One study found that although government policy and the industrial sec

Step 1. The text seeks to state that management decisions have at least as great an impact as other factors. This vital element of comparison should not be missed in the choices. None of the choices, B, C, D, and E carries this original intent earnestly. B, C, and D are simple declarative statements of great impact and not comparisons. E on the other hand goes off board to say that the decisions have a greater impact. These are wrong presentations.

A, the verbatim choice from the text is the correct answer.
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Hi mun23,

The word "although" marks a contrast; so, in this sentence we have to make sure that the contrasting elements should be parallel logically and grammatically.

To understand the structure of the sentence lets first cut short the sentence and recognize the elements that are being used to represent a contrast.

One study found that although government policy and the industrial sectorin which a company operates can influence its productivityand financial strength, management decisions have at least as great an impacton a company’s performance.

i.e Although government policy and the industrial sector can influence ,management decisions have at least as great an impact

The elements that are being contrasted are "government policy and industrial sector" and "management decisions"

Both these structures are grammatically and logically parallel. Moreover "great impact on" is much better idiomatically than "impact greatly on"

(A)management decisions have at least as great an impact

Correct because of the reasons mentioned above.

(B)decisions by management have a great impact

The usage of "decisions by management" is not incorrect, but less preferred than the parallel construction "management decisions". "have a great impact on" changes the meaning of the original sentence. Original sentence means that "management decisions" have "at least as great" means the impact is equal to or greater than, whereas (B) says just "a great impact", no comparison here.

(C)manager decisions impact greatly

awkwardly uses "manager" to modify "decisions";"great impact on" is much better idiomatically than "impact greatly on"

(D)decisions by a company’s management impact greatly

Like (B), (D) uses a less parallel structure "decisions by a company’s management" than parallel "management decisions".
"impact greatly on" less preferred as in (C) above.

(E)what a company’s management decides has a greater impact

"greater impact" changes the comparison used in the original sentence, "at least as great"

Hope this helps,

Vercules
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Gomennassai makes an excellent point about the intended meaning of this sentence. Whenever possible, though, I prefer to make eliminations based on grammar rules. Note the "split" at the end of each choice,

(A) impact
(B) impact
(C) greatly
(D) greatly
(E) impact

This might not appear to be a grammar-based split, until you observe what comes immediately after each underlined portion: the prepositional phrase "on a company's performance." This is a modifying phrase describing the noun "impact" and the rule here is that noun modifiers must be adjacent to the noun they are meant to modify. (C) and (D) are both out at this point – not only do the test writers separate "impact" from its modifying phrase, they actually use "impact" as a verb rather than a noun in these choices!

We don't think much about the prepositional phrases we use in everyday speech, but for GMAT SC you'll need to train yourself to always spot these.

Meaning is the best way to proceed at this point in the problem, but I wanted to point out the grammatical issue with (C) and (D) because a grammar-first focus on SC comes with a high payoff!

Hope that helps!

Mark
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E.

A. management decisions have at least as great an impact
B. decisions by management have a great impact
C. manager decisions impact greatly
D. decisions by a company’s management impact greatly
E. what a company’s management decides has a greater impact

we need to have a comparison here! in the original sentence there is a word "although", which is a signal to look for comparative adjective here. "greater" can be found only in choice E.

PLUS the correct idiom here is "to have an impact ON"
we can easily eliminate answer choices C and D.

WE can use meaning to eliminate answer choices here. The intended meaning is that "management decisions have at least the same impact as the Govt. policy/industrial sector or a greater impact". Basically impact from management decisions >= impact from Govt. policy


none of B,C or D indicate this, they all say decisions by management have a great impact, but non qualify it as atleast as great as the Govt policy.
E indicates management decisions > impact from Govt. policy [notice strictly greater than]

So E is also out. Pick A.

Hello, Aum. I do not find this question worthy of serious attention. I agree that impact as a verb cannot work in this particular sentence, so answer choices (C) and (D) should be eliminated. (Note that I am not saying that impact cannot be a verb, even though some people hold the view that the word can only be a noun. However, as a verb, to impact on is incorrect.) I respect daagh, but I disagree on this notion that the original sentence conveys the intended meaning. Anything underlined can be negotiated. It is perfectly reasonable for a study to have found that, as option (B) would say, decisions by management have a great impact on a company's performance. Furthermore, I am not overly fond of management decisions in the original sentence, which morphs the noun management into an adjective and sounds juvenile. I would expect managerial instead.

Between (A) and (B), I see two correct answers. And no, this is not an issue you would see on the actual exam. Understand, I hold the Manhattan Prep instructors in high esteem, and I have enjoyed crossing paths with them from time to time in the forum. At the same time, a question that is not designed well, or is designed in a way that does not accurately reflect the way an official question would appear, is problematic.

Thank you for thinking to ask.

- Andrew
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The word although causes us to expect a contrast. B, C, and D do not provide the expected contrast. In fact, they don't draw any connection between the second clause and the first. It is also worth noting that C and D result in the phrase impact greatly on. As a verb, impact is not generally followed by on. As a noun, impact is often followed by on. Answer choices A, B, and E use impact as a noun and result in the appropriate usage (because on will be the very next word no matter what). However, B was already eliminated, so only A and E remain as viable options. Option choice E contains what a company's management decides, which is a wordier way of saying management decisions. Therefore, A is the best option.

It is not a rule that a comparison using as must use a second as, especially when although introduces a contrast. For example,
Although Jake set the school record in the 100-meter dash, I run twice as fast.
Adding as he or as he is to the end of the sentence would be redundant.
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Celestial09, I see three problems with C:

1) The verb phrase "impact on" is incorrect. We either impact something, or we have an impact on it. In the latter case, "impact" is actually a noun.

2) The phrase "manager decisions" does not work. Almost any noun can be made to serve as an adjective, but we don't typically do this with a word that has better forms to use: managerial, management, etc. For instance, look at the difference between the phrases "plastic chair" and "wooden chair." We have to say "plastic," because there isn't a separate adjectival form. Since we have "wooden," we use it. Similarly, we don't say things like "president library" or "spouse support" because we have the words "presidential" and "spousal."

3) C loses a part of the meaning in A: that management decisions have at least as great an impact as policy and sector do. In other words, A is making a comparison, while B-D are just saying that the impact is great. This is tricky, and I think it actually represents a flaw in the problem. If the intended meaning is the one in A, the other answer choices shouldn't all do something else unless those interpretations simply cannot be correct. When there is a difference in meaning on a real GMAT SC question, we'll usually see that the wrong versions can't be correct, or we'll see enough cues across the answer choices to tell us that one version is correct. Here, the meaning in A seems to tell us something more specific than we are told in the other answer choices (except E, which goes all the way to a greater impact), but we shouldn't have to rely on the misguided idea that A is the "original" to resolve the issue. Fortunately, all of the other choices are flawed in other ways, so we're safe, but I don't think the GMAT would do this.
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OFFICIAL EXPLANATION

The word “although” at the beginning of the sentence signals that the underlined portion must draw a comparison between the impact of management decisions and the impact of government policy and industrial sector on a company’s performance. The original sentence correctly draws this comparison with the phrase “at least as great an impact.” Also, "government policy," "industrial sector," and "management decisions" are all correctly parallel (which is required because they are part of the same comparison).

(A) CORRECT. This choice is correct as it repeats the original sentence.

(B) This choice tells us only about the impact of management decisions ("have a great impact") rather than drawing a comparison between the impact of management decisions and the impact of government policy and the industrial sector of a company. Also, “decisions by management” is wordy and nonparallel to “government policy.”

(C) This choice tells us only about the impact of management decisions ("have a great impact") rather than drawing a comparison between the impact of management decisions and the impact of government policy and the industrial sector of a company. Additionally, “manager decisions” is awkward relative to the more commonly used term “management decisions.” Finally, decisions do not "impact on" performance; they impact performance.

(D) This choice tells us only about the impact of management decisions ("have a great impact") rather than drawing a comparison between the impact of management decisions and the impact of government policy and the industrial sector of a company. “Decisions by a company’s management” is wordy and redundant, as “a company” is repeated in the non-underlined portion of the sentence.

(E) This choice does draw a comparison between the impact of management decisions and the impact of government policy and industry sector on company performance; it does not do so in parallel form, however. The comparison also changes the original meaning of the sentence. In addition, the phrase “what a company’s management decides” is wordy and redundant, as "a company" is repeated in the non-underlined portion of the sentence.
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Consider the following sentence: Although the juice contains lemon, it also lists cherry, kiwi, and strawberry in its ingredients. Now, can we assess whether there is more or less lemon in the juice than any other fruit? No. This although can be interpreted as even though. The contrast is between exclusivity and non-exclusivity: lemon is not the only fruit in the juice.

If this example still does not open up this sentence for you, I suggest you let the dust settle. Sometimes when you come back to the same problem in a week or so, it can look much different.

- Andrew
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AndrewN KarishmaB

Correct idiom is as...... as » in this question, it would be - as great as....the second as is missing in A but it is the correct answer, can you please explain how the sentence is not unidiomatic?

Hi,
experts egmat souvik101990 veritas magoosh
plz help in distinguishing between A and C.
whats the difference between management decisions and managers decision . Why not C could be a correct answer?
Thanks

Hi Dmitry,
Great answer.
Could you please provide an explanation on E as well? OE is not very clear. it says something about parallelism, but E definitely seems parallel to me. the only thing that seems wrong with E is the wording.
On the other hand, the word "although" suggests that there must be some contradiction. Although the environment influences companies, X has a greater impact. seems perfectly logical to me, at least better than: Although the environment influences companies, X has at least as great an impact.
"changes the intended meaning" also seems something from outside GMAT world, as many experts have underlined many times.

Hello Foreheadson,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, aside from the change in meaning, which is the main flaw of Option E, Option E is clearly inferior to Option A because its needlessly indirect construction - "what a company’s management decides" - renders it awkward and redundant.

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

A lot of answers in this question are saying Option (E) does not follow intended meaning. As far as I know nothing like intending meaning exists because a SC question will only have 1 right answer.

So when Option (A) and (E) are compared is there any better reason for elimination other than Option (E) does not follow intending meaning.

I know this isn't an official question so maybe this a dilemma wouldn't occur in the real exam?

Thanks.

-Aum

Hello aumd568,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, Option E is also clearly inferior to Option A due to its use of the awkward and needlessly wordy phrase "what a company’s management decides" in place of the more concise phrase "management decisions", which is used in Option A.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
Experts' Global Team
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Thanks for the reply AndrewN.

What about Option(E). I picked Option (E) since "although" kind of showed some contrast or comparison to me and Option (A) just did not have that level of contrast. That is also the reason I immediately eliminated Option (B), (C) & (D). Was it wrong of me to assume the contrast that "although" adds?

Thanks.

-Aum

Although need not present diametrically opposed elements, so I would not eliminate anything based on its presence earlier in the sentence. The shell of the sentence is as follows: One study found that although A and B can influence C, D has/have [some] impact on performance. That could work in any of a number of ways, with D exerting any level of influence on C as well (less, as much, or greater).

- Andrew
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Thanks for the reply AndrewN.

I really don't want to drag this longer than it should be but I still don't somehow see how "although" does not add contrast.

I tried reading your example and also looking up various examples of "although" and all of them have some sort of contrast.

If we were to remove "although" from the original sentence it does not do much for meaning.

What else would the role of "although" be here?

Although I really wish to understand this, I just can't seem to get it!

-Aum