GMAT Club World Cup 2022 (DAY 4): Throughout the last decade, the cost

AndrewN can you shed some light on the split "estimated" vs "an estimate of" with examples maybe? I am kind of struggling to understand which one to use in which type of sentence. Thanks in advance

Welcome to the world of meaning. If you are not careful here to consider the sentence as a whole, you can quickly drive yourself mad.

Split #1: caring for children versus providing care for children

Caring for is a tricky expression in this context. It can on its own be taken to mean providing care for, but it can just as easily be interpreted as having feelings for or showing concern for. Of course, it would not cost anything to show concern for children. The safer option is the latter, although I would not be quick to make any eliminations just yet.

Split #2: increased versus has increased

Be careful not to run on autopilot. Your knee-jerk reaction might be to latch on to the present perfect, pointing to throughout the last decade as a time marker that extends into the present, or now. The problem is that we do not really know whether that is the intended meaning. The sentence could be commenting on a decade that has recently wrapped up, as in the 2010s—Throughout the 2010s, the cost… increased, with families now [in the current decade] spending... You hear some Experts say that splits are not everything they are cracked up to be, and I agree. When it comes to meaning, it is better to be conservative and not tell the sentence what it means to say. I have no preference here, based on the lack of evidence.

Split #3: the modifying phrases at the end

What a nightmare for test-takers: five unique options, four of which adopt a relatively unpopular with structure. How about we examine these one by one?

Those must be some wealthy families! Few families could afford such expenses, but the grammar can suggest such an interpretation. The easier target, in my mind, is an estimate of. I would expect the adjective estimated to appear instead. With two doubts, I would put this answer choice on the Probably Not list and move on.

Now, with collectively, it is clear that the families are pooling money to provide care for children with food allergies, and estimated does just what I was hoping for above. I see no problems with this one.

Well, it is terse, I will give it that. I could ponder whether an absolute phrase was appropriate for the sentence, but I would rather not. (I suppose it could.) The easier issue to note is that it repeats the phrasing of the original sentence, in which families were possibly each spending $25 billion a year to provide care for children with food allergies. Like (A), this one belongs on the Probably Not list.

Finally, some relief from all that lack of certainty. This is not just an estimate of, which I disliked in the original sentence, but a collective estimate of, as though many people—perhaps the families themselves—had reached a consensus on just how much they were spending per year to provide the care in question. It is a tenable sentence, but highly unlikely. I would remove it from consideration altogether.

This sounds terrible, and I find myself wondering what the result that achieves in the way of clarity that other options lack. However, a more consistent issue is that families are still spending away, maybe together, maybe not. All things considered, this is not a safe option.

Since (B) is the only answer choice that has withstood the gauntlet of scrutiny, I would feel confident selecting it. I had a lot of fun thinking about meaning on this one. I suppose you could say that a single adverb, collectively, played a large role in helping me to place confidence in one option over the others. If you felt split #2 was decisive, I would understand. The majority of the time you see such time markers, you will be dealing with a perfect tense. Just do not shut off your critical reasoning. If nothing else, notice that only answer choice (B) is safe in all three cases above: it outlines that the cost is for providing care for children, it adopts an unobjectionable verb tense in the main clause, and it clarifies that the dollar figure at the end applies to all families as an aggregate.

As always, good luck with your studies.

- Andrew

Whoa! Thanks for this fantastic explanation AndrewN. Compared to your conservative, calculative & careful process my process was pretty rash, reckless and run of the mill. Thanks for providing this perspective. I have a couple of quick questions that I would love to have your expert opinion on
A) Constitution Rule: This a basic 2 words jargon for the longer description below

Description: If the meaning of option A is not incorrect even though it might appear a little worse in meaning to other options, stick with the meaning of option A. (It is like the constitution of a nation once the laws get written down they are nearly impossible to change) This my observation with most GMAT SC questions

In this case, by virtue of split #2 are we breaking the Constitution rule? And in the first place the Constitution rule works 9 out of 10 times. Is it a reliable and legit approach to solve SC questions?

B) I don't quite understand how 25 billion USD is for each families in options like A. Request you to elaborate and please throw some light on it

Can't thank enough for this answer. Wonderful explanation. Looking forward to your expert opinion

Although some had accused Smith, the firm’s network manager, of negligence when the crucial data went missing, the CEO defused a situation that was quite tense with her public statement that the debacle was not Smith’s fault.

A. a situation that was quite tense with her public statement that the debacle was not Smith’s fault
B. a situation that was quite tense, by publicly stating that the debacle was not Smith’s fault
C. a situation, which was quite tense, by stating publicly that Smith was not responsible for the debacle
D. a quite tense situation with a public statement about the debacle not being Smith’s fault
E. a quite tense situation by publicly stating the debacle not to have been Smith’s fault