In the mid-1920’s the Hawthorne Works of the Western Electric Company was the scene of an intensive series of experiments that would investigate changes in working conditions as to their effects on workers’ performance . (A) that would investigate changes in working conditions as to their effects on workers’ performance (B) investigating the effects that changes in working conditions would have on workers’ performance (C) for investigating what are the effects in workers’ performance that changes in working conditions would cause (D) that investigated changes in working conditions’ effects on workers’ performance (E) to investigate what the effects changes in working conditions would have on workers’ performance Source : GMATPrep Default Exam Pack Scientific American Resource Library: Readings in Psychology, Volume 2 The name comes from the Western Electric Company's Hawthorne Works in Chicago. In the 1920's the plant was the scene of an intensive series of experiments designed to determine what effect various changes in working conditions would have on the performance of female workers .

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In the mid-1920’s the Hawthorne Works of the Western Electric Company

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avigutman

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15 Dec 2022, 14:17

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jabhatta2

Per my understanding - Dropping essential / non-essential modifiers - the core of any sentence should be a complete sentence in itself.
In this example - getting rid of the Subordinate THAT clause, the core of the sentence is a complete sentence in itself : The study is costly

-------------------------------

But how come this is not the case when I drop the "that clause" in (B) ?

Quote:

(Option B)

In the mid-1920’s the Hawthorne Works of the Western Electric Company was the scene of an intensive series of experiments investigating the effects ~~that changes in working conditions would have on workers’ performance~~

If I drop the THAT modifier - I get

Quote:

(Option B) In the mid-1920’s the Hawthorne Works of the Western Electric Company was the scene of an intensive series of experiments investigating the effects

Post dropping of the "that clause" -- is the above sentence (post Dropping of THAT clause), now a complete sentence ?

Seems to be an incomplete sentence if you ask me.

The core of the sentence is:
The Hawthorne Works was the scene of an intensive series of experiments.
That's a complete sentence. The strategy worked as intended, jabhatta2.

jabhatta2

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16 Dec 2022, 21:07

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Quote:

Responding to the public’s fascination with―and sometimes undue alarm over―possible threats from asteroids, a scale developed by astronomers rates the likelihood that a particular asteroid or comet may collide with Earth.

(A) a scale developed by astronomers rates the likelihood that a particular asteroid or comet may
(B) a scale that astronomers have developed rates how likely it is for a particular asteroid or comet to
(C) astronomers have developed a scale to rate how likely a particular asteroid or comet will be to
(D) astronomers have developed a scale for rating the likelihood that a particular asteroid or comet will
(E) astronomers have developed a scale that rates the likelihood of a particular asteroid or comet that may

(E) is easily eliminated using the strategy of droping 'THAT modifier' -

In (E) - Once you drop the second (THAT) {marked in Red above } in (E), one can eliminate (E) easily.

Why ? Because you are left with "astronomers have developed a scale that rates the likelihood of a particular asteroid or comet", which doesnt make sense.

However

If you use the same strategy of dropping "That" in (D) (marked in blue, in D)

You are left with (D) "astronomers have developed a scale for rating the likelihood"

Rating the likelihood ?

I personally thought this sentence too did not make sense (once you Dropped the THAT, marked in blue, in (D)

Hence i marked (D) wrong but the OA is (D)

avigutman

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17 Dec 2022, 14:38

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jabhatta2

Yes avigutman - this strategy (of Dropping THAT modifiers) does work with the Basic Core

This strategy DOES NOT ALWAYS work WITHIN modifiers itself

Let me give an example of what I mean - This is another GMAT prep question (Here), discussed in an AMA.

If you use the same strategy of dropping "That" in (D) (marked in blue, in D)

You are left with (D) "astronomers have developed a scale for rating the likelihood"

Rating the likelihood ?

I personally thought this sentence too did not make sense (once you Dropped the THAT, marked in blue, in (D)

Hence i marked (D) wrong but the OA is (D)

In an email communication, jabhatta2, you told me

jabhatta2

I drop modifiers [essential modifiers / non-essential modifiers / which modifiers] when looking for the essential core meaning of the sentence.

That way I understand the core of the sentence (i.e. - the 'focus' on the sentence)

That's a good strategy. What strategy did you attempt to use here? After all, "astronomers have developed a scale for rating the likelihood" is not the core of the sentence...

GandhiSiddhant

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13 Jun 2023, 11:12

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Hi in my practice test on official gmac site i got c as answer and b as incorrect.
Really confused by this.

Raman109

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06 Oct 2023, 05:31

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In the mid-1920’s the Hawthorne Works of the Western Electric Company was the scene of an intensive series of experiments that would investigate changes in working conditions as to their effects on workers’ performance.

Option elimination -

(A) that would investigate changes in working conditions as to their effects on workers’ performance - "their" reference is ambiguous. It can refer to "working conditions" or "changes in working conditions" or "experiments."
"would investigate" is a hypothetical construction - We don't need a hypothetical here for investigating as this investigation happened 100 years ago.

(B) investigating the effects that changes in working conditions would have on workers’ performance - yes, it's weird to say experiments investigating the effects, but all five options have that issue, so at best, it's a red herring. Important is you notice the right meaning - investigating the effects. What effects - changes in working conditions on the worker's performance.
Here, "would have" is used as a conditional as well, but here it is used to show that the experiments are investigating the potential effects of changes in working conditions.

(C) for investigating what are the effects in workers’ performance that changes in working conditions would cause - "the effects" is better than "what are the effects."

(D) that investigated changes in working conditions’ effects on workers’ performance - investigated changes in effects on performance - wrong.

(E) to investigate what the effects changes in working conditions would have on workers’ performance - investigate effects would have on performance - wrong. Its the changes that would have effects on work performance.