Growing competitive pressures may be encouraging auditors to bend the

Question

Growing competitive pressures may be encouraging auditors to bend the rules in favor of  clients; auditors may, for instance, allow  a questionable loan to remain on the books in order to maintain a bank’s profits on paper.

(A) clients; auditors may, for instance, allow

(B) clients, as an instance, to allow

(C) clients, like to allow

(D) clients, such as to be allowing

(E) clients; which might, as an instance, be the allowing of

egmat · Accepted Answer

Please see this Video for an explanation of the question: https://vimeo.com/32297943

goldeneagle94 · Answer

IMO A.

I don't know WHEN to use a semicolon, but I can tell you how to know WHETHER it is correct.

(1) the sentence on both sides of the semicolon should be stand-alone or independent sentences i.e they should not be clauses.

(2) the sentences on both sides of the semicolon should be related and talking about the same topic/idea.

ritula · Answer

A
semicolon is required.that leaves A nd E. E is wordy and awkward. hence A

trainspotting · Answer

A...The clause after the semicolon should have a complete meaning...That's done correctly in A...

perfectstranger · Answer

well thanks for the answer but I did not understand when we use semicolon ?

Jozu · Answer

IMO, A seems to be the correct answer. The subject in the first part of the sentence is competitive pressure. However, the second part of the sentence is about an action that an "auditor" may take and not "competitive pressure". Hence, we need to split the sentence using semicolon and introduce a new subject "auditor" to the second sentence.

What's the OA?

aknine · Answer

A semi colon links two related clauses.

1)Growing competitive pressures may be encouraging auditors to bend the rules in favor of clients; 
2)auditors may, for instance, allow a questionable loan to remain on the books in order to maintain a bank’s profits on paper.

1st indicates that the auditors might bend some rules in favor of their clients, while the 2nd indicates how it can be done.

'A' seems the best option.

raviram80 · Answer

Hi All,

13. Growing competitive pressures may be encouraging
auditors to bend the rules in favor of clients; auditors
may. for instance. allow a questionable loan to remain
onthe books in orderto maintain a bank's profits on
paper.
(A) clients; auditors may, for instance, allow
(8) clients, as an instance, to allow
(C) clients, like to allow
(D) clients, such asto be allowing
(E) clients; which might, as an instance, bethe
allowing of

I understand the solution of QG here, and it says B is wrong

"because it is a construction that produces an ungrammatical sequence of words with no clear meaning"

Would this be correct if B was "clients, as an instance, allowing"

Please let me know

thanks

Sachin9 · Answer

Hi,
Is B wrong only because it distorts the meaning?

Regards,
Sachin

egmat · Answer

Hi Sachin, Choice B is incorrect because use of "as an instance" is not correct here. The idiom by itself is not incorrect, but it is not correct the way it has been used here. And of course, there is a meaning issue in this sentence. This is explained in the video. Hope this helps.

Thanks. Shraddha

Sachin9 · Answer

Thanks Shraddha, Would request you to throw some light on the correct usage of the idiom. If it were to come on the GMAT, it will help us..

plumber250 · Answer

Hi,

I will see if I can help you Sachin,

In this example 'for instance' means something similar to 'for example'. In this context, when giving an example on a point 'as an instance' is not the correct idion.

"as an instance" is not awful full stop, and there are times where it could be used. You can use it in the phrase 'as an instance  of ' to illustrate when one thing is an example  of  something else.

Hope that helps.

James

nanishora · Answer

Growing competitive pressures may be encouraging auditors to bend the rules in favor of  clients; auditors may, for instance, allow  a questionable loan to remain on the books in order to maintain a bank’s profits on paper.
(A) clients; auditors may, for instance, allow  semicolon separates two independent clause with use of subordinates. As an instance does not qualify as subordinate 
(B) clients, as an instance, to allow  Correct 
(C) clients, like to allow  like should not be used to introduce examples 
(D) clients, such as to be allowing such as to be - awkward and wordy. It can be simply phrased as such as allowing 
(E) clients; which might, as an instance, be the allowing of  semicolon separates two independent clause. The second clause here does not qualify as independent clause

IMO, answer is B.

plumber250 · Answer

Hi, Nanishora,

E-gmat's video provides the full explanation and reasoning so I'd watch that.

However, briefly:

B is incorrect because both it distorts the meaning of the sentence, and 'as an instance' is incorrect.

'for instance' is correct here, as it shows that we are seeing one example of the practice explained in the opening section. It's essentially a synonym for 'for example'

Cheers,

James

Sachin9 · Answer

https://sentence.yourdictionary.com/instance https://www.myenglishteacher.net/forexample.html I checked the above 2 links as well. Have some good idea now.. Thanks for your reply.

HKD1710 · Answer

(A) clients; auditors may, for instance, allow 
Pressure may be encouraging (clause)  ;  Auditors may allow (clause)

(B) clients, as an instance, to allow 
as an instance is incorrect.
pressure may be encouraging auditors to bend....., to allow... (meaning wise wrong and not properly connected)
 
 (C) clients, like to allow 
there is no comparison. like is wrongly used here.

(D) clients, such as to be allowing 
to be allowing is wrong here.

(E) clients; which might, as an instance, be the allowing of 
semi colon and then which is wrong usage. no referent for which here.

anox · Answer

Growing competitive pressures may be encouraging auditors to bend the rules in favor of  clients; auditors may, for instance, allow  a questionable loan to remain on the books in order to maintain a bank’s profits on paper.

Issues:  Modifiers

Analysis:
1. The sentence presents a causation and supports it with an example (the underlined part). Hence, this sentence tests modifier to connect two clauses as well as markers to introduce examples.

(A)  clients ;  auditors may, for instance,  allow 
 - Correctly combines two independent clauses using ";"

(B)  clients,  as an instance ,  to allow 
 - "as an instance" and "to allow" is not connected properly

(C)  clients,  like  to allow
 - "like" is not used to present examples

(D)  clients, such as  to be  allowing
- "to be" make the sentence non-sensical as it can not an example of "bent rules"

(E)  clients ; which  might, as an instance, be the allowing of
 - "; which" is a ungrammatical
- various clauses in this options are not connected properly

Answer:   (A)

mahi816 · Answer

@egmat@plumber250

Instead of option  D) clients, such as to be allowing ........is it correct if the choice is  clients, such as to allow

HKD1710 · Answer

mahi816 ,
No it would still be wrong just like choice B.

Pressures may be encouraging auditors to bend rules to allow questionable loans. so the meaning is changed here. auditors bend the rules with the purpose of allowing a questionable loan? NO. this is not original meaning. original meaning is auditor MAY allow a questionable loan as auditors bend the rules due to pressure.

"do something TO DO something else" and "do something and you MAY do something else" are two different meanings.

Growing competitive pressures may be encouraging auditors to bend the

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GMAT Sentence Correction (SC - EA only) Questions

Growing competitive pressures may be encouraging auditors to bend the

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