Most of Portugal's 250,000 university students boycotted classes in a

Oh yes @tinbq; GMAT takes this who issue very seriously .

Basically B is (what's called) passive voice: it's essentially saying:

$7 was previously paid for higher education.

As happens very frequently with passive voice constructs, the above construct is not depicting who previously paid $7 for higher education.

The intent of the original sentence is to depict that students previously paid $7 for higher education.

A better construct (though not perfect) for option B would be:

B1. year toward the cost of higher education, for which they previously paid $7 per year

Notice that B1 now clearly mentions that they (students) previously paid $7 for higher education.

Hello rachelphwu,

We hope this finds you well.

Our advice would be to take the meaning of Option A as a baseline unless this meaning is completely illogical or incoherent.

Further, if Option A and all answer choices that preserve its meaning are grammatically incorrect, then pick whichever answer choice is grammatically correct, even if its meaning does not line up with Option A's.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
Experts' Global Team

'instead of' is a preposition and needs a noun/noun phrase after it. In option (D), it is followed by a noun phrase 'the $7 per year.'
(A noun phrase is a noun + articles/modifiers)

Yes, the meaning conveyed by the (A) version is nonsensical.

Here's the end of that version:

requires them to contribute $330 a year toward the cost of higher education, previously paying $7 per year.

It suggests that, in the process of contributing $330, they are "previously paying $7." Since they would not be paying $7 in contributing $330, that meaning is illogical.

Just to confirm that there is no way for the sentence to work, let's see whether "previously paying $7 per year" could instead modify the main clause of the sentence.

Most of Portugal's 250,000 university students boycotted classes ..., previously paying $7 per year.

Now the sentence conveys that, in the process of boycotting classes, the students were somehow "previously paying $7 per year," as if, by boycotting classes, they paid $7 previously. How would they do something previously by boycotting classes in the present? Do they have a time machine? Also, they would not pay $7 by boycotting.

The (A) version of the sentence is nonsensical no matter how we read it.

Though the right answer is D but sentence could have been lot better if "last year" would have used instead of previously.

I could easily eliminate A, B, and E..and between C and D, I picked C.
7$ -> seven is an adjective - previously modifies the adjective, no? i understand that it is not explicitly written in this form..but in D "instead of" made me think twice whether it is correct...

but isn't the red car a complex noun? formed by an adjective + noun?
so is in this question - 7 is adjective, dollars is noun, previously 7 - makes sense, no?

Yes, correct. So think about this:
Will you say "The beautiful red car is ... " or "The beautifully red car is ..."

The point is that the entire "$7" acts as a noun and you need an adjective to modify it, not an adverb.

Hi Expert,

X instead of Y-- X and Y both should be structurally parallel.

In choice D, how X and Y are structurally parallel. Please help !

Contribute X instead of Y.

X = $300 a year
Y = the $7 per year

Two yearly values are compared. X is modified by "toward the cost of higher education" (prepositional phrase), and Y is modified by "required previously" (past participle), but this is not a problem - the modifiers are not compared.

However the comma before "instead" should not have been there.

The adverb "previously" is wrong. An adverb must refer to a verb or an adjective. However, "$7 per year" is a noun phrase requiring an adjective. Thus "previous" instead of "previously" should have been used. Hence option C is wrong.

shouldn't it be "towards" in all the options?

Hello rekhabishop,

I will be glad to help you out with this one.

There is no difference in the usage of toward and towards. Both the words are used in the same context.

It is just that in American English, the word toward is used while in British English, the word towards is used.


Hope this helps.
Thanks.
Shraddha

Hi daagh,
Pls pardon my ignorance & since nobody has raised this point it feels awkward to be the only one. I eliminated D & E because both use "the"7$. Is it ok to use the before a particular noun?

Hello ManishKM1,

I will be glad to help you out with this one.

Any article - a, an, or the - is used before a noun entity. In Choice D and E, $7 (7 dollar) per year is a noun entity. Hence, usage of article the before this noun entity is correct.

Hope this helps.
Thanks.
Shraddha

Hi GMATNinja

Could you provide the explanation for this question?

Thank you.

I have a problem in choice D
"instead of" is a preposition, not a conjunction, which connect 2 similar thing.this means "instead of" can not connect 2 similar things

inhere, "instead of" connect 330 usd and 7 usd, the 2 similar things. so, choice D is wrong

pls, help explain. thank you