Most European countries offer a variety of programs for assisting work

Question

Most European countries offer a variety of programs  for assisting working parents, which include paid maternity and paternity leaves, financial allowances for families with children, and they subsidize  public nurseries and kindergartens.

(A) for assisting working parents, which include paid maternity and paternity leaves, financial allowances for families with children, and they subsidize

(B) for the assistance of working parents, to include paid maternity and paternity leaves, also financial allowances for families with children, and subsidizing

(C) in order to assist working parents, to include paid maternity and paternity leaves, financial allowances for families with children, and to subsidize

(D) to assist working parents, which includes paid maternity and paternity leaves, financial allowances for families with children, and they also subsidize

(E) to assist working parents, including paid maternity and paternity leaves, financial allowances for families with children, and subsidized

MRE2510 · Accepted Answer

I am not an expert, but I think I can explain this question well enough

Most European countries offer a variety of programs  for assisting working parents, which include paid maternity and paternity leaves, financial allowances for families with children, and they subsidize  public nurseries and kindergartens.

A: for assisting working parents,  which  include paid maternity and paternity leaves, financial allowances for families with children, and they subsidize ---  Which modifies the closest noun, in this case parents so it doesn't make any sense include... kindergartners to modify parents

B: for the assistance of working parents,  to include  paid maternity and paternity leaves, also financial allowances for families with children, and  subsidizing  ---  Not parallel

C: in order to assist working parents, to include paid maternity and paternity leaves, financial allowances for families with children, and to subsidize ----  changes the intended meaning by doing the following:

Most European countries offer a variety of programs in order 
  to assist working parents 
 to include paid maternity and paternity leaves, financial allowances for families with children 
 to subsidize public nurseries and kindergartens.

The meaning here is that countries offer programs to assist parents, to include paid maternity and to subsidize public nurseries, and here the intended meaning is how they assist the parents rather than which programs they offer, as well the last to sentences are in a lower level than to assist working partents

D: to assist working parents, which includes paid maternity and paternity leaves, financial allowances for families with children, and they also subsidize ----  Same as A

E: to assist working parents, including paid maternity and paternity leaves, financial allowances for families with children, and subsidized ---  Correct  has the intended meaning that countries offer a variety of programs to assist working parents, programs that include paid maternity, paternity leaves, etc.

I hope I could make myself clear enough.

Cheers!

Rocket7 · Answer

Hi guys

I will appreciate if anyone can provide an explanation for each answer choice. Especially Option C & E. Thanks

SonalSinha803 · Answer

Most European countries offer a variety of programs for assisting working parents, which include paid maternity and paternity leaves, financial allowances for families with children, and they subsidize public nurseries and kindergartens.

A: for assisting working parents, ((which)) include paid maternity and paternity leaves, financial allowances for families with children, and they subsidize 
- which modifies parents. Hence, incorrect meaning is conveyed. Thus, incorrect.

B: for the assistance of working parents, ((to include)) paid maternity and paternity leaves, also financial allowances for families with children, and subsidizing 
- the meaning gets distorted again. This means that a variety of programs are offered to include paid maternity and paternity leaves...... !! So, is that the intention of including a variety of programs ?? NO. Eliminate.

C: in order to assist working parents, ((to include)) paid maternity and paternity leaves, financial allowances for families with children, and to subsidize - same as B.

D: to assist working parents, ((which)) includes paid maternity and paternity leaves, financial allowances for families with children, and they also subsidize 
- Same as A.

E: ((to assist working parents)), including paid maternity and paternity leaves, financial allowances for families with children, and subsidized - bracketed portion is just a clause, defining the intention of the inclusion of a variety of programs. So, there can be slight modifiers in between. Nothing wrong. Including clearly modifies programs. Hence, E is correct.

IMO E.

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MSIMBA · Answer

A : WHICH AND THEY STRECH THE SENTENCE
B : TO INCLUDE WRONGLY USED
C : TO INCLUDE WRONGLY USED
D : THEY ALSO REFER TO NO BODY

E : CORRECT ANSWER COINCISE

rishabhmishra · Answer

please explain every single option.

chriszeng8 · Answer

Can someone please explain why "subsidized" is okay? The tense is different from the present tense as in "offer" at the start of the sentence. I just cannot get over this bit. Thanks.

Bhavyam · Answer

chriszeng8

Here subsidized is acting as an adjective for nurseries and kindergartens

Offer in the beginning is the verb of the sentence. After including is the list of the offerings. The list items must be parallel ('and' is the parallelism marker). The list items are nouns (paid (adjective) maternity leaves, financial allowances, subsidized (adjective) nurseries)

philipssonicare · Answer

Is 'for assisting' in option A wrong or simply unidiomatic?

NischalP · Answer

In C or few other options that use "to subsidize" in parallel

The programs cannot subsidize the nurseries, There is a logic meaning issue

It is the european countries that subsidize.

SO IMO E

matiasvale · Answer

GMATNinja  help!
Here I feel that the -ing modifier doesn’t make sense with the subject of the main clause (most european countries).
Why does it make sense?

DmitryFarberMPrep · Answer

matiasvale

Two issues here:

1) "Including" often doesn't work like other modifiers. It really just introduces a list of things that are included in the aforementioned part. When we see a noun (or noun phrase, such as "programs to assist working parents") followed by ", including," we can expect to see elements that are included in that noun.
2) If we did read "including" as a modifier for the main clause, then it would actually work fairly well. The European countries are offering programs, and in the process, they are including the elements that are listed.

nhatanh811 · Answer

Bunuel , this is a Gmatprep question, please tag. Thanks!

Bunuel · Answer

__________________________
Added the tag. Thank you!

dushyanta · Answer

Most European countries offer a variety of programs  for assisting working parents, which include paid maternity and paternity leaves, financial allowances for families with children, and they subsidize  public nurseries and kindergartens.

(A)  for assisting working parents, which   include paid maternity and paternity leaves, financial allowances for families with children, and  they  subsidize

programs for assisting working parents - Incorrect as per me. 
which modifier placement is incorrect
Includes - variety of programs
they refers to countries or programs?

(B) for the assistance of working parents, to include paid maternity and paternity leaves, also financial allowances for families with children, and subsidizing

programs for the assistance - not sure (may be an expert can call if this makes sense?)
variety of programs to include - incorrect
so many un-parallel items in the list

(C) in order to assist working parents,  to include  paid maternity and paternity leaves , financial allowances  for families with children,  and to subsidize  
again to include is incorrect
although it still wont make any sense, there is no parallelism in the list

(D) to assist working parents,  which  includes paid maternity and paternity leaves, financial allowances for families with children, and  they  also subsidize 
Similar as (A)

(E) to assist working parents,  including paid  maternity and paternity leaves, financial allowances for families with children, and subsidized 
Including ... is a modifier correctly modifying the variety of programs and the parallel list is maintained

750Barrier · Answer

A, B, and C you can omit directly. we need to assist ( matter of intention) Ok b/w E and D, E is perfect. 
D has 2 major problems. 1 S-V agreement includes is not in agreement with plural noun. scond lack of ||sm. 'they' breaks the ||sm

pkhetan1 · Answer

I would say it is wrong. Whenever we want to signify a purpose we use 'to + verb' form. In this case, Most European countries offer a variety of programs ' to assist'. The purpose of the programs is what needs to be signified.

pkhetan1 · Answer

I am not able to follow the structure of the option E. including is clearly an Verb-ing modifier modifying the previous action " to assist". how are the items in the list parallel?

paid maternity and paternity leaves, 
Financial allowances for families with children
subsidized public nursiries and kindergarten

DmitryFarberMPrep · Answer

pkhetan1

What's wrong with making those items parallel? They are all nouns (leaves, allowances, and nurseries/kindergartens), and while they might not all be the same kinds of nouns (financial abstractions vs. actual schools), they are all listed as examples of the programs offered to assist working parents.

RonTargetTestPrep · Answer

That's the word "including". You need to memorize that this word is exceptional:  comma + "INCLUDING" is ••NOT•• a comma + _ING modifier.

"including xxxxxxxxx stuff" is actually a prepositional phrase. It's not the right kind of _ING form to make a comma + _ING modifier, because it's  NOT  derived directly from the VERB "include". 
(That verb has a different meaning altogether, in which a  person —who is the  subject  of the verb—makes a conscious decision to "include" somebody or something in an activity/project/collection/etc. This preposition "including", by contrast, does NOT have a subject/agent, because it does not describe "inclusion" as a person's conscious choice.)

The information above is mostly just for completeness. When you evaluate an instance of comma + "including" in a real sentence, you definitely shouldn't think through any of the stuff above (other than "this is NOT a comma+_ING modifier!").

Just   verify the following requirements  :

The modifier "comma + INCLUDING xxxxxxxx" is correctly used if...

• the "xxxxxxxx" thing(s) or person(s)  belong to a certain group or category , and are presented as  EXAMPLES  of that group/category;

• "xxxxxxxxx" is  NOT a complete list  of everything/everybody in the whole group/category;

• the group/category is named by a  NOUN  (or noun+modifiers, if necessary) that is written  before the comma . 
This NOUN is what's modified by "including xxxxxxxx".

The second condition is essential. "Including" is very specifically meant to introduce EXAMPLES. It is INCORRECTLY used if it introduces an exhaustive listing of everything/everybody in the group. 
(If you're going to list everything, you should use "comprising", "consisting of", or some other equivalent word.)

Please confirm that the instance of comma + "including...." in choice E satisfies these conditions.

Most European countries offer a variety of programs for assisting work

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GMAT Sentence Correction (SC - EA only) Questions

Most European countries offer a variety of programs for assisting work

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