Quote:
Throughout the last decade, the cost of caring for children with food allergies increased, with families now spending an estimate of $25 billion per year.
(A) caring for children with food allergies increased, with families now spending an estimate of
(B) providing care for children with food allergies has increased, with families now collectively spending an estimated
(C) caring for children with food allergies increased, families having spent an estimated
(D) providing care for children with food allergies has increased, with families now spending a collective estimate of
(E) providing care for children with food allergies increased, with the result that families spent an estimated
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 childrenCaring 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 increasedBe 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 endWhat 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?
Quote:
(A) with families now spending an estimate of [$25 billion per year]
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.
Quote:
(B) with families now collectively spending an estimated [$25 billion per year]
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.
Quote:
(C) families having spent an estimated [$25 billion per year]
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.
Quote:
(D) with families now spending a collective estimate of [$25 billion per year]
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.
Quote:
(E) with the result that families spent an estimated [$25 billion per year]
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
close
14 Jul 2022, 08:00
45%
(01:30)
wrong 
- Incorrect
