Jane, who works 80 hours a week, and John, who goes on business trips

Question

Jane, who works 80 hours a week, and  John, who goes on business trips abroad almost every week, hardly sees  the children.

A. John, who goes on business trips abroad almost every week, hardly sees

B. John, who goes on business trips abroad almost every week, hardly ever see

C. John, who go on business trips abroad almost every week, hardly has seen

D. since John goes on business trips abroad every week, hardly sees

E. John, who goes on business trips abroad almost every week, have hardly seen

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Bunuel · Accepted Answer

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION

Jane, who works 80 hours a week, and  John, who goes on business trips abroad almost every week, hardly sees  the children.

A. John, who goes on business trips abroad almost every week, hardly sees

Incorrect.

This answer choice is grammatically incorrect. The plural subject  Jane... and John...  does not agree with the singular verb  sees .

Two Stop Signs identify this question as a subject verb agreement question and help us detect the mistake:

- A plural subject made up of singular nouns connected by and

- A long complex subject / long distance between subject and verb

B. John, who goes on business trips abroad almost every week, hardly ever see

While this answer choice corrects the original Subject Verb Agreement mistake and is grammatically correct, it is stylistically flawed. Adding the word  ever  after  hardly  creates redundancy since  hardly  and  hardly ever  practically mean the same.

C. John, who go on business trips abroad almost every week, hardly has seen

Incorrect.

Although this answer choice changes the verb  sees  to  has seen , it still repeats the original Subject Verb Agreement mistake, because  sees  and  has seen  are both singular verbs. It also creates a new mistake by changing the singular verb  goes  to the plural  go . The singular subject  John  does not agree with the plural verb  go .

D. since John goes on business trips abroad every week, hardly sees

Incorrect.

This answer choice repeats the original Subject Verb Agreement mistake. The plural subject  Jane... and John...  does not agree with the singular verb  sees .

Two Stop Signs identify this question as a subject verb agreement question and help us detect the mistake:

- A plural subject made up of singular nouns connected by and

- A long complex subject / long distance between subject and verb

Also, this answer choice doesn't fit into the original sentence as a result of adding the word  since  at the beginning of the underlined section.

E. John, who goes on business trips abroad almost every week, have hardly seen

This answer choice corrects the Subject Verb Agreement mistake in the original sentence by changing the singular verb  sees  to the plural verb  have seen , to match the plural subject  Jane...and John .

zhanbo · Answer

My answer is  (B) . It took me 01:08.

(A) The subject, "Jane and John", is plural. As a result, main verb should be "see" instead of "sees".

(C) See above.

(D) Its meaning may be nonsensical: why Jane's inability to see the children is caused / exacerbated by John's business trips? (Still, we can imagine a plausible scenario: For example, John's side-business as an innkeeper has to be attended by Jane when he is out of town.)

Instead, we eliminate D by the lack of parallelism between "Jane" and "since John goes on business trips abroad every week".

(E) Now, (E) is almost replica of (B) with the only difference in 
hardly ever see (B)
have hardly seen (E)
I choose (B) because it consistently uses the simple present tense ("works", "goes", and "see").

hk111 · Answer

Core : Jane and John hardly sees the children.
 Its a compound sentence so "see" should be used.

A. John, who goes on business trips abroad almost every week, hardly sees
- "sees" is the error here.  Eliminate

B. John, who goes on business trips abroad almost every week, hardly ever see
- I see no errors.  Keep

C. John, who go on business trips abroad almost every week, hardly has seen
- Eliminate for the same reasons as (A) and it has a subtle meaning error as well due to "John hardly ever see".  Eliminate

D. since John goes on business trips abroad every week, hardly sees
- The sentence is no more a compound sentence. but the phrasing is awkward and not grammatical.  Eliminate

E. John, who goes on business trips abroad almost every week, have hardly seen
- This sentence changes the meaning from " hardly ever see" meaning they don't spend much time with the children to "have hardly seen" that means that they haven't seen their children from a long time.  Eliminate 
 
IMO B

Pranjal1 · Answer

I think B is the answer as the sentence talks about both Jane and John

asishron29181 · Answer

Jane, who works 80 hours a week, and  John, who goes on business trips abroad almost every week, hardly sees  the children.

IMO B

Subject verb agreement is taken care here. 
 B. John, who goes on business trips abroad almost every week, hardly ever see

'Jane and John hardly see' is correct here.

huyeenbuii · Answer

My answer is (B)

The subject here is Jane and John so the V should be plural one

A. John, who goes on business trips abroad almost every week, hardly  sees

B. John, who goes on business trips abroad almost every week, hardly ever see

C. John, who go on business trips abroad almost every week,  hardly has seen

D.  since  John goes on business trips abroad every week,  hardly sees

E. John, who goes on business trips abroad almost every week,  have hardly seen  => Present perfect doesnt make sense here

TarunKumar1234 · Answer

Jane, who works 80 hours a week, and John, who goes on business trips abroad almost every week, hardly sees the children.

A. John, who goes on business trips abroad almost every week, hardly sees Incorrect

SV error - Jane and John plural, sees singular

B. John, who goes on business trips abroad almost every week, hardly ever see Incorrect

I think it is redundant - .......hardly ever.......

C. John, who go on business trips abroad almost every week, hardly has seen Incorrect

same as A, has singular

D. since John goes on business trips abroad every week, hardly sees Incorrect

parallelism error - Jane,...., and since..........

E. John, who goes on business trips abroad almost every week, have hardly seen Incorrect

it seems correct, meaning is not change

ramlala · Answer

Jane, who works 80 hours a week, and  John, who goes on business trips abroad almost every week, hardly sees  the children.

A. John, who goes on business trips abroad almost every week, hardly  sees 
 S-V error. Subject John and Jane is plural.

B. John, who goes on business trips abroad almost every week, hardly  ever  see
 use of  ever  changes meaning here. Also  hardly  and  ever  both are almost same

C. John, who go on business trips abroad almost every week, hardly  has seen 
 S-V error. Subject John and Jane is plural.

D. since John goes on business trips abroad every week, hardly  sees 
 S-V error. Subject John and Jane is plural.

E. John, who goes on business trips abroad almost every week,  have hardly seen 
 It is not compulsion to maintain simple present tense. Present perfect tense conveys meaning and suits the situation

IMO E

winterschool · Answer

Jane, who works 80 hours a week, and John, who goes on business trips abroad almost every week, hardly sees the children.

A. John, who goes on business trips abroad almost every week, hardly  sees   Incorrect

SV error - Jane and John plural, sees singular

B. John, who goes on business trips abroad almost every week,  hardly ever  see  Incorrect

I think it is redundant - .......hardly ever.......

C. John, who go on business trips abroad almost every week, hardly  has  seen  Incorrect

same as A, has singular

D.  since  John goes on business trips abroad every week, hardly sees  Incorrect

parallelism error - Jane,...., and since..........

E.  John, who goes on business trips abroad almost every week, have hardly seen   Incorrect

it seems correct, meaning is not change

sumit7tiwari · Answer

Can someone please explain the role played by Hardly in answer choice E and Choice B.

B) John, who goes on business trips abroad almost every week, hardly ever see
- I thought hardly here is modifying ever and thus , is trying to convey that they very rarely see the children

E) John, who goes on business trips abroad almost every week, have hardly seen
- Here I thought hardly is modifying seen and thus, the sentence means that they can hardly see the children. Maybe, They are old

zhanbo · Answer

Is "hardly ever" redundant?

From https://www.merriam-webster.com/diction ... dly%20ever, "hardly ever" is a recognized idiom meaning "almost never, very seldom".
Example: We hardly ever see them anymore.
Another example: Jane and John hardly ever see the children.

jrk23 · Answer

Hello sir, Can you please explain why "B" is wrong and "E" is correct. unable to understand the difference between the two. Thank you sir.

kntombat · Answer

I have the same question as  zhanbo ,

Could any expert shed some light on this please ??

AndrewN ,  GMATNinja ,  generis  ?

AndrewN · Answer

Hello,  kntombat . I saw your query come through earlier on a CR question, but  nightblade354  beat me to responding (not to mention that I was not tagged to answer it). As for this question, I agree with you and  zhanbo  above. It is impossible to tell what the sentence may be driving at without more context. It is easy to narrow down to (B) and (E), but then we need more information. I will discuss the differences below.

The first sentence above, (B), indicates that because Jane and John are so busy or on the go, they have little time left to see  the children  (whether their children or those of some unnamed parents). This is perfectly fine, similar to saying that I am so busy that I hardly ever relax, something I might choose to do with more time on my hands. Choice (E), meanwhile, casts more light on the past, what has developed up to this point—Jane and John are apparently so preoccupied that they have scarcely seen  the children . But how can we know whether the sentence aims to tell us about the future or the past? To put it simply, we cannot. This is a flawed question, Project SC Butler or not, and I guarantee it would not appear as such on the GMAT™.

I hope that helps. Thank you for thinking to ask me, and as always, good luck with your studies.

- Andrew

VerbalBot · Answer

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Jane, who works 80 hours a week, and John, who goes on business trips

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Jane, who works 80 hours a week, and John, who goes on business trips

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