In the 1940s popular magazines in the United States began to report on

A) - 'In despite' is the wrong phrase to convey the intended meaning here.
B) - 'In spite of' is incorrect choice of phrase. The rest of the sentence is awkward and wordy
C) - The highlighted text is awkward and wordy
D) - Same error as C
E) - 'Whereas' is the correct phrase to convey the intended meaning here. 'Had featured' correctly conveys the order of events that 1. Articles and individuals related to business used to be featured 2. Now (still in the past) , people from the entertainment industry are featured.

Dear IanStewart DmitryFarber GMATGuruNY

Can publications feature a person (as in choice A.)?
Or it must be that publications feature AN ARTICLE ON a person (as in choice E.)?

Either way.

Correct: World-renowned paper salesman, Michael Scott, is featured on page 5 of the latest issue of the Wall Street Journal.
Correct: The Wall Street Journal featured an article on Michael Scott, world-renowned paper salesman.

Why is E right here? It seems to be the best option, but the "previously" and "had featured" throws it off for. In the above explanations, it seems as though this makes it questionable but not incorrect. Is there a more technical reason why it's not wrong? Don't the those two pieces make it a little redundant? Moreever, should it always be like this (i.e., if there is a marker that alludes to the past and there's past perfect, you can't remove the answer for it)?

Sorry for all the questions..just a little confused!

"Previously" and "had" are definitely a bit redundant.

This is probably the move unless you have a choice between one that does and one that doesn't have this issue:
Overall, tense is often not an exact thing, and multiple tenses can work in a situation. So, generally, you need a pretty clear tense issue to eliminate a choice on the basis of tense.

well I think the past tense here is not a problem. "those individuals" is wrong. You use those to refer to people or things which have already been mentioned. So here, those individuals equal to individuals from the entertainment industry, which is completely wrong.

hope that helps.

good question.

we realize that choice E is best but there is a problem.

past perfect is used if the order of 2 events is not clear. we do not know which event happen before the other and we use past perfect to show the clear order. if we do not use past perfect, the second meaning happens-two events happen simultaneously- or unclear order happen.

if the order of two events is clear, we dont use past perfect but use two simple past.

I learned gmat in 2000 and previously I learned english.

so, choice E is problematic.

In the 1940s popular magazines in the United States began to report on the private lives of persons from the entertainment industry, in despite of the fact that they previously had featured individuals in business and politics.


A. in despite of the fact that they previously had featured individuals X

B. in spite of the fact previously that these publications featured articles on those X

C. whereas previously there were those individuals featured in articles X

D. whereas previously those individuals they featured were X

E. whereas previously these publications had featured articles on individuals Correct

EMPOWERgmatVerbal
Please clarify.

In option E
whereas previously these publications had featured articles on individuals in business and politics.
we have parallelism error since ....private lives of persons from the entertainment industry.

If we choose option D
whereas previously those individuals they featured were in business and politics.
in this sentence they can refer to popular magzines and since pronoun ambiguity is not a strict rule.
use of in seems more apt in option D more than option E

Hello Kanna444,

We hope this finds you well.

Having gone through the question and your query, we believe that we can help resolve your doubt.

In Option E, the elements joined by the conjunction phrase "whereas previously" are "popular magazines...began to report on the private lives of persons from the entertainment industry" and "these publications had featured articles on individuals in business and politics". Both these elements are independent clauses with the same structure; the difference in preposition usage - "from" versus "in" - does not constitute a break in parallelism, as both convey the same meaning - that the individuals featured were involved in a particular industry. By contrast, in Option D the second element is the passive voice construction "those individuals they featured were in business and politics"; the passive voice makes this Option less parallel than Option E is and makes this option needlessly indirect. Please remember, parallelism is determined by the nature of the elements - what part of speech they are and what role they play in the sentence - and their structure. Smaller differences, such as the use of a different preposition rarely matter.

Moreover, please keep in mind that on the GMAT, you must look for the best among the available options, not a perfect one.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
Experts' Global Team

ExpertsGlobal5

Can the pronoun 'they' refer to the popular magazines even though it's an entity and not a person?

Hi Vegita,
"They" is a pronoun used to refer to two or more people or "things" previously mentioned or easily identified.
So, yes "they" as a referent of publications is correct.

Example: Publications these days are full of rubbish, and now they just serve the purpose of titillating the audience.

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MartyTargetTestPrep

EMPOWERgmatVerbal mentions: Answers B, C, and D are INCORRECT because they use the past tense “featured” instead of the past perfect “had featured.”

However, wouldn't you have picked a different issue(s) to rule these answer choices out because "previously" and "featured" clearly indicate the timeframe and do not require the use of past perfect for this reason? I would be so appreciative to learn your view on how I approached this question below...
For A:
-I don't like "in despite of the fact" ... despite of the fact =although and substituting in although does not seem logical
-I don't like the ambiguous use of "they"... is it referring to the "magazines" or the "private lives"?

For B:
-I don't like "in spite of the fact previously that" --> in spite of the fact seems unidiomatic and "those" is ambiguous per my point above on Choice A... who does "those" refer to?

For C:
-I don't like "there were those individuals" just seems unidiomatic/repetitive... why do you need "those" and "individuals"

For D:
-Same as C "those individuals they" just seems unidiomatic/repetitive... why do you need "those", "individuals", and "they"

"Previously" does indicates time sequence. However, sometimes it makes more sense to use the past perfect than the simple past with "previously." So, we have to consider sentences that use "previously" on a case by case basis to determine which tense makes sense to use.


"In despite of the fact" is indeed illogical.

However, I think "they" pretty clearly refers to "popular magazines in the United States," since the magazines would have featured those individuals. In other words, there may be some slight degree of ambiguity regarding what "they" refers to, but that slight degree of ambiguity is not a clear reason to eliminate this choice.


Yes, "in spite of the fact previously that" has "previously" placed illogically between "fact" and "that."

However, the use of "those" is not clearly incorrect.


That construction could work in some contexts. The issue main issue with this choice is that the meaning conveyed doesn't make sense. After all, the fact that "there were those individuals" doesn't logically contrast with the previous fact about the people magazines began to report on.

Here's a simpler version that shows the issue more clearly.

Magazines began to report on the lives of persons in entertainment, whereas previously, there were those individuals feature in articles.

Notice that, in this version, "in business and politics" is placed to modify "articles" rather than "individuals" with the result that the point about the individuals being in business in politics is not conveyed.


The use of "those" doesn't make sense here; the correct word to use is "the."

However, the real issue with this choice is that the meaning isn't clearly conveyed.

Is the point that the magazines did something previously or that the individuals were in different fields previously to being featured? Which point the sentence is meant to convey isn't clear.

Dear Friends,

Here is a detailed explanation to this question-

Concepts tested here: Tenses+ Idioms + Awkwardness/Redundancy

• The correct, idiomatic constructions are “in spite of” and “despite”.
• Adverbs can only modify adjectives and actions.
• The past perfect tense (marked by the use of helping verb "had") is used when a sentence contains two actions in the past; the helping verb "had" is used with the action in the "greater past".
• The simple past tense is used to refer to events that concluded in the past.

A:
1/ This answer choice incorrectly uses the unidiomatic construction “in despite of”; please remember, the correct, idiomatic constructions are “in spite of” and “despite”. 

B:
1/ This answer choice incorrectly uses the simple past tense verb “reported” to refer to the earlier of two actions – the magazines beginning to report on the private lives of persons from the entertainment industry and the magazines featuring articles on individuals in business and politics; remember, the past perfect tense (marked by the use of helping verb "had") is used when a sentence contains two actions in the past; the helping verb "had" is used with the action in the "greater past", and the simple past tense is used to refer to events that concluded in the past.
2/ Option B incorrectly uses the adverb “previously” to modify the placeholder pronoun “that”; remember, adverbs can only modify adjectives and actions.

C:
1/ This answer choice incorrectly uses the simple past tense verb “reported” to refer to the earlier of two actions – the magazines beginning to report on the private lives of persons from the entertainment industry and the magazines featuring articles on individuals in business and politics; remember, the past perfect tense (marked by the use of helping verb "had") is used when a sentence contains two actions in the past; the helping verb "had" is used with the action in the "greater past", and the simple past tense is used to refer to events that concluded in the past.
2/ Option C uses the passive construction "there were those individuals featured in articles", leading to awkwardness and redundancy.

D:
1/ This answer choice incorrectly uses the simple past tense verb “were” to refer to the earlier of two actions – the magazines beginning to report on the private lives of persons from the entertainment industry and the magazines featuring articles on individuals in business and politics; remember, the past perfect tense (marked by the use of helping verb "had") is used when a sentence contains two actions in the past; the helping verb "had" is used with the action in the "greater past", and the simple past tense is used to refer to events that concluded in the past.

E: Correct.
1/ This answer choice correctly uses the past perfect tense verb “had broadcast” to refer to the earlier of two actions – the magazines beginning to report on the private lives of persons from the entertainment industry and the magazines featuring articles on individuals in business and politics.
2/ Option E uses the conjunction “whereas”, avoiding the idiom error seen in Option A.
3/ Option E correctly uses the adverb “previously” to modify the clause “these publications had featured”.
4/ Option E is free of any awkwardness or redundancy.

Hence, E is the best answer choice.

To understand the concept of "Simple Tenses" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~2 minutes):



To understand the concept of "Past Perfect Tense" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~2 minutes):



All the best!
Experts' Global Team

Hi Experts GMATNinja KarishmaB

I have a query regarding the answer (E).

In this option we are using both "previously" and "had featured". ?? Is that correct?

Where I think (D) makes more sense since though "they" pronoun reference is a bit ambiguous but that is not the end in GMAT...?

Please help to clear my confusion?

Thanks.

The use of time markers along with past perfect doesn't make it wrong. We may not need it at times but it is not wrong.

The problem with (D) is the use of 'those.'
'those individuals' means we are talking about certain specific individuals that we have already mentioned. But the people we have already mentioned are 'persons from the entertainment industry.' But we are not talking about them here.

If in (D), we had 'the' instead of 'those,' I would have liked it more.