In an unusual spiritual ceremony for celebrating changes in

Question

In an unusual spiritual ceremony for celebrating changes in season such as the emergence of the spring season, as much as 10% of the organization's cash,  which is the most liquid of all the organization's assets, disappeared and vanished  completely.

(A) which is the most liquid of all the organization's assets, disappeared and vanished
(B) the most liquid of all the organization's assets, disappear and vanish
(C) the organization's assets which were most liquid, will disappear and vanish
(D) the most liquid of all the organization's assets, disappears and vanishes
(E) the organization's assets which are the most liquid, have disappeared and vanished

Marcab · Answer

IMO D.
Reason:
In the sentence the author describes about a certain ceremony, so most probably that HAPPENS.
B is wrong in that it treats "10% of the organization's cash" as plural.
C is wrong in that it uses past tense to describe "10% of the organization's cash". Incorrectly uses "which".
E changes the tense and has SVA issue.
A is wrong because of change of tense.

+1D

Marcab · Answer

Otherwise if this were not the case then why would the ceremony be unusual.

Rock750 · Answer

i don't understand why A is wrong ? please explain

thanks

souvik101990 · Answer

I think it can be A and D but I will incline slightly towards A though I know that D is the probable OA.

We are referring to something "unusual", so it makes sense to understand that event happened in the past.
We use present tense to express actions that are true and happen all the time.
However by using unusual, we are somehow mentioning an old event.
I would rather use the past tense in that case.

carcass · Answer

This question is a bit misleading and tough: it is harder than seems. By the way is indicative how I'm comfortable more with OG questions, weird

Anyway....... here is stated that something is done and this drain away a lot of cash. basically so cash ----------> vanishes and disappears . other options have wrong verb tense. D I pick but I agree with the moderator: A is strong. for sure are the answers, the others don't

carcass · Answer

Maybe here usual is used in the sense that normal we do a ritual but for this year we have done a ceremony a bit different with costs higher than usual

souvik101990 · Answer

Yeah basically that is my point.
For example I ll say something like
For my 21st birthday I bought the XBOX 360 (implying that the event of my birthday is in the past)

OR

For my 21st birthday I will buy the XBOX 360 (implying that the event of my birthday is in the future)

Since buying the XBOX is a specific event it cannot call for a present tense that is:

For my 21st birthday I buy the XBOX 360 -- This sentence is ridiculous.

Similarly, "unusual spending" is also a specific event.
Anyway I checked with GMATPill and D is the OA.
I am highly doubtful though.

carcass · Answer

souvik101990 · Answer

A could however also make sense if the author is trying to say the event as a whole is unusual.
It could only make sense then.
Not a good question and NOT something to waste time over.

ratinarace · Answer

IMO A, but I am also considering E here...Whats wrong with E here???

Marcab · Answer

Okay.
The issues, which answer choice A have are:
i) "which is the most liquid of the organizational's assets" is modifying just the "10% of the organisation's cash" whereas actually "the most liquid of the organisational's assets is the organisation's cash".
ii) In an unusual spiritual ceremony for celebrating changes in season such as the emergence of the spring season, as much as 10% of the organization's cash,  disappeared and vanished completely.  Here "disappeared and vanished" doesn't goes well with "changes."
Here "celebrating changes" implies that the ceremony is a continuous process and happens evertime to celebrate the emergence of spring season.

If the sentence were "In an unusual spritual ceremony, which took place in order to celebrate changes in season such as the emergence of spring season, as much as 10% of the organisational's cash, the most liquid of the organisations's assets, disappeared and vanished completely" then A could have been strong contender.

But since A has two major issues, it CANNOT be correct.

As soon as I read "unusual spiritual ceremony for celebrating changes", I started waiting for something like D. Thus D became a straight shot.

Hope that helps.

leigimon · Answer

For D to be correct, the sentence would have to imply that this ceremony is a recurring event and not something that happened in the past. A couple of things could point to this:

an unusual ceremony for celebrating changes in season such as...

The above could infer that this event could happen for each change in season, although it could also be said that this ceremony encompasses all changes in seasons (and thus refers to an event that already took place).

as much as 10% of the organization's cash

This is probably more concrete proof than the previous example that the author is referring to a recurring event since "as much as" refers to an unspecified amount but something that happened in the past would most likely be absolute:

" as much as 10% of the organizations cash... ... disappeared and vanished."

vs

"as much as 10% of the organization's cash... ... disappears and vanishes."

shanmugamgsn · Answer

In an unusual spiritual ceremony for celebrating changes in season such as the emergence of the spring season, as much as 10% of the  organization's cash , which is the most liquid of all the organization's assets, disappeared and vanished completely.
(E) the organization's assets which are the most liquid,  have disappeared and vanished

E is wrong coz of SV disagreement.

I agree with others for A. 
But i go with D.

Pls post OA and OE

souvik101990 · Answer

Good point.
I thought of this. But you know, as much as could have also been used for approximation.
For example,

In my knee surgery, as much as 100K was spent.

Not a wrong sentence is it.

Makes sense to call this question BAD and move on :-)

leigimon · Answer

Right, my explanation came in hindsight as I initially chose A. After rereading the question, the only indication that this event may have happened in the past is contained entirely in the underlined section of A. Reading the sentence for the first time, it misleads readers into believing the author's intent is to describe a past event. If the initial sentence had been B, C or even D, we may have eliminated A more easily. That being said, how do you determine meaning in an ambiguous case like this if the original sentence has a different meaning from the OA?

Weak question indeed.

Vineetk · Answer

OA is already provided by Souvik. It is indeed D.

OE: The debate is between A & D. Just stating the reason provided in OE.
a. "which is" is not necessary and can be removed. 
b. The sentence is describing a ceremony, which happens regularly, so we need present tense form.

At the end, it concludes that there is nothing wrong with A but just that D is better.

I was not happy with the OE that's why posted the problem.

Marcab · Answer

IMO A cannot be regarded as a good contender even. It is nowhere close to the the meaning of the sentence. We can not prescribe a past tense for something that happens regularly.

souvik101990 · Answer

I dont know Marcab it sounded pretty convoluted to me.
Initially I comprehended it as:
there are ceremonies to celebrate changes in seasons.
However, a particularly unusual one resulted in a drain of cash.
Past tense makes sense then. 
Anyway, not a serious enough question to bother so much with.

Nightmare007 · Answer

IMO its D.

Here i can see that the author is intending to state some fact that - in some festival the some amount of cash disappears or vanishes completely .

I don't know why he mentions disappears and vanishes even though both state same meaning.

.

In an unusual spiritual ceremony for celebrating changes in

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In an unusual spiritual ceremony for celebrating changes in

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