This one is an absolute classic, and possibly the question that has given my students the most trouble over the years, partly because it shows up right at the beginning of the verbal guide, and it might be a GMAT test-taker’s first exposure to this particular set of issues.
We also covered this particular question during our
YouTube live chat, so if you prefer to get your SC via video,
click here. And some of the issues with “that” are also discussed in our recent
Topic of the Week on “that.”But ideally, the first thing you should notice here is the parallelism marker “and”. Yeah, “and” isn’t underlined – but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t important. Notice that the phrase “that the government as a whole spends beyond its means…” follows the “and” – so we’ll need to find something that’s parallel to that phrase.
Basically, we’ll need another phrase starting with “that.”
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(A) However much United States voters may agree that
Ugh, “however much voters may agree” – I think that sounds crappy and awkward. But guess what? Nobody cares what I think, and what "sounds right" and what
is right aren't necessarily the same on the GMAT. So you always want to ask yourself: is this
wrong, or just crappy?
It’s just crappy-sounding, and that’s not a crime. The parallelism is correct here, since “that” follows “however much voters may agree.” So voters may agree on two things: 1) that there is waste in government, and 2) that the government… spends beyond its means. The parallelism is wonderfully clear here.
And I sometimes hear people worry that "much" is wrong, because "much" can only modify non-countable nouns, and "United States voters" are countable. But in this case, "however much" isn't modifying the number of voters -- it's modifying the verb phrase "voters may agree", so you don't have to worry about the countable vs. non-countable business here.
So we can keep (A).
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(B) Despite the agreement among United States voters to the fact
Nothing is parallel to “that the government as a whole spends beyond its means.” Eliminate (B).
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(C) Although United States voters agree
Same parallelism error as in (B). Plus, I’m not sure that the meaning really works here… but we’ll talk about that more when we get to (E). (C) is gone.
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(D) Even though United States voters may agree
This one sounds great… but we don’t care about “sound.” The parallelism is wrong, just as in (B) and (C). Eliminate (D).
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(E) There is agreement among United States voters that
Parallelism is perfectly fine here, just as in (A).
But the big problem with (E) is a little bit tougher to spot: it’s a comma splice, featuring two independent clauses (“There is agreement…” and “it is difficult to find broad support…”), connected by just a comma. So (E) is gone.
We could also argue that (E) doesn’t really make much sense in terms of meaning: (E) says that there is definitely agreement, but it’s still difficult to find broad support for a minimal state. That’s potentially contradictory, in some sense. (A) arguably makes a little bit more sense, since it’s indicating some uncertainty with “however much”: regardless of the exact amount of the agreement, it’s difficult to find broad support for a minimal state. That seems more reasonable to me than (E).
But whatever. Parallelism errors in (B), (C), and (D), and a comma splice in (E). (A) wins, even without giving any thought to meaning.
Isnt option A a run-on sentence, since, the first part of the sentence starting with however, is an independent clause and the part starting with it is hard to gather support is another independent clause. Both ICs are joined with a comma.
That's why, I'd eliminated option A. Please help.
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26 Aug 2021, 23:01
