Many experts regarded the increase in credit card borrowing in March

Question

Many experts regarded the increase in credit card borrowing in March not as a sign that households were pressed for cash and forced to borrow,  rather a sign of confidence by households that they could safely  handle new debt.

A. rather a sign of confidence by households that they could safely

B. yet as a sign of households' confidence that it was safe for them to

C. but a sign of confidence by households that they could safely

D. but as a sign that households were confident they could safely

E. but also as a sign that households were confident in their ability safely to

Verbal Question of The Day: Day 48: Sentence Correction 
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egmat · Accepted Answer

Hi there,
Your doubt is pretty valid. Generally two indepedent clauses are joined together by using a conjunction. Here "that" is the conjunction that should be joining these two ICs. However, many a times "that" is dropped between two ICs when the meaning is absolutely clearly.
For example:
She told me she would call at 5 pm.
Joe mentioned the party was at his place.

Even if both these sentences lack "that", they are not ambiguous in their meaning.

Use of "that" is imperative when it is used as relative pronoun.
For example:
Joe gave me a book that was lying in his room for six months now.

Hope this helps.
Thanks.
Shraddha

GMATNinja · Answer

(A) would be a whole lot better with a "but", so that it would be parallel to "not as a sign..." I'm also not crazy about the modifier "that they could safely" -- it seems like it would be clearer if "that" was right next to "confidence." I'm not sure that the placement of "that" is absolutely wrong, but I don't love it. The lack of parallelism is a dealbreaker, though. Eliminate (A).

The parallelism is just as goofy in (B) and in (A). And we also have some pronoun issues here. "It" doesn't have a referent at all, and maybe we could argue that this is a rare non-referential pronoun ("it is raining"), but you don't see those very often on the GMAT -- and I don't think there's a good reason to use one here. More importantly, the non-possessive pronoun "them" can't refer back to the possessive noun "households." (See  our YouTube live video for more on this type of pronoun issue .)

Eliminate (B).

The "not... but" construction is almost OK here, but it doesn't quite work: "not  as  a sign... but a sign." Nope, "as a sign" isn't parallel to "a sign." Eliminate (C).

Parallelism is perfect here. If you have a problem with this one, your objection is probably to the omission of the word "that": it seems like this should say "... were confident  that  they could safely..."

In (D), "that" is subordinating a clause. (Check out the  Topic of the Week on "that"  for more on subordinate clauses and other uses of "that" on the GMAT.) And most of the time, the GMAT will include the word "that" in these situations. But in general, "that" isn't strictly necessary, as long as it's clear that you're subordinating a clause -- and many American writing instructors actually teach their students that they SHOULD omit the word "that" if it's clearly implied.

In other words, both of these are arguably acceptable:

I believe that the Easter Bunny is real. 
I believe the Easter Bunny is real.

You won't see "that" omitted very often on the GMAT. Actually, this is the only case I can think of. But it's acceptable -- and the errors in the other four answer choices are much more severe.

"Not as a sign... but ALSO as a sign..."?! That makes no sense at all. (E) is out, and we're left with (D).

GMATRockstar · Answer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFisaAxhYfM

EMPOWERgmatVerbal · Answer

Hello Everyone!

Let's take a closer look at this question, one issue at a time, to determine the correct answer as quickly as possible! To get started, here is the original question, with the main differences between each option highlighted in  orange :

Many experts regarded the increase in credit card borrowing in March not as a sign that households were pressed for cash and forced to borrow,  rather a sign of confidence by households that they could safely  handle new debt.

A.  rather  a sign  of confidence by households  that  they could safely 
B.  yet as  a sign  of households' confidence  that  it was safe for them to 
C.  but  a sign  of confidence by households  that  they could safely 
D.  but as  a sign  that households were confident   they could safely 
E.  but also as  a sign  that households were confident  in  their ability safely to

If you look closely at the entire sentence, you can see there is a phrase that starts with "not as...," which is an indication that we have to deal with  idiomatic structure !

The idiom we're working with today is this:

not X, but Y

Both X and Y in the idiom must be worded using parallel wording or structure:

I am not crying, but laughing. -->  OK
 I am not crying, but also I'm laughing too. -->  WRONG

Let's go through each option and figure out which use parallel structure and wording, and which ones do not. To make this easier to see, I've added the first half of the idiom:

A.  not as a sign  that households were pressed for cash and forced to borrow,  rather a sign  of confidence by households that they could safely -->  WRONG  (Doesn't use the "not X, but Y" idiomatic structure or parallel phrasing of "not as X, but as Y.")

B.  not as a sign  that households were pressed for cash and forced to borrow,  yet as a sign  of households' confidence that it was safe for them to -->  WRONG  (While it uses parallel wording, it still doesn't stick to the "not X, but Y" format - it replaces "but" with "yet," which isn't how the idiom works.)

C.  not as a sign  that households were pressed for cash and forced to borrow,  but a sign  of confidence by households that they could safely -->  WRONG  (While it does use the "not X, but Y" format, the X and Y in the idiom aren't worded the same. They should both follow the "not as a sign...but as a sign" format to be parallel.)

D.  not as a sign  that households were pressed for cash and forced to borrow,  but as a sign  that households were confident they could safely -->  CORRECT  (This is correct because it follows the "not X, but Y" idiom format, and it uses parallel structure for both X and Y!)

E.  not as a sign  that households were pressed for cash and forced to borrow,  but also as a sign  that households were confident in their ability safely to -->  WRONG  (This sentence actually mixes two idiom structures together: "not X, but Y" and "not only X, but also Y." This creates a parallelism issue, so it's wrong.)

Well, there you go!  Option D is the correct option because it's the only one that uses the idiomatic structure "not X, but Y" correctly!

Don't study for the GMAT. Train for it.

ExpertsGlobal5 · Answer

Dear Friends,

Here is a detailed explanation to this question-

Concepts tested here: Parallelism + Idioms + Awkwardness/Redundancy

• “not A but B” is a correct idiomatic usage; A and B must be parallel and comparable.

A:  This answer choice incorrectly uses the unidiomatic construction "not A rather B"; remember, “not A but B” is a correct idiomatic usage; A and B must be parallel and comparable.

B:  This answer choice incorrectly uses the unidiomatic construction "not A yet B"; remember, “not A but B” is a correct idiomatic usage; A and B must be parallel and comparable. Further, Option B uses the needlessly wordy and passive phrase "households' confidence that it was safe for them to", leading to awkwardness and redundancy.

C:  This answer choice fails to maintain parallelism between A ("as a sign that...to borrow") and B ("a sign of confidence...new debt") in the idiomatic construction "not A but B"; remember, “not A but B” is a correct idiomatic usage; A and B must be parallel and comparable.

D:   Correct.  This answer choice correctly uses the idiomatic construction "not A but B", maintaining parallelism between A ("as a sign that...to borrow") and B ("as a sign...new debt"). Further, Option D is free of any awkwardness or redundancy.

E:  This answer choice incorrectly uses the unidiomatic construction "not A but also B"; remember, “not A but B” is a correct idiomatic usage; A and B must be parallel and comparable. Further, Option E uses the needlessly wordy and passive phrase "that households were confident in their ability safely to", leading to awkwardness and redundancy.

Hence, D is the best answer choice.

All the best!
Experts' Global Team

GyanOne · Answer

D it is.

Parallelism: 'not as'......'but as'

crashVcrush · Answer

Ok the D Clears the parallelism issue but isn't the construction "households were confident they could safely" is a bit awkward without a "that " between confident and they??? ( "households were confident that they could safely....")

Hi ,

true, but we need to choose the best option of the given ones & thus D wins = parallelism wins

Hi ,

true, but we need to choose the best option of the given ones & thus D wins = parallelism wins

WaterFlowsUp · Answer

Regarding this solution Mike Mcgarry from magoosh has peovided an wasy solution. reffer https://gmat.magoosh.com/forum/3327-many ... ncrease-in

Mission2012 · Answer

Many experts regarded the increase in credit card borrowing in March not as a sign that households were pressed for cash and forced to borrow, rather a sign of confidence by households that they could safely handle new debt. 
A rather a sign of confidence by households that they could safely 
B yet as a sign of households' confidence that it was safe for them to 
C but a sign of confidence by households that they could safely 
D but as a sign that households were confident they could safely 
E but also as a sign that households were confident in their ability safely to

I could spot the correct answer to this question on the basis of correct usage of idiom "not as..but as". However, I could not understand the issues pointed out by OG in its explanation.

A> how placement of "by" between confidence and household and placement of restrictive clause "that they could safely" confuses the idea of the sentence

B> how "it was safe for them" modifies the meaning

C> usage of "by" is incorrect (Same as option A)

egmat · Answer

Hi there,

The official explanations refer to the fact that in options A, B and C, the meaning is not entirely clear. In A and C, "they could safely handle new debt" refers to households rather than to what households are confident about. "They could safely" should modify what the households are confident about, not the households themselves. Placing "confident" after "households" rectifies this problem, since the modifier is now closer to "confident" than to "households".

Option B does not even make it clear that the households were responsible for safely handling new debt. It could also mean that someone else had made it possible for the households to safely handle new debt.

I hope this helps with your doubt!

Regards,
Meghna

rashwiniyer · Answer

Without 'that' in D the answer looks awkward. Do we expect such question in GMAT where All answer are wrong but we have to chose the best one?

Posted from my mobile device

EducationAisle · Answer

Well, this  is  an actual GMAT question and so, that answers your question:).

Another correct official sentence where one would have preferred a  that  after  announced :

Trans world Entertainment Corporation, which owns the record Town and Saturday Matinee retail chains announced  it was closing up to one fourth of its stores because of poor sales  .

CrackverbalGMAT · Answer

As soon as I see the phrase ‘not as’ in the question, I am immediately looking for ‘but as’. This is because the correct idiomatic structure that keeps the structure parallel is  ‘not X… but Y…’ 
 
Let’s look at the options:

A.  rather a  sign of confidence by households that they could safely

B.  yet as  a sign of households' confidence that it was safe for them to

C.  but a  sign of confidence by households that they could safely

D.  but as a sign that households were confident they could safely

E.  but also as  a sign that households were confident in their ability safely to

Option D is the best option.

Hope this helps!

mba757 · Answer

Hi experts,

One quick question: within E, is there a meaning problem (aside from the illogical but also)?

??????household were confident in their ability?????? households don???t have the ability to do anything; thus, illogical

GMATNinja · Answer

Well, if we argue that a household cannot have the ability to  do  anything, could we also argue that a household cannot actually  handle  debt?

As discussed in  this post :

"...it's fairly common to take a little license with what performs an action. Stores sell goods. Books make arguments. Experiments investigate effects. Are these sentences literally true? Debatable. While Home Depot doesn't sell you a rake the same way a salesperson would, and books don't tap you on the shoulder and argue with you in a coffee shop, we know what the writer means in those examples, so we wouldn't categorize them as logical errors."

I think the word "ability" is  unnecessary , but I don't think it makes (E) illogical from a meaning standpoint.

I hope that helps a bit!

lfrc23 · Answer

is there a split of parallelism on "of confidence / that households were"?  EMPOWERgmatVerbal

KD1995 · Answer

Thank you for the detailed response. This problem appeared in the WILEY diagnostic test and the explanation for answer choice (C) was  The idiomatic choice of words to express the negation of one clause and the affirmation of another is not as . . . but as. . .. The affirmed clause is incorrectly introduced by but without the as.  Furthermore, the preposition by does not express the idea that households are confident .  I wanted to know if the last statement is correct, i.e. does 'sign of confidence by households' does NOT show that the households were confident?

DmitryFarber · Answer

lfrc23

The parts you're referencing come a bit further after the parallel markers, so they don't necessarily impact the parallelism. Since we have "NOT . . . BUT" providing our structure, we need to watch what immediately follows those words. Since "NOT AS a sign" is in the fixed portion of the sentence, we're committed to "BUT AS (noun). . . " in the underlined portion. Once we satisfy that, we have some flexibility in how we modify the nouns we are comparing. So sure, I could say "I see this not as a sign of trouble, but rather as an indication that people are doing the right thing."

GMATNinja · Answer

Sorry for the delay!

You're correct: "by" doesn't really work here. Here, have an example:

"There is confidence by Tim that he could return a tennis serve from Novak Djokovic."

Did Tim  create  the confidence (as in, "a book by Tim")? Is Tim  near  the confidence (as in, "Tim sat by the river.")?

So how about this instead?

"Tim was confident he could return a tennis serve from Novak Djokovic."

This captures the same intended meaning, but in a clearer and more straightforward way.

That's probably not a good enough reason to eliminate (C) --  it's best to be conservative when it comes to idioms . But it gives us one more vote against it. Luckily, the faulty "not/but" parallelism is a dead giveaway that (C) has to go.

I hope that helps!

Many experts regarded the increase in credit card borrowing in March

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GMAT Sentence Correction (SC - EA only) Questions

Many experts regarded the increase in credit card borrowing in March

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615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

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