In all, fifteen or more Greenwich Capital employees have been tied to

Dear AlexIV,
I'm happy to respond.

The expression "all told" indicates a summary. It often appears toward the end of an account about some event with several moving parts. I might say "This happened to A, this happened to B, etc." and then at the end, say in summary, "All told, this was the effect on everyone."

It is a short absolute phrase, because it's in the form of [noun] + [noun modifier]. It has roughly the same meaning as the subordinate clause "when all has been told." Again, this is a typical market signifying a summary of a complex situation. It's a bit casual: I don't know that I have ever seen it in an official question. I would say it is right on the border of formal enough that it might be used in an official question.

Does all this make sense?
Mike

(D) is incorrect because the semi-colon is incorrectly used in this case before "with".
Here a dependent clause is being separated by a semi-colon, which is similar to a full-stop.
How can you separate a dependent clause with a full-stop?

In (C), The independent clause "four have pleaded guilty and more are likely to do so" is correctly separated by a semi colon. Moreover the second part means:
four have pleaded guilty and more are likely to plead guilty

We can't simply remove this to plead guilty after more are likely. (C) correctly uses more are likely to do so

to do so = to plead guilty.


But I don't understand what this "all told" mean in B, C and E

Dear vbhvbaheti,
I'm happy to respond.

The phrase "have been tied" is
a) present perfect tense, and
b) passive voice

The verb "to tie" here means to link conceptually, to show the chain of causality.

If I were a reporter or an investigator, I could say,
I tied at least fifteen employees to insider trading.
If we don't care about who did the investigating, we would use the passive voice. The GMAT often uses the passive voice when the "doer" of the action is unknown and/or irrelevant.
At least fifteen employees are tied to insider trading. = present tense, passive voice
At least fifteen employees were tied to insider trading. = past tense, passive voice
At least fifteen employees have been tied to insider trading. = present perfect tense, passive voice

Does this make sense?
Mike

Dear Siddharth,

I'm happy to respond. My friend, the first point I will say is that no practice questions from any private company are at the level of the official verbal questions. It's relatively easy to write math questions that are just as good as official questions. The official verbal questions, though, are in another league, and a question of a private test prep company, however high quality, rarely approaches that sublime level. I say this as someone who writes questions as part of my job. All this is to say: do not make any judgments about how an official question will "feel" unless you are dealing with official questions.

First of all, I will that students often mistakenly believe that the GMAT SC is primarily a test of grammar. In fact, grammar and logic and rhetoric are all equally important. In particular, use of the perfect tenses is as much a logical issue as a grammatical issue.

BTW, the "been" shows up either in the relatively rare perfect progressive combinations ("I have been reading this book since . . . ") or in passive construction in perfect tenses, ("By the Third Punic War, Carthage had been reduced to . . . ")

The past perfect is tricky on the GMAT, because it is one way to indicate a sequence of events in the past, but not the only way. If other words in the sentence make clear that past event A was before past event B, then the GMAT would consider it redundant to use the past perfect also. We don't have to use more than one indicator to communicate the same piece of the meaning.

The future perfect is exceedingly rare. I don't remember seeing any official question that uses it: perhaps one does somewhere, but it almost never shows up.

The present perfect is extremely subtle, because it could mean that the action started in the past and is still continuing, or it could mean that the action happened and finished in the past, but in some meaningful way, the effects still continue in the present moment. Consider these two sentences
1) The US Bill of Rights was framed to protect individuals from the federal government.
2) The US Bill of Rights has been framed to protect individuals from the federal government.
This actual event is far in the past: the US Bill of Rights was ratified in 1791. Both sentences are grammatically correct, but logically they have different connotations. The first is presenting this information as over and done: that happened long ago and is a finished fact. We would almost expect the author saying #1 to continue by explaining how the Bill of Rights no longer serves it purpose, or its role has changed, or something of that sort. The speaker, by using the simple past, is separating the effects of the Bill of Rights from our present circumstances.
By contrast, the use of the present perfect in #2 deeply affirms that the Bill of Rights continues to play this same role today, that it is essentially just as meaningful to modern Americans as it was to Americans in 1791. The author of #2 has a profoundly different emotional agenda than the author of #1 has.
As this example shows, the use of the present perfect delves deeply into questions of meaning, of what the deep intention of the author. These are the kinds of questions that the official GMAT SC questions regularly explore, and student who simply skate along the surface looking a grammar rules are continually befuddled by such questions. A good GMAT SC question used grammar and logic and rhetoric in a combine effort to produce a deep coherent meaning. If you appreciate a sentence at that level, then you are are on your way to GMAT SC mastery.

Does all this make sense?
Mike

Hi Mike,

While I was studying I found two OA of OG questions that follow the structure 'With + noun + participial phrase'


In OG 12 SC# 78

Visitors to the park have often looked up into the leafy canopy and seen monkeys sleeping on the branches, with arms and legs hanging like socks on a clothesline.


In OG 13 SC #114

Starfish, with anywhere from five to eight arms, have a strong regenerative ability, and if one arm is lost it is quickly replaced, with the animal sometimes overcompensating and and growing an extra one or two.

I'm little confused as I have seen OG SC that contradict the rule you mentioned. Do I miss or misunderstand something??

Thanks in advance

VERITAS PREP OFFICIAL SOLUTION:

Explanation: The easiest answer choice to eliminate is (B) as the past perfect is clearly incorrect in this case: it suggests they were tied to insider trading before they were at the fund. Also (D) is incorrect as the semi-colon is incorrectly used in that case – it should be separating an independent clause. In (A), the past tense could be correct, but the structure at the end is not parallel and it is imprecise. The “and more likely” does not make it clear what is more likely and does not logically follow the structure before it. In (E), “the more are likely” is also incorrect as something needs to follow it because the structure before cannot be logically put after it. You cannot say: “four have pleaded guilty and more are likely have pleaded guilty” Only (C) gets the second part correct: the semi-colon is used to separate an independent clause and it uses the proper “to do so” after “more likely” to show that “four have pleaded guilty and more are likely (to plead guilty). Answer is (C).

Hello, NandishSS. The sentence seems to convey that a number of former employees at the fund were engaging in insider trading while employed there. Among the accused, or those with ties to insider trading, four have admitted guilt, while others are expected to come forward and fess up. Even though the entire sentence is underlined, we can still look to the most common places, the head and the tail of the underlined portion, for key splits. To be honest, I prefer in all to the more casual all told, but I would not use my preference to eliminate anything. The tail-end, though, is more helpful.

(A) ... , with four to plead guilty and more likely
(B) ... , with four having pleaded guilty and more likely
(C) ... ; four have pleaded guilty and more are likely to do so
(D) ... ; with four having pleaded guilty and more are likely to do so
(E) ... ; four have pleaded guilty and more are likely

Choices (A) and (B) lack a verb at the end to parallel the earlier action of pleading guilty. You should be thinking, And more what? Meanwhile, choice (E) employs the verb to be in are, but it still does not answer the question. And more are likely pleaded guilty? That does not make sense. The only real contenders are (C) and (D), but the latter uses a semicolon with a prepositional phrase, rather than an independent clause. I know the GMAT™ is not a strict test of grammar, but grammar basics certainly help, not to mention that (D) adds nothing in the way of clarity that the more concise (C) lacks. Choice (C) it is, then.

I look for any weakness I can find to attack the validity of an answer choice. If I am lucky, I will not find any in one and I will find at least one in all of the others. That is a case-closed scenario, and that proved to be the case on this one.

I hope that helps. Thank you for thinking to ask me about the question.

- Andrew

You could say "There have been twelve arrests, and more are likely", because then you are saying "more arrests are likely". You can't say "Twelve people have been arrested, and more are likely", because then you are saying "more people are likely", which doesn't mean anything on its own.

But I don't understand what "while at the fund" refers to even in the "right" answer here, or at least it seems to mean something strange, and different from what I'd guess is intended. It seems like the sentence is trying to say that the insider trading occurred while the employees were at the fund. But that's not what it says, reading it literally. It says they were *tied to insider trading while at the fund*, so the sentence is only talking about people who were caught doing insider trading in the middle of their employment at the fund. It's not talking about people who might have been doing insider trading which was discovered after they left. That seems a strange meaning here, and doesn't seem intentional, which is why I was looking for an answer choice that clarified that modifier, but I didn't find one.

Hi guys, is anybody confused with "all told" expression? Is it a common thing to say? What is that mean?

(C) All told, at least fifteen Greenwich Capital employees have been tied to insider trading while at the fund; four have pleaded guilty and more are likely to do so. - doesn't semi colon make it wrong. While at the fund; while at the fund what?????

Hi Mike,

I got this question on my VP exam. I was extremely uncomfortable using the phrase "All told".
I thought answer should be between C & D( as others seems to be distorting meaning ), but for me decision point was "All told" vs "with four having", and so I went with D.
In similar questions how should one think ? as in there might be phrase, which makes you uncomfortable, but that could be correct answer.

Siddharth

Hi,
That was really good explanation of present perfect tense. I always found perfect tenses bit difficult to master ( and I think GMAT knows that )

As a thumb rule for perfect tenses :

1.Past perfect : Timeline of 2 events which were completed in past are compared -> had + participle for 1st event and 2nd event must be in simple past.
2.Future perfect : Timeline of 2 events which will be completed in future are compared -> will/shall + participle for 1st event and 2nd event in simple future.
3.simple perfect : event started in past but is continuing in preset (or it just got over) -> has/have + participle

Is my understanding correct ?

In above 3 statements there is no use of 'been'. when do we use 'been' ?

- Siddharth

If this is from the VERITAS stable, then I am extremely sad; would they give a practice question whose choice A is substantially different from the underlined part in the stimulus? or has it been wrongly transcribed by the poster?

Yes,got it.
Key takeaway :
1. Understand POV of author, then go for grammar.
2. Use past perfect, when sequence of two past events is not clear ie simple past fails to convey meaning.
3. Present perfect, again boils down to meaning.

4. Oh, and if nothing works, pray (sorry - that's me, adding a point)

Thank you for explaining each and every point in very simple manner.
It was a big help - ( or rather I must say, it has been a big help )

- Siddharth

Dear Mo2men,

I'm happy to respond.

The "with" + noun + participle structure is not automatically wrong. There's a subtle distinction that I explain in this blog:
with + [noun] + [participle] on GMAT Sentence Correction

Does this make sense?
Mike

Dear Mike,
I would like to expand little further about another adverbial phrase "because of". In Magoosh idiom book, it was mentioned in page 47 that "because of+ NOUN+ VERBing" is 100% wrong. However, I found a SC in GMATprep 1 that breaks the rule mentioned in the book.

on-account-of-a-law-passed-in-1993-making-it-a-crime-70502.html?fl=similar

Because of a law passed in 1933 making it a crime punishable by imprisonment for a United States citizen to hold gold in the form of bullion or coins, immigrants found that on arrival in the United States they had to surrender all of the gold they had brought with them.

How can I differentiate between the right and wrong answers with "because of+ NOUN+ VERBing" ? Have you set any great rules like "with ...." modification in your blog?

Thanks in advance for your support

Dear Mo2men,

I'm happy to respond. I think that statement of ours in the GMAT Idiom book is too black & white: we write that book several years ago, and I would like to make a couple changes on subtle points such as this.

Having said that, the sentence you found does not exactly break the rule, because the participle used is "passed," a passive past participle, one that does not imply an action. As you may recall, present participles are active and past participles are passive: only the former implies an action.

Unfortunately, there's no substitute for understand logic and rhetoric. Normally, the structure "because" + [full clause] is the way to highlight an action, and using "because of" + [noun] + [present participle] usually sounds compromised in that case.

Here's a rule that works a great deal of the time: when you have [preposition] + [noun] + [participle], simply drop the participle and see whether the sentence still makes sense. In this OA, we would get:

Because of a law, immigrants found that on arrival in the United States they had to surrender all of the gold they had brought with them.

That is essentially correct. The immigrants had to give up their gold because of this law. Yes. Of course, it would be helpful for us to have more detail about the law, and participial phrase provides this detail. If we remove the participle and all that missing is extra detail, and the fundamental logical structure of the sentence is still valid, then then entire sentence with the participle is often correct. If we remove the participle and the sentence doesn't logically make sense any more, that's when we have a problem.

That's not a foolproof rule, because sometimes removing the participle makes a valid sentence, yet the whole sentence is not best way to phrase something. It also depends on rhetorical focus. A preposition, by its very nature, takes a noun as its object, and the "because of" compound preposition is designed to attribute the cause to a noun. If the noun really is the cause, then "because of" is perfect: here, the "law" really is the cause of the situation. If the action really is the cause, then sticking the action in a participle modifying the noun following a preposition is not appropriate: we need a full clause if the action is the cause of something.

Does all this make sense?
Mike