect
in the passive voice
PRESENT PERFECT, construction
Present perfect, ACTIVE: have + past participle
Present perfect PASSIVE: have + been + past participle
• What does this sentence mean?
People invested their savings in the futures market.
At some point, that futures market became unstable.
At the time this statement was written (recent), the instability of the futures market
"caused" savings to be shifted from the futures market to
short term bonds, money-market funds, and other near-term investments.
The shift of money invested (from futures to other investments) was a big shift.
The sentence implies that although it is logical for people to move their invested money
out of unstable markets, this shift was huge—
and economic theory cannot account for the magnitude of the shift.
Magnitude is a synonym for extent.
• Active vs passive voice
Who decides to change investment strategies? People.
Active voice
This sentence, which I write in the active voice, reflects that fact:
Although the instability of the futures market makes people nervous enough to shift some money out of futures,
the great extent to which people have shifted their invested savings from futures to short-term bonds,
money-market funds, and other near-term investments cannot be explained by economic theory.
In that sentence, people are the agents of change. People are the active doers.
Can the instability of the futures market itself shift money from one market to other markets?
No.
Can that instability itself decide that the shift of money away from futures and to other investments will be a large shift?
No.
Passive voice
We use passive voice when we want to de-emphasize the doer and causation.
The votes were counted by 6 a.m. the next morning.
We use passive voice when we do not know who or what the doer is.
Sometimes our fears are misunderstood.
We use passive voice when the doer is not human but the "done to" [the savings] requires human or animate agency and there are only inanimate things in the sentence.
She was compelled to check every luggage carousel by the broken monitors.
(Monitors, broken or not, cannot compel a person to do anything. So we say that she WAS compelled to check every carousel BY the fact that the monitors were broken.
It is just a nuance of English that when we write in the passive voice in this context, we acknowledge that the inanimate thing did have an effect, but was not an active, intentional, or live doer.)
Correct: Economic theory cannot explain the [large] extent to which invested savings have been shifted to X, Y, and Z by
[BECAUSE OF] the instability of the futures market.
I just posted a question involving this issue for Project SC Butler.
That question is here.
Answer E correctly uses the passive voice to describe a situation wherein
1) futures markets in which people have invested savings are unstable, a fact that leads to #2;
2) funds have been moved to better investment areas; and
3) economic theory cannot account for the apparently great or large extent of that shift in funds.
I hope that analysis helps.
