A recent study showed that the constant roar of jet aircraft could be

Question

A recent study showed that the constant roar of jet aircraft could  be a serious impact to the psychological well-being of children living near airports and sharply increase their possibility to have  high blood pressure.

A. be a serious impact to the psychological well-being of children living near airports and sharply increase their possibility to have

B. seriously impact the psychological well-being of children living near airports and sharply increase their possibility to have

C. seriously impact the psychological well-being of children living near airports and sharply increase their possibility of having

D. have a serious impact on the psychological well-being of children living near airports and sharply increase their possibility to have

E. have a serious impact on the psychological well-being of children living near airports and sharply increase their possibility of having

GmatPrime · Accepted Answer

Split 1:
'to have' vs 'having'-- Since the indefinite form 'to+verb' is used to denote purpose or intent, it is best avoided here. 'the possibility to have' implies that the children intentionally want the high blood pressure which doesn't seem to be the case. 'of having' refers to the consequence without the intent. Hence, A,B, and D are out.

Split 2: Between C and E--
C is much more concise. It uses 'impact' as a verb as opposed to option E which uses 'impact' as a noun. The adverb 'seriously' helps to attain this concision, not to mention the parallelism.

Thus, I would go with option C.

shridhar786 · Answer

possibility of something is the correct idiom
so A, B, and D are out
now in option C and E
c says constant roar seriously impact the psychological well-being of children
 it can't by itself impact well being of children it can have an impact on well being of children so c is out 
E is correct since constant roar can have an impact on well being of children

vishumangal · Answer

egmat  could you please me to explain why the option is E instead of C. C looks much more precise and it is also parllel

abhishek31 · Answer

hi, can you please explain why option E, makes a better choice over option C. I was confused between the 2 and ended up going with option C.

daspri2809 · Answer

I am unable to understand difference between 
have an impact on well being and 
impact well being

Chose C as it was a more concise way.

Archit3110 · Answer

I am not really sure of the reason why option E is correct over C?
 Bunuel   VeritasKarishma  please advise on the explanation ..

Mohammad Ali Khan · Answer

Is the construction " impact on psy... is superior than impact the psy... ( perhaps the later on is changing the meaning). still need OA to understand the difference correctly. i

NoMatterWhat · Answer

IMO

Answer C is definitely correct
seriously impact is parallel to sharply increase (verb to verb)

Answer E is wrong because:
a serious impact is not parallel to sharply increase(noun to verb).

Thanks = Kudos

AjiteshArun · Answer

Some people think that using  impact  as a verb to mean  affect  is not correct (I'm  not  saying that I agree with them).

abhi2707 · Answer

I also marked C. 
Logic: 
1. Verb form vs Noun form making the concision more logical
2. Parallelism is maintained

the OA, i.e. E, made me ponder over the logic that  constant roar of a jet engine  (Cannot be the doer) can itself not hurt XXX. The OA makes sense. Also, Parallelism is maintained.

AkashM · Answer

Could one of the experts please explain why E is the OA and not C.

AndrewN · Answer

Hello,  AkashM . I think  AjiteshArun  touched on this very point in  his post above . As far as I know, this  affect-versus-effect  (verb-versus-noun) concern surrounding  impact  is not one that GMAC™ has used to create a split in an official question. For my part, I  prefer  the phrasing of (E) to (C), but I am not overly fond of adverbs...

Good luck with your studies.

- Andrew

AkashM · Answer

Damn! It took me 10 mins to understand what you and Ajitesh are trying to say.

Appreciate the help! Thanks and kudos to both of you.

AjiteshArun · Answer

Looking at my post now, I can only imagine that I was in a bit of a hurry when I wrote it.

Here is a slightly better response for anyone else who wants to evaluate this question: i. Impact as a noun : 1. ~the action of hitting or colliding A sufficiently strong impact could deflect an asteroid. ← "A strong collision could deflect an asteroid" This is absolutely fine. 2. ~an effect The are studying the impact of buybacks on stock prices. ← "... studying the effect of buybacks..." The impact on EPS is likely to be significant. ← "The effect on EPS is likely to be significant" This is absolutely fine. ii. Impact as a verb form : 3. ~hit The DART spacecraft will impact a small moonlet. ← "DART will hit a small moonlet" This is absolutely fine. 4. ~affect Stock buybacks impact earnings per share. ← "Buybacks affect EPS" Some people would not use impact as a verb to mean affect . iii. Impact on as verb 5. ~affect Stock buybacks impact on earnings per share. ← "Buybacks affect EPS" Many people would be uncomfortable using impact on as a verb to mean affect . I would not expect to see (iii) ( impact on as a verb) in the correct option ( similar, official question ), but option C uses impact as a verb to mean affect . Although some people would object to this, it is widely accepted. For this reason, I wouldn't advise a test taker to worry too much about this question. To summarize: (a) this may not be a good question, and (b) you should be suspicious only of (iii) ( impact on as a verb).

arashid100 · Answer

The word 'could' is the past tense of 'can'. It's used to mean that somebody was able to do something in the past. So the former sentence means that he was able to climb the mountain. The phrase "could have" is used to mean that somebody was capable of doing something, but he actually didn't do it. So E is a better choice than C.

C. could seriously impact the psychological well-being of children living near airports and sharply increase their possibility of having
- The constant roar can do it but is not doing it
- I could do it

E. could have a serious impact on the psychological well-being of children living near airports and sharply increase their possibility of having

Could have means - The possibility of a serious impact
- I could have done it - It was possible

Chinmay1502 · Answer

Can anyone please explain why is E preferred over C?
It will be really helpful if someone knows a similar example from OG.

AjiteshArun · Answer

Hi  Giovanni1502 ,

C looks like this: "X could seriously impact Y".  Impact  is used to mean  affect  here, so we can read option C like this: "X could seriously affect Y".  Some people feel that  impact  cannot be used to mean  affect  , but, because this is not an official question, we  don't   know  whether this "rule" is something that can be applied on the GMAT.

rahulg2120 · Answer

Could u pls confirm why C is incorrect since it is parallel

Hariyaksh · Answer

By parallelism, the option should have been D, however, the correct one is E. Unable to understand why, and no satisfactory response has been given so far.

I would appreciate an expert to opine on this.

A recent study showed that the constant roar of jet aircraft could be

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A recent study showed that the constant roar of jet aircraft could be

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