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605-655 Level|   Conjunctions (FANBOYS)|   Parallelism|   Subject Verb Agreement|                     
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It is well known in the supermarket industry that how items are placed 20 Aug 2017, 08:02
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even after reviewing this question so many times, I still have not understood why A is incorrect. 'how items are placed on shelves' and 'the frequency of inventory turnovers' can be perfectly parallel according to me.

Experts please advise why A is wrong.
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It is well known in the supermarket industry that how items are placed 29 Aug 2017, 06:46
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OreoShake
even after reviewing this question so many times, I still have not understood why A is incorrect. 'how items are placed on shelves' and 'the frequency of inventory turnovers' can be perfectly parallel according to me.

Experts please advise why A is wrong.
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In Option A, "how items are placed" is a clause whereas "the frequency of inventory turnovers" is a noun phrase. A noun/ noun phrase would not ideally be used in parallel with a clause.
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It is well known in the supermarket industry that how items are placed 15 Nov 2017, 14:12
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cumulonimbus
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445)
It is well known in the supermarket industry that how items are placed on shelves and the frequency of inventory turnovers can be crucial to profits.


(A) the frequency of inventory turnovers can be
(B) the frequency of inventory turnovers is often
(C) the frequency with which the inventory turns over is often
(D) how frequently is the inventory turned over are often
(E) how frequently the inventory turns over can be


HI Egmat/Daagh/Vercules/Experts,

Can you please explain why is E chosen over D?
This is probably the first question where I have come across this rule - sequencing/arrangement of noun vs verb, mattering(is this a wrong word?) in parallelism.

Anyhow, I ended up choosing D - because I saw both
- (how) items are placed, and
- (how frequently) is the inventory turned over

as PASSIVE.

Please explain where I am wrong. And it would be great if you can point me other such examples where N-V order matters.

KR,
Show more

I totally agree.. and ı don't get how the OA uses an active and a passive clause together and keeps the parallelism.
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It is well known in the supermarket industry that how items are placed 18 Nov 2017, 06:33
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deucebigalow
cumulonimbus
grad_mba
445)
It is well known in the supermarket industry that how items are placed on shelves and the frequency of inventory turnovers can be crucial to profits.


(A) the frequency of inventory turnovers can be
(B) the frequency of inventory turnovers is often
(C) the frequency with which the inventory turns over is often
(D) how frequently is the inventory turned over are often
(E) how frequently the inventory turns over can be


HI Egmat/Daagh/Vercules/Experts,

Can you please explain why is E chosen over D?
This is probably the first question where I have come across this rule - sequencing/arrangement of noun vs verb, mattering(is this a wrong word?) in parallelism.

Anyhow, I ended up choosing D - because I saw both
- (how) items are placed, and
- (how frequently) is the inventory turned over

as PASSIVE.

Please explain where I am wrong. And it would be great if you can point me other such examples where N-V order matters.

KR,

I totally agree.. and ı don't get how the OA uses an active and a passive clause together and keeps the parallelism.
Show more

You should make similar grammatical structures parallel, viz., a clause with a clause, a noun with a noun, a participle with a participle etc. A clause in passive voice and one in active voice are after all both clauses, and it is perfectly alright to make them parallel. There is no rule whatsoever in GMAT that an active voice clause cannot be parallel to a passive voice clause - the very fact that both are clauses is sufficient enough to establish valid parallelism.

Why D is grammatically incorrect has already been explained in the following post:
https://gmatclub.com/forum/it-is-well-k ... l#p1647472
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It is well known in the supermarket industry that how items are placed 29 Dec 2017, 12:44
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Why is not B? I'm confused between B and E
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It is well known in the supermarket industry that how items are placed 30 Dec 2017, 17:41
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Shivikaa, "is" in B is wrong because we have a plural (compound) subject. Two different things are crucial: How items are placed and how frequently the inventory turns over. Notice that in B, we also have a parallelism problem. "The frequency" doesn't match well with "how items are placed."
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It is well known in the supermarket industry that how items are placed 20 Sep 2018, 06:35
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grad_mba
It is well known in the supermarket industry that how items are placed on shelves and the frequency of inventory turnovers can be crucial to profits.


(A) the frequency of inventory turnovers can be

(B) the frequency of inventory turnovers is often

(C) the frequency with which the inventory turns over is often

(D) how frequently is the inventory turned over are often

(E) how frequently the inventory turns over can be
Show more

2Summarize all explanations:

1. The concept of parallelism solves anything here.
1.1. First of all, we need "how" in the second part to maintain parallelism in this sentence -----> A, B, C are out.
1.2. Second of all, again parallelism.
First part: how items are placed on shelves - first comes noun, second comes verb
D: how frequently is the inventory turned over - first come "is", than comes "the inventory" (and it is not even important that "turned over" comes after the noun)
E: how frequently the inventory turns over - first comes noun, second comes verb

So, only in E all parts are parallel. Verb after noun, so we have to choose E.

2. From sayantanc2k:
"When we frame a question (interrogative sentence), the verb must come before the subject.
Example: How is it done?
However when the same idea is expressed in a statement (declarative sentence), the verb follows the subject:
Example:
Declarative correct: I asked him how it is done.
Declarative wrong: I asked him how is it done."

Our case: we have to choose E.

3. From l0rrie: "If you look closely, you see that the sentence just isn't right.. Compare: how ARE placed (present) + how TURNS (present) and how ARE placed (present) + how TURNED (past)"
Again, parallelism. Present has to be with present, not with the past.

E.
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It is well known in the supermarket industry that how items are placed 28 Jun 2019, 11:26
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AjiteshArun Why option D is wrong here? Is "are" correct in option D?
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It is well known in the supermarket industry that how items are placed 28 Jun 2019, 19:05
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AjiteshArun Why option D is wrong here? Is "are" correct in option D?
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Hi Bishal123456789,

There are a couple of ways we can take option D out:

1. The placement of is is incorrect. If we ask a question (like something with a question mark after it), we change the normal order of the subject and verb (the normal order is subject first):

How long is the movie? ← Here the verb is placed before the subject.

But if we say that we asked something (like I asked X) then we have to use the normal order:

I ask them how long the movie is... ← Inside the X (how long the movie is), we stick to the normal order.

Similarly, we cannot go with:

... how frequently is the inventory turned over... ← Here the is in the verb is turned over is placed before the subject. This is incorrect.

We can see the same thing in the non-underlined part:

... how items are placed on shelves... ← This is what the sentence uses, and it's correct.
... how are items placed on shelves... ← This is incorrect.

2. Is turned over is passive, and therefore implies that someone or something is turning the inventory over. This is not very likely to be the intended meaning.
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It is well known in the supermarket industry that how items are placed 30 Oct 2019, 02:57
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We are not allowed to change the meaning of the original sentence . I know E maintains ||ism but in original sentence it is saying turnovers and in E it's saying turns over.
So why is E going to be the answer ? Please clarify . Thanks in advance and kudos is waiting.. :please
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It is well known in the supermarket industry that how items are placed 30 Oct 2019, 18:52
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soumya170293
We are not allowed to change the meaning of the original sentence . I know E maintains ||ism but in original sentence it is saying turnovers and in E it's saying turns over.
So why is E going to be the answer ? Please clarify . Thanks in advance and kudos is waiting.. :please
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Hi soumya170293,

You are right in saying that turnover (a noun) is different from turn over (a verb). However, there are a couple of things we need to keep in mind here:
1. Using verbs instead of nouns doesn't always lead to a significant change in the meaning of the sentence.
2. More importantly, option A may or may not contain the intended meaning, so we shouldn't consider it to be more important than the other options.

Take a look at this post as well.
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It is well known in the supermarket industry that how items are placed 17 May 2020, 22:18
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AjiteshArun
Bishal123456789
AjiteshArun Why option D is wrong here? Is "are" correct in option D?
Hi Bishal123456789,

There are a couple of ways we can take option D out:

1. The placement of is is incorrect. If we ask a question (like something with a question mark after it), we change the normal order of the subject and verb (the normal order is subject first):

How long is the movie? ← Here the verb is placed before the subject.

But if we say that we asked something (like I asked X) then we have to use the normal order:

I ask them how long the movie is... ← Inside the X (how long the movie is), we stick to the normal order.

Similarly, we cannot go with:

... how frequently is the inventory turned over... ← Here the is in the verb is turned over is placed before the subject. This is incorrect.

We can see the same thing in the non-underlined part:

... how items are placed on shelves... ← This is what the sentence uses, and it's correct.
... how are items placed on shelves... ← This is incorrect.

2. Is turned over is passive, and therefore implies that someone or something is turning the inventory over. This is not very likely to be the intended meaning.
Show more
Hi AjiteshArun,
From D, I thought like inventory is turned over by someone because of the frequent change in placement of items.
but in E, inventory turns over-> means inventory by itself turns over...please clarify me on this.
I think im missing some meaning here.

Thanks in advance
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It is well known in the supermarket industry that how items are placed 25 May 2020, 01:10
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monikakumar
Hi AjiteshArun,
From D, I thought like inventory is turned over by someone because of the frequent change in placement of items.
but in E, inventory turns over-> means inventory by itself turns over...please clarify me on this.
I think im missing some meaning here.

Thanks in advance
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Hi monikakumar.

Turn over, used like this, is really not even regular English. It is Business English. The only thing we can do here is "whitelist" this meaning of turn over. Here's a dictionary entry that may help.

To summarize: inventory turns over ~ "inventory gets sold" or "inventory sells out" (and gets replaced, because we're probably looking at a ~rate).
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It is well known in the supermarket industry that how items are placed 25 May 2020, 01:47
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monikakumar
Hi AjiteshArun,
From D, I thought like inventory is turned over by someone because of the frequent change in placement of items.
but in E, inventory turns over-> means inventory by itself turns over...please clarify me on this.
I think im missing some meaning here.

Thanks in advance
Hi monikakumar.

Turn over, used like this, is really not even regular English. It is Business English. The only thing we can do here is "whitelist" this meaning of turn over. Here's a dictionary entry that may help.

To summarize: inventory turns over ~ "inventory gets sold" or "inventory sells out" (and gets replaced, because we're probably looking at a ~rate).
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Ok, thank you. Got that. So the meaning here sell and replace, so the rate at which is this happening.
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It is well known in the supermarket industry that how items are placed 25 May 2020, 03:46
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monikakumar
Ok, thank you. Got that. So the meaning here sell and replace, so the rate at which is this happening.
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Yes, so:

how frequently the inventory turns over ~ "how frequently the inventory sells out (and gets replaced)"
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It is well known in the supermarket industry that how items are placed 03 Sep 2020, 20:45
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Dalinar
A few other people have mentioned it, but I still haven't seen it addressed - this looks like a flawed question.

Choice A is correct, except that it's not parallel.
Choice E is correct, except that it's not passive. I've seen several people cite this as a point in E's favor, but even GMAT grammar doesn't blindly dictate that "active is better than passive". It depends on who is doing the action. Here, inventory doesn't turn over on it's own. The boxes don't walk off the shelves so the part "the inventory turns over" is technically wrong. "How frequently the inventory is turned over can be" would be correct.

No, yes, why?

perfectstranger


D) how frequently is the inventory turned over are often = How + verb + noun
(E) how frequently the inventory turns over can be = how + noun + verb

Therefore D out . E is right.



Dalinar

The reason that this flipping is not acceptable follows from a basic grammar rule:

When we frame a question (interrogative sentence), the verb must come before the subject.
Example: How is it done?

However when the same idea is expressed in a statement (declarative sentence), the verb follows the subject:
Example:
Declarative correct: I asked him how it is done.
Declarative wrong: I asked him how is it done.

Compare the above with the sentence given in the problem:
Interrogative: How frequently is the inventory turned over?
Declarative correct: How frequently the inventory is turned over is crucial.
Declaraive wrong: How frequently is the inventory turned over is crucial.
Show more


Is it something like interrogative clause and declarative cannot be parallel?
And also if "how frequently the inventory turns over can be" were an option, would this be correct?
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It is well known in the supermarket industry that how items are placed 03 Sep 2020, 21:28
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vasanthinidumolu
And also if "how frequently the inventory turns over can be" were an option, would this be correct?
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Hi vasanthinidumolu,

Isn't that the same as option E (the correct option)?
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It is well known in the supermarket industry that how items are placed 13 Oct 2020, 02:28
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Does inventory turns over? If not why not go for D?
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It is well known in the supermarket industry that how items are placed 18 Nov 2020, 09:24
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EducationAisle please could you elaborate on the usage of "that" in correct choice (E). Why hasn't "that" repeated i.e. why hasn't it been placed before the second "how" to maintain parallelism?

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It is well known in the supermarket industry that how items are placed 18 Nov 2020, 21:07
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MS1014
Does inventory turns over? If not why not go for D?
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Hi MS1014,

Yes, that phrase (inventory turns over) is correct. This post explains one way to take option D out.
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