It takes a deft balance between savings discipline, investment knowled

Question

It takes a deft balance between  savings discipline, investment knowledge, risk taking, luck, and time to raise a million dollars through investments.

(A) It takes a deft balance between
(B) Deft balancing is needed between
(C) Deftly balanced, it takes
(D) It takes a deft balance of
(E) A deft balance is what one needs among

TommyWallach · Accepted Answer

Hey Guys,

Ick. I really don't like how many times I'm seeing the word "wordy" on this page. Wordiness is ALMOST NEVER a reason to cross anything off on the GMAT. It's an excuse to be lazy with your understanding of either grammar or meaning in the sentence.

It takes a deft balance between savings discipline, investment knowledge, risk taking, luck, and time to raise a million dollars through investments.

(A) It takes a deft balance between
PROBLEM: Can't use "between," because more than 2 things are being balanced.

(B) Deft balancing is needed between
PROBLEM: Same as above.

(C) Deftly balanced, it takes
PROBLEM: This sentence begins with an adverbial modifier "deft balanced," which means it needs to modify a verb. The only verb it can modify is "takes." But that doesn't make any sense. It's not the taking that's balanced, but the various nouns that NEED to be balanced.

(D) It takes a deft balance of
ANSWER

(E) A deft balance is what one needs among 
PROBLEM: The "among" is unclear here. It sounds like the "one" is hanging out PHYSICALLY "among" these various things. As if, when hanging out with savings discipline, investment stuff, etc., one needs to have a deft balance of...something else. That isn't mentioned. It doesn't make any sense.

Hope that helps!

-t

P.S. I'm taking a break from the forums, so please don't PM me with anything else for right now. Thanks!

magnetictempest · Answer

Noticed two things:
- Verb tense of 'balance' is correct (Balancing? Balanced?)
- Balance 'between' is wrong (between implies two options)

Brings to D & E.
E: "Is what one needs" - is wordy. (And "It takes..." isn't wrong)

vwjetty · Answer

It's D. Between is automatically out. And all the rest are too wordy.

NewSc2 · Answer

Answered D.

I think "balance of" is fine, but I see how between/among could be used. Anybody care to discuss?

"It takes a balance of hard work and discipline to do well on the GMAT."
"It takes a balance between hard work and discipline to do well on the GMAT."

MichaelS · Answer

I couldn't seem to leave a comment on today's SC Question of the Day. Sorry, kind of a noob here. I notice, though, that none of the Q of the D I saw has comments....

Anyway, I liked the question, so I thought I'd comment here. This is my first time viewing a Q of the D, so forgive me if my comment is more than is expected.

Here is dzyubam's SC:

It takes a deft balance between  savings discipline, investment knowledge, risk taking, luck, and time to raise a million dollars through investments.

(A) It takes a deft balance between
(B) Deft balancing is needed between
(C) Deftly balanced, it takes
(D) It takes a deft balance of
(E) A deft balance is what one needs among

Clever question. I like that the question first seems to involve a choice between "between" and "among," but the best answer uses neither. Very like the GMAT, and a reminder NOT to craft an ideal answer in your head, but to work from the choices.

A and B are wrong because of "between."

The next most useful split is the position of the modifiers "among..." and "deftly balanced."

The placeholder "it" is fine in C, but it can't take the modifier "deftly balanced," so C is out.

The modifier "among..." should touch the noun it modifies, the list "savings discipline, investment knowledge, risk taking, luck, and time," so E is out.

D!

Capricorn369 · Answer

Hi MichaelS, Thank you for your response.

Can you please illustrate - " The modifier "among..." should touch the noun it modifies " with example?

Cheers!
Aj.

MichaelS · Answer

About between vs. among:
I should have said that A and B are wrong because "between" can't be used with more than two objects. You say "between x and y," but "among x, y, and z."

About that modifier issue:
Noun modifiers must touch the nouns they modify, with just a few exceptions. The core of this sentence is,  It takes a balance to raise dollars . Everything else is a modifier. In D, the phrase  of savings discipline, investment knowledge, risk taking, luck, and time  correctly modifies the noun  balance . In E the phrase  among savings discipline, investment knowledge, risk taking, luck, and time  is incorrectly separated from the noun it's meant to modify, still  balance . Instead it seems to nonsensically modify the entire clause  A balance is what one needs.  That's when one needs a balance, when one is among savings, etc. Huh? Again, that's nonsense.

Hope that helps!

daagh · Answer

As I compliment Michaels for his excellent insight into this topic, May I also complement the analysis from another dimension concerning the contextual use of among vs of; let me illustrate

Let us take a case of selecting a balanced food. We say, we want a balanced food of Carbohydrates proteins, lipid, minerals, vitamins and fiber, because here we want each of the nutrients to be present in judicious quantities. We do not say we want a balanced food among xyz and so on. In other words, when we to specify a set of choice from a number of given attributes, we may use ‘among’; when we want an amalgam of all the attributes, we may say ‘of’. You can see how the prepositional idiom ‘among’ gives way to ‘of’ to maintain the correct meaning, which is what I think, GMAT is to wanting to inculcate these days.

A kudo each for MichaelS and dzyubam for their ‘meaningful’ contributions.

One personal question for MichaelS: I see that you have already achieved the maximum in GRE and GMAT; what is the reason for your re-writing these tests? Is there any professional advantage in doing that or is it just for the heck of it? You may ignore this query, if you do not like.

chris558 · Answer

It takes a deft balance between savings discipline, investment knowledge, risk taking, luck, and time to raise a million dollars through investments.

(A) It takes a deft balance  between 
--> between is used to refer to 2 things, not more than that.
(B)  Deft balancing  is needed between
--> awkward wording
(C)  Deftly balanced, it  takes
--> whatever comes after the comma describes what is before it. In this case, deftly balanced refers to "it" which does not make sense. Plus the overall meaning of the sentence has changed.
(D) It takes a deft balance of
 --> Corrent 
(E) A deft balance is  what one needs  among
--> This is wordy, "one" is not needed in the sentence.

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It takes a deft balance between savings discipline, investment knowled

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