Obtaining an investment-grade rating will keep the county's

Question

Obtaining an investment-grade rating will keep the county's future borrowing costs low, protect  its already-tattered image, and increase its ability to buy bond insurance.

(A) Obtaining an investment-grade rating will keep the county's future borrowing costs low, protect

(B) To obtain an investment-grade rating will keep the county's future borrowing costs low, and protect

(C) Having obtained an investment-grade rating will, in keeping the county's future borrowing costs low, protect

(D) To obtain an investment-grade rating would keep the county's future borrowing costs low, protecting

(E) Obtaining an investment-grade rating, keeping the county's borrowing costs low, would be protecting

pqhai · Accepted Answer

Parallelism:
will  keep  X's borrowing costs low,  protect  its ..., and  increase  its ......

Obtaining an investment-grade rating will keep the county's future borrowing costs low, protect  its already-tattered image, and increase its ability to buy bond insurance.

(A) Obtaining an investment-grade rating will  keep  the county's future borrowing costs low,  protect 
  Correct.

(B)  To obtain  an investment-grade rating will keep the county's future borrowing costs low,  and  protect
Wrong.

(C) Having obtained an investment-grade rating  will, in keeping  the county's future borrowing costs low, protect
Wrong. Awkward.

(D)  To obtain  an investment-grade rating would keep the county's future borrowing costs low,  protecting 
Wrong.

(E) Obtaining an investment-grade rating,  keeping  the county's borrowing costs low,  would be protecting  
Wrong.

Hope it's helps.

chalven1 · Answer

Answer: A ; The concept tested is parallelism.

humtum0 · Answer

Thanks all...

OA is A

spriya · Answer

Obtaining here is used as gerund.hence is a noun.Again use of Would is unnecessary since its a prediction and not uncertain clause.
D is out,
C is out since awkward construction
E is out since would be is not required here making the prediction continuous
B is out since and protect is not required , To obtain X will do Y is wrong ,obtaining X will do Y sounds better
A -> IMO answer
OA plsss

spriya · Answer

D) To obtain an investment-grade rating would keep the county's future borrowing costs low, protecting

This is also paralel .Can u explain a bit y you rejected this option?

scthakur · Answer

What kind of parallelism are you talking about? I can see the parallism in the original sentence "will keep....., protect..... and increase"?....not in option D.

WaterFlowsUp · Answer

Obtaining an investment-grade rating will keep the county's future borrowing costs low, protect  its already-tattered image, and increase its ability to buy bond insurance.

(A) Obtaining an investment-grade rating will keep the county's future borrowing costs low, protect

(B) To obtain an investment-grade rating will keep the county's future borrowing costs low, and protect

(C) Having obtained an investment-grade rating will, in keeping the county's future borrowing costs low, protect

(D) To obtain an investment-grade rating would keep the county's future borrowing costs low, protecting

(E) Obtaining an investment-grade rating, keeping the county's borrowing costs low, would be protecting

hsbinfy · Answer

honestly by POE crossed all choices leaving A

A is concise and parallel

kamranko · Answer

I go with A 
make more sense than the others 
plus B C D E are not parallel if you know the structure of parallelism

netor · Answer

Could someone explain me a concept in this question? I get the right answer by the elimination process, but I still don't understand one thing.
in this question the subject is  Obtaining an investment-grade rating , however I thought at first that  Obtaining an investment-grade rating  was a modifier that would 
modifier the following clause. I was expecting something such as" The obtaning of an investment-grade... or An obtaining investment grade-....

DmitryFarber · Answer

You're discovering the bewildering versatility of -ing words! They can serve many purposes in a sentence. One of them is certainly to make a present participle that serves as an adverbial modifier. However, in this case that would mean that the main sentence would have to describe what the country did while/after obtaining an investment grade rating. Since the country itself doesn't do a lot of things, that's not too likely. In any case, we'd need a comma followed by a subject. Instead, we get the verb "will," which is a clue that we are dealing with a noun (gerund) and not a modifier.

The gerund, which is basically the noun form of a verb, is another very common usage of the -ing ending. Basically, "I like to swim" turns into "Swimming is fun." Here, obtaining a rating is a thing (event) that leads to other consequences.

The gerund, which is basically the noun form of a verb, is another very common usage of the -ing ending. Basically, "I like to swim" turns into "Swimming is fun." Here, obtaining a rating is a thing (event) that leads to other consequences.

ankurcogni · Answer

Can you also please clarify, what "its" is referring to?? country's ??
is this correct?? Ideally it should refer to country!!

egmat · Answer

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

The possessive pronoun its correctly refers to the possessive noun country's . Simply replace its with country's , and you will see that sentence presents logical meaning. Now per the rules: 1. A possessive pronoun can refer to a possessive as well as non- possessive noun. 2. A non- possessive pronoun can refer ONLY to a non-possessive noun. Hence, there is no issue with the reference of it in the original sentence. Hope this helps.

Thanks. Shraddha

sevenplusplus · Answer

another question -- do you think the sentence should use "would" instead of "will"?

egmat · Answer

Hello sevenplusplus , Thank you for the query.

The would have a very specific usage on GMAT SC. 1. It is used to present assumptions, hypothetical situations, or uncertain events. 2. It is also used as conditional would in the then clause when the if clause is written in simple past tense. 3. Would is used to refer to a future event from the past time frame. None of the above situation is applicable in the context of the relevant official sentence. On the contrary, the sentence talks about sure effects that will take place once the country obtains an investment-grade rating . Hence, use of will is absolutely correct in this sentence. Hope this helps.

Thanks. Shraddha

Skywalker18 · Answer

Obtaining an investment-grade rating will keep the county's future borrowing costs low, protect  its already-tattered image, and increase its ability to buy bond insurance.

(A) Obtaining an investment-grade rating will keep the county's future borrowing costs low, protect - Correct

(B) To obtain an investment-grade rating will keep the county's future borrowing costs low, and protect -- and protect is incorrect -- and should only be used before the last item

(C) Having obtained an investment-grade rating will, in keeping the county's future borrowing costs low, protect -- having obtained is unclear ; in keeping leads to parallelism error

(D) To obtain an investment-grade rating would keep the county's future borrowing costs low, protecting - protecting distorts the meaning ; parallelism issue

(E) Obtaining an investment-grade rating, keeping the county's borrowing costs low, would be protecting - keeping low distorts meaning; parallelism issue

Answer A

dave13 · Answer

Hello egmat ,

what if sentence said:

To obtain an investment-grade rating will keep the county's future borrowing costs low, protect its already-tattered image, and increase its ability to buy bond insurance.

would it be correct ?

thank you

Rebekah · Answer

I wonder what is the difference between "to obtain" and "obtaining"?
As far as I know, they both perfectly serve as subjects!!
Also, to obtain implies the future tense and so perfectly agrees with the future tense"will"?
CAN SOMEONE HELP, PLEASE?

DmitryFarber · Answer

Neither of the choices with "to obtain" is usable, since they both violate parallelism later in the sentence. We need "keep, protect, and increase."

Obtaining an investment-grade rating will keep the county's

Prep Toolkit

Top 5 GMAT Debrief Videos

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

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards

GMAT Sentence Correction (SC - EA only) Questions

Obtaining an investment-grade rating will keep the county's

Prep Toolkit

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

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards