In these difficult economic times, those who have public pensions – ve

@KyleWiddison...Does a participal ("operating" which is used in option D ) modifier modify the subject of the sentence or the noun besides which it is located? Because judging from the above example it modifies the subject of the sentence... yet I was wondering whether this is always the case...
Can you please clarify on this

2 reasons:

1. The relative pronouns "who" and "whom" must modify people - "companies" cannot be the antecedent of "who".

2. The pronoun "they" is ambiguous.

Hi Sayantanc2k!

What about 'being pursued' vs 'are pursued'? Is 'are pursued' correct in option E? If it didn't have pronoun error would option E be correct?

Dear Thoughtosphere,
I'm happy to respond. The word "which" is 100% correct in (B).
1) It clearly refers to the noun that it "touches" ---- "pension advance companies"
2) It is correctly separated with a comma
3) It serves at the subject of the clause that it introduces.
The word "which" is correct if all three of these criteria are true, and they are. See:
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2012/that-vs-which-on-the-gmat/
You may also find this helpful:
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2012/gmat-gramm ... modifiers/
Does all this make sense?
Mike

Hi Mike,

Isn't a comma required after the which clause above?

In these difficult economic times, those who have public pensions – veterans, mail workers, firemen, and others – are being pursued strongly by pension advance companies that operate without much oversight from banking regulators, but they are now drawing scrutiny from several other government organizations.

a. are being pursued strongly by pension advance companies that operate without much oversight from banking regulators, but they are now drawing scrutiny from several other government organizations.

b.are being pursued strongly by pension advance companies, which operate without much oversight from banking regulators but are now drawing scrutiny from several other government organizations.

c.are pursued strongly by pension advance companies and operate without much oversight from banking regulators but are now drawing scrutiny from several other government organizations.

d.are pursued strongly by pension advance companies, operating without much oversight from banking regulators but now drawing scrutiny from several other government organizations.

e. are pursued strongly by pension advance companies who operate without much oversight from banking regulators; however, they are now drawing scrutiny from several other government organizations.


E-gmat could this example be a good choice to understand the verb-ing modifier concept?

I was stuck between A and B. "being pursued" is required since the sentence starts with "In these ..times.."

I eliminated B because it changed the essential modifier "that" to "which".
Isn't "that" required to specify "pension advance companies" THAT operate without much oversight?

In these difficult economic times, those who have public pensions – veterans, mail workers, firemen, and others – are being pursued strongly by pension advance companies that operate without much oversight from banking regulators, but they are now drawing scrutiny from several other government organizations.

A. are being pursued strongly by pension advance companies that operate without much oversight from banking regulators, but they are now drawing scrutiny from several other government organizations.

B. are being pursued strongly by pension advance companies, which operate without much oversight from banking regulators but are now drawing scrutiny from several other government organizations.

C. are pursued strongly by pension advance companies and operate without much oversight from banking regulators but are now drawing scrutiny from several other government organizations.

D. are pursued strongly by pension advance companies, operating without much oversight from banking regulators but now drawing scrutiny from several other government organizations.

E. are pursued strongly by pension advance companies who operate without much oversight from banking regulators; however, they are now drawing scrutiny from several other government organizations.

@E-GMAT could this example be a good choice to understand the VERB-ing modifier concept?

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION

Solution: B

Explanation: This sentence correction problem is mostly concerned with errors of sentence construction. The most obvious decision point – the choice between “are being pursued” and “are pursued” is not important as both could be used to describe the current situation. In (A) the use of “they” in the last portion of the sentence is incorrect as it represents a reference error (the “they” seems to be referencing the people with pensions not the companies). (B) is correct as the “which” clause makes it clear that the companies “operate without oversight….but are now drawing….”. In (C) it is not the people with pensions that “operate without much oversight…”. For (D), the use of the participle “operating” perpetuates the problem in (C) – it still modifies the subject (those with pensions) so is nonsensical as people would not operate without oversight. In (E), the use of “they” in the second portion after the semicolon contains the same reference error as in (A). Answer is (B).

Dear avohden
I'm happy to help. This is a good question.

The adjective "they" in (A) & (E) is ambiguous. We know logically it has to refer to the "pension advance companies" but grammatically, it could refer to "those who have public pensions". Choice (E) also creates a very strong break between two verbs, "operate" and "are drawing", that really should be contrasted in parallel. Similarly, (A) doesn't maintain parallelism between them. These two are incorrect.

In (B), the modifier refers very clearly and appropriately to the "pension advance companies". This choice is promising.

In (C), we have false parallelism. This is a trap designed for folks who think about parallelism mechanically, ignoring the meaning of the sentence. See:
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2013/parallelis ... orrection/
The subject of the verba "operate" and "are ... drawing" are the "pension advance companies", but the parallelism suggests otherwise. This is incorrect.

Choice (D) is perhaps the most tempting alternative to (B). The problem with (D) is subtle. Typically, when we have an independent clause, then a comma, then a participial phrase, the participial phrase, if it acting as noun-modifier, modifies the subject.
P did X to Q, doing Y.
In that construction, most typically P is the actor of the "doing Y" action.
In (D), this rule would suggest that "those who have public pensions" should be the subject of the participial phrases, but logically, we know it must be the "pension advance companies." Grammar & logic don't support the same conclusion --- that's always the sign of an incorrectly constructed sentence. We can reject (D).

The only possible answer is (B).

Does all this make sense?
Mike

can there be a decision point on "are pursued" and "are being pursued" ?