Many environmentalists, and some economists, say that free trade encou

I think we have to look for parallelism here.
...that free trade encourages industry to relocate to countries with.... and ...that, (...), rich nations join in this downward slide toward.....

My only fear is that "for maintaining competitiveness" in (B) is less idimatic than "in order to maintain competitiveness" in (A). However, I will go with (B). What is OA?

CDE are outright wrong
A and B are different in terms of tense and idiom.

Tense:- A is in present perfet where as B is in past tense. The sentence should be in present perfect tense.

Idiom:- "in order to maintain competitiveness" sounds better for me than "for maintaining competitiveness".

I think most of us agree that choice is between A and B. So here is explanation on why B is wrong.

"join in" implies as if rich nations are colluding. Moreover simple present tense "join" implies that this activity has just started. However as original sentence indicates that activity started in the past and still continuing.

Okay, please allow me to join the class late for I got stuck in a traffic jam, cause by alien UFO's

Okay here is my view:
In A, Perfect Tense was used, which indicates that this situation arose recently just to maintain comptetiveness and this still continues in the present.....

In B, Simple Present tense was used, which indicates that this, downward slide toward more lax attitudes about pollution is a general and consistant trend of Rich Nations.
I guess you can see the difference in the meaning..

when two sentences are grammatically correct and have difference in meanings than always go for A because it is original

Many environmentalists, and some economists, say that free trade encourages industry to relocate to countries with ineffective or poorly enforced anti pollutions laws, mostly in the developing world, and that, in order to maintain competitiveness, rich nations have joined this downward slide toward more lax attitudes about pollution.

A) that, in order to maintain competitiveness, rich nations have joined this downward slide toward more lax attitudes about pollution.
B) that, for maintaining competitiveness, rich nations join in this downward slide toward more lax attitudes about pollution
C) that rich nations join this downward slide toward more lax attitudes about pollution because of wanting to maintain competitiveness
D) that in rich nations, joining this downward slide toward more lax attitudes about pollution is a result of wanting to maintain competition
E) that wanting to maintain competition is making rich nations join in this downward slide toward an attitude about pollution that is more lax

Between A & B => present tense is wrong in rich nations join in this downward slide toward more lax attitudes about pollution. Present tense is used to convey facts that are always true. Like blood flows in veins. sun rises in the east.

To show purpose, "to" is uesd not "for"

Many environmentalists, and some economists, say that free trade encourages industry to relocate to countries with ineffective or poorly enforced anti pollutions laws, mostly in the developing world, and that, in order to maintain competitiveness, rich nations have joined this downward slide toward more lax attitudes about pollution.

(A) that, in order to maintain competitiveness, rich nations have joined this downward slide toward more lax attitudes about pollution - Correct

(B) that, for maintaining competitiveness, rich nations join in this downward slide toward more lax attitudes about pollution - 'for maintaining competitiveness' is bad idiomatic usage; 'rich nations join in this downward slide': fatal change in meaning. this wording implies that the rich nations are colluding with each other, metaphorically holding hands, deciding together to become more lax about pollution.

the simple present tense join implies that there is some sort of timeless truth about the statement being made. that's the wrong meaning: the sentence is meant to say that the rich nations have begun to do this as a result of current trends. if you don't understand the difference, consider the following analogous examples:
private universities have admitted more females than males --> meaning: this is an ongoing or cumulative trend, continuing into the present from some designated starting point
private universities admit more females than males --> meaning: this is a fundamental truth about the way private universities operate

(C) that rich nations join this downward slide toward more lax attitudes about pollution because of wanting to maintain competitiveness - same as B; because of verb-ing is unidiomatic

(D) that in rich nations, joining this downward slide toward more lax attitudes about pollution is a result of wanting to maintain competition - illogical meaning - it suggests that we are talking about some phenomenon that happens in rich nations, rather than talking about the actual actions of rich nations.
is a result of VERBing seems awkward

(E) that wanting to maintain competition is making rich nations join in this downward slide toward an attitude about pollution that is more lax - Tense issue

Answer A

daagh Can you please brief in the difference of "in" after join in option B and it is missing after joined in option A

teaser





Join means -- to attach with, to enter into, to become a member of -- i.e, join already implies a preposition. If you add another proposition, such as 'join in', the additional preposition becomes infructuous and redundant. 'Have joined' in A, is the correct diction considering the other aspects also. B and D are wrong because of this aspect, in addition to other errors in them.

daagh
Please have a look at this link https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictio ... sh/join-in

Hi, teaser,
I am under the belief GMAT grammar is good enough. I have told you what I think.
If you think GMAT authors are not up to your expectations, you must feel free to tell them as much. I didn't write the question. after all.

I hope you get my intent.

I understand well that B changes the meaning. However I'm getting confused in parallelism here.

For A, 'free trade encourages' doesn't seem parallel to 'rich nations have joined'.
For B, 'free trade encourages' seems perfectly parallel to 'rich nations join'.

Can someone please explain this?