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Magoosh GMAT Instructor
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Re: Making things even more difficult has been general market inactivity
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 28 Oct 2018, 13:54
Skywalker18 wrote: Making things even more difficult has been general market inactivity lately, if not paralysis, which has provided little in the way of pricing guidance. The original option is an inverted sentence and can be changed as - General market inactivity, if not paralysis, which has provided little in the way of pricing guidance, has been making things even more difficult lately. If we have a sentence structure "X is(or was) Y". -If anything before the verb can be the subject, then that's the subject. - If nothing before the verb can be the subject, then we have a backward construction/ inverted structure (in which subject follows the verb) On the table are two cell phones --> Two cell phones are on the table ---> I just changed the order and since the sentence is simple -- it's easy Can we convert a sentence from backward construction/ inverted structure to a normal construction(in which subject precedes the verb) by just changing the order to Y is X for the original sentence "X is Y" ?AjiteshArun , GMATNinja , MagooshExpert , VeritasPrepBrian, GMATGuruNY , VeritasKarishma , DmitryFarber , RonPurewal , ChiranjeevSingh , other experts - please enlighten Hi Skywalker18, This sentence cannot be broken down into "X is Y" -- "making" here needs to be interpreted either as a part of the verb ("has been making") or as a modifier (which cannot be the subject or object of a sentence). Consider this sentence: Skywalker was studying for the test all night.The verb here is "was studying", not just "was". If we invert this sentence: Studying for the test all night was Skywalker.we end up with a Yoda-like sentence (which is unfortunately not correct). Alternately, we could use "studying" as a modifier: Studying for the test all night, Skywalker was determined to get a good score.However, this only works because we have a separate independent clause (Skywalker was determined...). I hope that helps! -Carolyn
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Re: Making things even more difficult has been general market inactivity
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28 Oct 2018, 19:51
Skywalker18 wrote: Making things even more difficult has been general market inactivity lately, if not paralysis, which has provided little in the way of pricing guidance. The original option is an inverted sentence and can be changed as - General market inactivity, if not paralysis, which has provided little in the way of pricing guidance, has been making things even more difficult lately. If we have a sentence structure "X is(or was) Y". -If anything before the verb can be the subject, then that's the subject. - If nothing before the verb can be the subject, then we have a backward construction/ inverted structure (in which subject follows the verb) On the table are two cell phones --> Two cell phones are on the table ---> I just changed the order and since the sentence is simple -- it's easy Can we convert a sentence from backward construction/ inverted structure to a normal construction(in which subject precedes the verb) by just changing the order to Y is X for the original sentence "X is Y" ?AjiteshArun , GMATNinja , MagooshExpert , VeritasPrepBrian, GMATGuruNY , VeritasKarishma , DmitryFarber , RonPurewal , ChiranjeevSingh , other experts - please enlighten You should be able to do that, if you already have a correct Y is X in front of you. Just watch out for a few cases in which the X is a little longer than in your examples: 1. In no movie is he the villain.Here we have to leave the villain where it is ( He is the villain in no movie, and not He the villain is in no movie). 2. Rarely are tigers seen in the wild nowadays.When the is or are is a helping verb, we need to take the rest of the verb into account.
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EMPOWERgmat Instructor
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Re: Making things even more difficult has been general market inactivity
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29 Oct 2018, 17:01
Hello Everyone! Let's take a closer look at this question and tackle it, one problem at a time! Before we dive in, here is the original question with any major differences between the options highlighted in orange: Making things even more difficult has been general market inactivity lately, if not paralysis, which has provided little in the way of pricing guidance. (A) has been general market inactivity lately, if not paralysis, which has provided (B) there is general market inactivity, if not paralysis, lately it has provided (C) general market inactivity, if not paralysis, has lately provided (D) lately, general market inactivity, if not paralysis, has provided (E) is that lately general market inactivity, if not paralysis, which providesAfter taking a quick glance over the options, there are two main things we can focus on: 1. What comes before the phrase "if not paralysis" 2. What comes after the phrase "if not paralysis" This sounds like too much to focus on, right? Let's think about this in a different way: 1. Proper placement/use of a non-essential phrase or interjection ("...,if not paralysis,...")
2. Modifier Placement (the phrase "Making things even more difficult" is a modifier)Let's tackle #1 on our list: non-essential phrases or interjections. In this sentence, the phrase "if not paralysis" is considered an interjection. It's a phrase that's added in to sound more conversational or to add more detail that's not 100% vital to know. For non-essential phrases, they are always put in between commas to indicate that they're not necessary for the sentence to make sense. To test this, we can cross out the non-essential phrase and check to see if what's left is both a complete sentence and retains its intended meaning. Let's take a look at each option, but with the non-essential phrase crossed out: (A) Making things even more difficult has been general market inactivity lately, if not paralysis,which has provided little in the way of pricing guidance. --> INCORRECT ( What's left over is a run-on sentence, which means the phrase isn't in the right place or the wording in the rest of the sentence is wrong.) (B) Making things even more difficult there is general market inactivity, if not paralysis, lately it has provided little in the way of pricing guidance. --> INCORRECT ( What's left over is a run-on sentence, so this is also wrong.) (C) Making things even more difficult general market inactivity, if not paralysis, has lately provided little in the way of pricing guidance. --> INCORRECT( This can't stand alone because it needs a comma between "difficult" and "general" to separate the modifier from the subject.) (D) Making things even more difficult lately, general market inactivity, if not paralysis,has provided little in the way of pricing guidance. --> CORRECTThis is our CORRECT option because it's the only one that uses the non-essential phrase and modifiers correctly! (E) Making things even more difficult is that lately general market inactivity, if not paralysis,which provides little in the way of pricing guidance. --> INCORRECT( This is actually a very long sentence fragment! If it cannot stand alone as a complete sentence without the non-essential phrase, it's not the right choice.) There you have it - option D is the correct choice! It's the only that uses a non-essential phrase correctly, which is a common problem on the GMAT you can easily spot and test out! Don't study for the GMAT. Train for it.
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Re: Making things even more difficult has been general market inactivity
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25 Apr 2019, 00:09
EMPOWERgmatVerbal wrote: Hello Everyone!
Let's take a closer look at this question and tackle it, one problem at a time! Before we dive in, here is the original question with any major differences between the options highlighted in orange:
Making things even more difficult has been general market inactivity lately, if not paralysis, which has provided little in the way of pricing guidance.
(A) has been general market inactivity lately, if not paralysis, which has provided
(B) there is general market inactivity, if not paralysis, lately it has provided
(C) general market inactivity, if not paralysis, has lately provided
(D) lately, general market inactivity, if not paralysis, has provided
(E) is that lately general market inactivity, if not paralysis, which provides
After taking a quick glance over the options, there are two main things we can focus on:
1. What comes before the phrase "if not paralysis"
2. What comes after the phrase "if not paralysis"
This sounds like too much to focus on, right? Let's think about this in a different way:
1. Proper placement/use of a non-essential phrase or interjection ("...,if not paralysis,...")
2. Modifier Placement (the phrase "Making things even more difficult" is a modifier)
Let's tackle #1 on our list: non-essential phrases or interjections. In this sentence, the phrase "if not paralysis" is considered an interjection. It's a phrase that's added in to sound more conversational or to add more detail that's not 100% vital to know. For non-essential phrases, they are always put in between commas to indicate that they're not necessary for the sentence to make sense.
To test this, we can cross out the non-essential phrase and check to see if what's left is both a complete sentence and retains its intended meaning. Let's take a look at each option, but with the non-essential phrase crossed out:
(A) Making things even more difficult has been general market inactivity lately, if not paralysis,which has provided little in the way of pricing guidance. --> INCORRECT
(What's left over is a run-on sentence, which means the phrase isn't in the right place or the wording in the rest of the sentence is wrong.)
(B) Making things even more difficult there is general market inactivity, if not paralysis, lately it has provided little in the way of pricing guidance. --> INCORRECT
(What's left over is a run-on sentence, so this is also wrong.)
(C) Making things even more difficult general market inactivity, if not paralysis, has lately provided little in the way of pricing guidance. --> INCORRECT
(This can't stand alone because it needs a comma between "difficult" and "general" to separate the modifier from the subject.)
(D) Making things even more difficult lately, general market inactivity, if not paralysis,has provided little in the way of pricing guidance. --> CORRECT
This is our CORRECT option because it's the only one that uses the non-essential phrase and modifiers correctly!
(E) Making things even more difficult is that lately general market inactivity, if not paralysis,which provides little in the way of pricing guidance. --> INCORRECT
(This is actually a very long sentence fragment! If it cannot stand alone as a complete sentence without the non-essential phrase, it's not the right choice.)
There you have it - option D is the correct choice! It's the only that uses a non-essential phrase correctly, which is a common problem on the GMAT you can easily spot and test out!
Don't study for the GMAT. Train for it. Hello EMPOWERgmatVerbal, Thanks for such detailed explanation. I have a doubt in your explanation of why option D is wrong of this problem. As far as I understand, gmac won't create a wrong option just based on a punctuation mark, here ", ". Can you please enlighten us on that matter. Thanks, Tamal Posted from my mobile device
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Re: Making things even more difficult has been general market inactivity
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25 Apr 2019, 00:47
tamal99 wrote: Hello EMPOWERgmatVerbal, Thanks for such detailed explanation. I have a doubt in your explanation of why option D is wrong of this problem. As far as I understand, gmac won't create a wrong option just based on a punctuation mark, here ", ". Can you please enlighten us on that matter. Thanks, Tamal Did you mean option C (or maybe B)? Punctuation is tested on the GMAT. What we don't have to worry about too much is style. So, for example, there is no (reliable) way to remove an option just because it has (or does not have) a comma before an and. Different people have different recommendations on how to handle style issues, but the need for a comma in C is not that kind of an issue. Working quickly, he did something. ← This sentence is okay. Working quickly he did something. ← This sentence is incorrect, and there is no real debate about it. That is, we won't find a significant number of people arguing that the sentence is fine without a comma.
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Re: Making things even more difficult has been general market inactivity
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26 Apr 2019, 11:34
tamal99 wrote: EMPOWERgmatVerbal wrote: Hello Everyone!
Let's take a closer look at this question and tackle it, one problem at a time! Before we dive in, here is the original question with any major differences between the options highlighted in orange:
Making things even more difficult has been general market inactivity lately, if not paralysis, which has provided little in the way of pricing guidance.
(A) has been general market inactivity lately, if not paralysis, which has provided
(B) there is general market inactivity, if not paralysis, lately it has provided
(C) general market inactivity, if not paralysis, has lately provided
(D) lately, general market inactivity, if not paralysis, has provided
(E) is that lately general market inactivity, if not paralysis, which provides
After taking a quick glance over the options, there are two main things we can focus on:
1. What comes before the phrase "if not paralysis"
2. What comes after the phrase "if not paralysis"
This sounds like too much to focus on, right? Let's think about this in a different way:
1. Proper placement/use of a non-essential phrase or interjection ("...,if not paralysis,...")
2. Modifier Placement (the phrase "Making things even more difficult" is a modifier)
Let's tackle #1 on our list: non-essential phrases or interjections. In this sentence, the phrase "if not paralysis" is considered an interjection. It's a phrase that's added in to sound more conversational or to add more detail that's not 100% vital to know. For non-essential phrases, they are always put in between commas to indicate that they're not necessary for the sentence to make sense.
To test this, we can cross out the non-essential phrase and check to see if what's left is both a complete sentence and retains its intended meaning. Let's take a look at each option, but with the non-essential phrase crossed out:
(A) Making things even more difficult has been general market inactivity lately, if not paralysis,which has provided little in the way of pricing guidance. --> INCORRECT
(What's left over is a run-on sentence, which means the phrase isn't in the right place or the wording in the rest of the sentence is wrong.)
(B) Making things even more difficult there is general market inactivity, if not paralysis, lately it has provided little in the way of pricing guidance. --> INCORRECT
(What's left over is a run-on sentence, so this is also wrong.)
(C) Making things even more difficult general market inactivity, if not paralysis, has lately provided little in the way of pricing guidance. --> INCORRECT
(This can't stand alone because it needs a comma between "difficult" and "general" to separate the modifier from the subject.)
(D) Making things even more difficult lately, general market inactivity, if not paralysis,has provided little in the way of pricing guidance. --> CORRECT
This is our CORRECT option because it's the only one that uses the non-essential phrase and modifiers correctly!
(E) Making things even more difficult is that lately general market inactivity, if not paralysis,which provides little in the way of pricing guidance. --> INCORRECT
(This is actually a very long sentence fragment! If it cannot stand alone as a complete sentence without the non-essential phrase, it's not the right choice.)
There you have it - option D is the correct choice! It's the only that uses a non-essential phrase correctly, which is a common problem on the GMAT you can easily spot and test out!
Don't study for the GMAT. Train for it. Hello EMPOWERgmatVerbal, Thanks for such detailed explanation. I have a doubt in your explanation of why option D is wrong of this problem. As far as I understand, gmac won't create a wrong option just based on a punctuation mark, here ", ". Can you please enlighten us on that matter. Thanks, Tamal Posted from my mobile deviceHello tamal99! Thank you for your question. While I do understand that the GMAT doesn't focus too much on punctuation errors, it DOES sometimes deal with grammar concepts that include punctuation. In this example, the commas aren't really the main problem we're trying to focus on - the incorrect use of interjections is. Any time you use an interjection (a phrase added in and surrounded by commas), it needs to be non-important to the original meaning. In this example, if we remove the phrase ",if not paralysis," from option D, commas included, the sentence we're left with still works. When we deal with interjections, the commas go along with it! The other options in this exercise are either incomplete sentences or run-on sentences if we take both the phrase and commas out of it. While there won't be too many questions on the GMAT that focus on punctuation, this is one example of when they will. I hope this helps! I know that punctuation can be tricky on the GMAT questions!
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Making things even more difficult has been general market inactivity
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14 Jun 2019, 10:04
AbdurRakib wrote: GMAT® Official Guide 2018 Practice QuestionQuestion No.: SC 726 Page: 691 Making things even more difficult has been general market inactivity lately, if not paralysis, which has provided little in the way of pricing guidance. (A) has been general market inactivity lately, if not paralysis, which has provided (B) there is general market inactivity, if not paralysis, lately it has provided (C) general market inactivity, if not paralysis, has lately provided (D) lately, general market inactivity, if not paralysis, has provided (E) is that lately general market inactivity, if not paralysis, which provides (A) Making things even more difficult has been general market inactivity lately, if not paralysis, which has provided little in the way of pricing guidance.if not paralysis is an interjection. It adds color to the sentence. which has provided little in the way of pricing guidance is a modifier. It tells us more about INACTIVITY If we ignore the interjection and the modifier, we get: Making things even more difficult has been general market inactivity latelyHere's a similar sentence: Standing on the corner has been Joe. While we can say Joe has been standing on the corner, the sentence Standing on the corner has been Joe illogically makes the modifier (Standing on the corner) the subject of the sentence. Answer choice A shares the same illogical construction. ELIMINATE A ------------------------------------ Answer choice B is a total word salad. I doubt many students choose B  ------------------------------------ (E)Making things even more difficult is that lately general market inactivity, if not paralysis, which provides little in the way of pricing guidance. if not paralysis is an interjection. It adds color to the sentence. which provides little in the way of pricing guidance. is a modifier. It tells us more about INACTIVITY If we ignore the interjection and the modifier, we get: Making things even more difficult is that lately general market inactivityThis sentence is incomplete. Where's the verb that should accompany the noun ACTIVITY? ELIMINATE E ------------------------------------ We're left with C and D With answer choice D we get: Making things even more difficult lately, general market inactivity, if not paralysis, has provided little in the way of pricing guidance. Here, we start with a modifier Making things even more difficult lately,, When a sentence begins with a with noun modifier (as it does in the above sentence), stop at the comma and ask the question that the modifier raises. So, once we read, Making things even more difficult lately, we should stop and ask . . . WHAT is making things more difficult lately? Keep reading.... general market inactivity Ah! general market inactivity is making thing more difficult. Make perfect sense Keep D. With answer choice C we get: Making things even more difficult general market inactivity, if not paralysis, has lately provided little in the way of pricing guidance. It LOOKS like we're starting the sentence with the modifier Making things even more difficult but the omission of a comma tells us that this, alone, is not the modifier. Keep going until the comma...." Making things even more difficult general market inactivity, " What?!?! ELIMINATE C Answer: D Cheers, Brent
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Re: Making things even more difficult has been general market inactivity
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15 Jun 2019, 02:49
Making things even more difficult// has been general market inactivity lately, if not paralysis, which has provided// little in the way of pricing guidance. (A) has been general market inactivity lately, if not paralysis, which has provided (B) there is general market inactivity, if not paralysis, lately it has provided (C) general market inactivity, if not paralysis, has lately provided (D) lately, general market inactivity, if not paralysis, has provided (E) is that lately general market inactivity, if not paralysis, which provides we are here because og explanation is not clear enough. choice A. 'lately" is in wrong place. we need 'inactivity ' and "paralysis" stand together. 'paralysis" is appositive of " inactivity". why "lately" is inserted here. this is clear error choice B "making things...." need to refer to subject in the following clause. "there is" is not subject/agent of the main action in the main clause. this is first error. the second error is "there is" and "it has" are two clauses , which has not connection words. this is wrong. choice C "making ...dificult" is not separated by a comma. so, the sentence is "making things inactivity has provided". this meaning make no sense. choice E "lately" is an adverb but it can not modifies "general" logically. so, lately is wrong. honestly, we can not know whether "lately" should modifies "making" or "provided", using our common sense of meaning. but luckily, we do not need to know this point
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Re: Making things even more difficult has been general market inactivity
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27 Jun 2019, 03:16
Making things even more difficult has been general market inactivity lately, if not paralysis, which has provided little in the way of pricing guidance. (A) has been general market inactivity lately, if not paralysis, which has provided Use of Which is wrong. (B) there is general market inactivity, if not paralysis, lately it has provided There is refer to ? Not clear. amigious (C) general market inactivity, if not paralysis, has lately provided No verb use. So sentence fragment (D) lately, general market inactivity, if not paralysis, has provided Correct one. (E) is that lately general market inactivity, if not paralysis, which provides Same error as A.
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Re: Making things even more difficult has been general market inactivity
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29 Jun 2019, 01:02
chetan2u wrote: AbdurRakib wrote: Making things even more difficult has been general market inactivity lately, if not paralysis, which has provided little in the way of pricing guidance. A) has been general market inactivity lately, if not paralysis, which has provided B) there is general market inactivity, if not paralysis, lately it has provided C) general market inactivity, if not paralysis, has lately provided D) lately, general market inactivity, if not paralysis, has provided E) is that lately general market inactivity, if not paralysis, which provides OG 2017 New Question Issues - 1) Making things even more difficult MODIFIES general market inactivity , so should be followed by it..
2) Pronoun error - general market inactivity REQUIRES a verb...BOTH above error are corrected ONLY by D D Sir what about option C it has verb after coma and it is also modifying general market activity
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Re: Making things even more difficult has been general market inactivity
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30 Jun 2019, 22:21
rishabhmishra wrote: Sir what about option C it has verb after coma and it is also modifying general market activity Option C doesn't have a comma after making things even more difficult. Making things even more difficult_general market inactivity has lately provided little in the way of pricing guidance.
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Re: Making things even more difficult has been general market inactivity
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30 Jun 2019, 22:21
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