In 1981 children in the United States spent an average of slightly les

This question causes endless confusion. Whee.

I see a couple of different issues with (A). Here it is again:


If we're crazy literal about the interpretation of the pronoun "they", then (A) has a problem. "They" seems to refer to "children in the United States" -- presumably, the exact same "children in the United States" that appeared at the beginning of the sentence. But that makes no sense: the "children in the United States" in 1981 aren't even children by 1997, so it's ridiculous to talk about how much time they spent doing chores in 1997.

And if you don't buy that, I think there's a problem with the verb tense in (A), too.

We have "In 1981 children in the United States spent an average of slightly less than two and a half hours a week doing household chores; by 1997 they had spent nearly six hours a week." The use of the past perfect, "had spent" in the second clause implies an action that took place before another event in the past. In other words, by 1997, the children were no longer spending six hours a week on household chores. This doesn't make much sense - why would they go from spending 2.5 hours a week in 1981 to no longer spending 6 hours a week by 1997?

But in (B), we have "In 1981 children in the United States spent an average of slightly less than two and a half hours a week doing household chores; by 1997 that figure had grown to nearly six hours a week." Again, we have the past perfect, but this time "had grown" indicates that the figure grew to 6 hours before 1997. This makes perfect sense - the children were working for 2.5 hours a week in 1981, and at some point before 1997, they began working 6 hours a week.

To summarize: it's illogical to write that the children were no longer working 6 hours a week by 1997, but it makes perfect sense to claim that the figure had grown to 6 hours by 1997.

I hope that helps!

So if a construction uses 'By some year' then we should always use past perfect tense?
Can we make this as a rule?

It's nice when something can be boiled down to a rule, isn't it? While there are some hard and fast grammar rules worth internalizing, for the most part, we're relying on logic and context to make our decisions, rather the memorizing a long list of "when you see x, look for y!"

If I'm referring to a year in the past, and I'm describing an action that was completed before that year, sure, it makes sense to use "had." For example: "By last week, I had already destroyed all of the evidence incriminating me." Last week is in the past, and the destruction of the evidence occurred before last week. So far so good.

But I could easily generate other scenarios in which the past perfect wouldn't be appropriate. If, for example, I was writing about the future: "By 2080, the vast majority of my interactions will be with evil robots." We have "by [some year]," but clearly, past perfect isn't appropriate here.

The takeaway: don't try to memorize constructions that would call for the past perfect. Rather, if you're evaluating an answer choice that contains the past perfect, ask yourself if the action in question really was completed in the past before something else in the past.

I hope that helps!

GMATNinja I could not locate good error pointers in the ACs to test, would you consider eliminating A,C on the basis of meaning (that it's not as clear as B?) or is this a case of correct omission of words? My reasons for eliminating answers from from most confident to least confident.

(D) chores, compared with a figure of nearly six hours a week in 1997
makes it sound like the "children ... doing chores" is compared with "a figure"

(E) chores, that figure growing to nearly six hours a week in 1997
wrongly uses simple present to talk about an action finished in the past

(A) chores; by 1997 they had spent nearly six hours a week
"[children] spent six hours a week" doing what?

(C) chores, whereas nearly six hours a week were spent in 1997
passive voice "were spent" ... by whom? doing what?

(B) chores; by 1997 that figure had grown to nearly six hours a week
"that figure" refers back to the average
"had grown" is correct past perfect form

As a general rule, I wouldn't try to figure out if words in a sentence are missing, because, well, mind-reading is hard.

Instead, we simply want to ask ourselves if the given sentence, as written, clearly conveys a logical and unambiguous meaning. For example, If I write, "Tim has more rainbow-colored parakeets than Nancy," it's true that I left out the word "does" at the end of it, but no reasonable person would misinterpret the sentence to mean that Tim has more parakeets than he has Nancy! This sentence is fine.

But if I write, "Tim loves rainbow-colored parakeets more than Nancy," I could be conveying more than one possible meaning: that Tim loves parakeets more than Tim loves Nancy, or that Tim loves parakeets more than Nancy loves parakeets. So this one is a problem.

That said, I think your explanations are mostly dead-on. I'd add that in (E), we have a faulty VERB-ing modification. The figure didn't grow to 6 hours a week as a result of children having spent little time doing household chores in the past. Moreover, it sounds as though the growth from less than 2.5 to 6 took place in entirely in 1997. Compare this to the meaning in (B), that the growth had taken place by 1997, possibly over several years. The latter interpretation is more logical.

And for a more on why (A) is wrong, take a look at my earlier post in this thread.

But you only need one valid reason for eliminating an answer choice, so you did excellent work here.

Nicely done!

The point of reference in B is quite clearly the same activity. This is made abundantly clear by "that figure".

A de-contextualises the point of reference by merely stating that the subjects "spent" x hours per week.


MartyTargetTestPrep

Regarding choice (A), consider the following adjusted version of the original version of the sentence:

In 1981 children in the United States spent an average of slightly less than two and a half hours a week doing household chores; by 1997 they were spending nearly six hours a week.

Now, there is in the second clause still no mention of what the children "were spending nearly six hours a week" doing, but the meaning is fairly clear. So, while the above sentence is not ideal, the lack of mention of what the children "had spent nearly six hours week" doing is not the most critical issue.

So, what's the most critical issue?

The most critical issue is the use of the past perfect "had spent."

The use of "had spent" results in the creation of a comparison that is not logical. On the one hand we have what the children did in 1981. On the other, we have what the children "had" done by 1997. Even if we assume that, "by 1997," the children "had spent nearly six hours a week" doing household chores, when they had spent that nearly six hours a week is not clear. Are we meant to believe that, even including the time spent in 1981, and perhaps including time spent back to the dawn of time, by 1997, children had spent a weighted average of nearly six hours per week doing household chores? That meaning seems rather unlikely to be the one that the author meant to convey.

Deciding that choice (A) should be eliminated simply because what the children had spent nearly six hours doing is not directly mentioned is a bit too simplistic, and the overall takeaway here is that you can make your thinking about these choices more sophisticated.

GMAT verbal is to a large degree a test of the level of sophistication of the thinking that you bring to bear when answering the questions.

Hi GMATNinja , I've tried many times reading your explanation in B. Why do you say that it implies that the children NO LONGER spends 6 hours a week? How did the past perfect NEGATE the meaning? because it's literally written as "by 1997 that figure had grown to nearly six hours a week". I don't see where it implied that it's NO LONGER 6 hours a week.

Aside from that, everything seems fine. Many thanks Please help... My GMAT is in 3 days and I still have a lot to cover!

First a disclaimer: this issue isn't important enough to worry about just before the exam! You should be doing light review, while making sure your addressing the psychological factors that can shape test performance. Put another way, mindset is more important than small content issues. [Disclaimer complete ]

As for your question, consider how the past perfect works: it indicates an action completed before something else in the past. For example:

"By 8pm last night, Tim had eaten all of the Pop-Tarts in the pantry, leaving him with no food for the remainder of the weekend."

The verb phrase "had eaten" conveys that the action was completed before "8pm last night," which is also in the past. Poor Tim is no longer eating Pop-Tarts! (And should maybe hire a dietician.)

Same thing here: "by 1997 they had spent nearly six hours a week." Again, the verb phrase "had spent" indicates an action completed before something else in the past, in this case 1997. Therefore, They'd spent 6 nearly hours before 1997. By 1997, they're no longer spending nearly six hours a week.

Contrast that with the OA: "by 1997 that figure had grown to nearly six hours a week." Now "had grown" happened before 1997, meaning that the figure is no longer growing. This meaning is perfectly logical: the figure grew in the past, and then stopped growing.

More on verb tenses in this video if anybody needs to waste an hour.

Good luck on the exam -- let us know how it goes!

Hi KyleWiddison egmat sayantanc2k GMATNinja
Thanks for the explanation!
Just wanted to check if "figure" in B will qualify as a subject and thus make this an independent clause.
Also, I feel that the option you provided by 1997 they were spending nearly six hours a week would still have been wrong as they would refer to the same children of 1981 and surely they must have grown up by 1997. Perhaps the correct option would have been by 1997 such children were spending nearly six hours a week
Look forward to your insights.

Yep - exactly right. There's a common misconception that you should be able to interpret the full meaning of an independent clause without referring to any other clause. In reality, an independent clause just needs to be able to stand on its own grammatically.

It's true in this case that to understand what the "figure" is, we have to refer to a previous clause, but that's fine. What matters is that the sentence in question has a subject and a verb. Pretty much every paragraph in every novel you read will be littered with pronouns that refer to antecedents in other sentences. That doesn't mean those sentences aren't independent.

And if you're hoping for a more comprehensive analysis of this question, feel free to check out this post.

Hi GMATNinja EducationAisle

Going by the logic of your example, it would be illogical to compare children with figure. Hence, there is not ambiguity and the usage of "compared with" should be correct as it can only be compared with 2.5 hours/week. The reason it can be wrong is becasue of "IN" 1997.
Kindly confirm.

Hi shanks2020, that would indeed be the easiest way to eliminate D.

In 1981 children in the United States spent an average of slightly less than two and a half hours a week doing household chores; by 1997 they had spent nearly six hours a week.


(A) chores; by 1997 they had spent nearly six hours a week Meaning issue. When the sentence talks about a rate ("spent...two and a half hours a week") in the first part, and the second part begins with "by 1997, they had spent...", it should go on to give a cumulative figure. Giving another rate does not make logical sense. Eliminate.

(B) chores; by 1997 that figure had grown to nearly six hours a week Correct answer. The second part of the sentence talks about "had grown..." and hence does not require the cumulative figure.

(C) chores, whereas nearly six hours a week were spent in 1997 "whereas" indicates comparison. The "children" are being compared to "six hours a week" which is illogical. Eliminate.

(D) chores, compared with a figure of nearly six hours a week in 1997 Same comparison error as (C). Eliminate.

(E) chores, that figure growing to nearly six hours a week in 1997 Same comparison error as (C) and (D). Eliminate.

Hope this helps.

@Bunoel, can you merge with this one?
https://gmatclub.com/forum/in-1981-chil ... 71085.html

This ine is showing first on google

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Done. Thank you!

Though I made the same mistake of not going with past perfect tense, I have tried a new approach to understand its usage in the sentence.
This sentence is mentioning past facts, in retrospect, i.e., when the sentence was being framed, we were looking back in time. By this way, event in 1997 happened first and event in 1981 happened second. By this logic, it is understandable to use past perfect with 1997.
Any comments and suggestions are welcome as all I'm trying to do is to properly understand the choice of answer in a way not to ever forget it.
Thanks.