One viewpoint of how to strengthen the economy suggests that offering

Question

One viewpoint of how to strengthen the economy suggests that offering tax rebates leads to  higher consumer confidence, an increase in consumer spending , and a decrease in unemployment.

A higher consumer confidence, an increase in consumer spending,
 B a rise in consumer confidence, an increase in spending by consumers,
 C an increase in consumer confidence and the consumer spending
 D a rise in consumer confidence, an increase in consumer spending,
 E a rise in consumer confidence along with an increase in consumer spending,

confused between a and d

Ajax1 · Answer

It's a simple case of parallelism - there are 3 things that need to be made parallel and the third one of these is not underlined so this should be our benchmark - a decrease in unemployment. The 'higher' in A is not parallel to 'a decrease in'; we need a phrase that ends with a preposition which D gives us - a rise in. Basically 'a rise in', 'an increase in', and 'a decrease in'.

navderm · Answer

Can someone tell me what is the problem with option C?

Looks like it has parallelism between two entities that are increasing and then parallelism between increase and decrease.

AndrewN · Answer

Hello,  navderm . There is one fatal flaw in (C): the article  the  in front of  consumer spending , an article that has no parallel before  consumer confidence . That is,  consumer confidence  seems to refer to the feelings of a larger body of people, whereas  the consumer spending  singles out one consumer and his/her spending habits. To my eye, there also seems to be a non-negotiable comma after the underlined portion, and that would not be correct, but I am willing to chalk that one up to transcription error, since every other answer choice sees a comma at the end.

I hope that helps. Good luck with your studies.

- Andrew

Pankaj0901 · Answer

Why is Option A wrong? 
These 3 noun entities seem parallel: "higher consumer confidence", "an increase in consumer spending" and "a decrease in unemployment". 
Request to please explain how is "a rise in consumer confidence" better than "higher consumer confidence"? Is there any technicality that I am missing here..

AndrewN · Answer

Hello,  Pankaj0901 . Note that  higher  in the original sentence is comparative in nature, an adjective, whereas  an increase  and  a decrease  are nouns. If  higher  were correct, we would expect to see similar comparative adjectives in  increased  and  decreased  later on in the sentence. Compare the original sentence and (B):

You have to be careful not to take a key split in isolation and tell yourself that the more concise version is necessarily better. The rest of the sentence may provide clues as to which version is better in that particular context.

I hope that helps clarify the matter. Good luck with your studies.

- Andrew

Pankaj0901 · Answer

Wow, thanks a lot  AndrewN .

PS- Would you mind if I tag you in other questions as I keep getting such doubts? I often get stuck and I feel that I need an expert's support.

AndrewN · Answer

I would not mind at all. Tag away. I am here to assist the community and to make myself a better teacher in the process. (I seem to be on the shortlist of several other users, so I have established myself somewhat as a helpful individual.)

- Andrew

mSKR · Answer

Hi AndrewN sir Yes you are vey helpful to community

and one of my favourites

. For this particular question, Unfortunately I chose B over D. Consumer spending vs spending by consumer I thought spending is action by consumer so spending by consumer would be better than consumer spending that seems as consumer is a type(adjective) of spending Q1: How to overcome such errors ? Noun vs Noun by 2. Sometimes X by Y is also preferred. What could be those cases? Please suggest AndrewN

AndrewN · Answer

You should know by now,  mSKR , to check for parallelism in SC questions. How do you do that? You consider more than just the underlined portion in many cases, looking for contextual clues that may help you decide between, say,  consumer spending  and  spending by consumers . But notice here that both (B) and (D) start the underlined portion with  consumer confidence . Thus, you should have no reservations about opting for  consumer spending  as a parallel entity over  spending by consumers . Since they mean the same thing in the given context, the parallel answer is a tighter fit. Remember, you do not want to go by what sounds better to your ear. You want to ask yourself whether extra words are necessary to convey the vital meaning of the sentence. If the answer is no, and especially if those extra words do not parallel another part of the sentence when another answer choice does, you have no compelling reason to choose the longer option. Adjust your approach to the sentence at hand, but SC basics—clear and concise meaning and parallelism among them—should not leave your mind at any time.

I am glad to hear that my posts have been helpful to you. Such feedback keeps me posting away, so thank you.

- Andrew

Dinesh654 · Answer

Whats wrong with E?
Rise in A along with increase in B. Seems odd. 
Rise in increase in B??

What exactly is wrong with E?

ExpertsGlobal5 · Answer

Hello  dcoolguy ,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, Option E incorrectly uses the conjunction phrase "along with" to join the first and second elements of a list with more than two elements; if a list has more than two elements, the last element is joined to the others with the "comma + conjunction" construction, and the other elements are joined by commas.

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

MartyTargetTestPrep · Answer

There isn't anything clearly wrong with (E), and there isn't anything clearly wrong with (B) either.

This question isn't great.

AndrewN · Answer

We are in partial agreement,  MartyTargetTestPrep : I do not think the question is great. The difference between (B) and (D) is marginal, and I can find no analogue from the catalogue of official SC questions. That said, I agree with  ExpertsGlobal5  that (E) uses a pretty poor construction to define three elements in a list:  ... offering tax rebates leads to X along with Y, and Z . I suppose someone could argue that X and Y can be linked in a certain way to warrant such treatment—i.e.  ... leads to X1 along with X2, and Y —in which the comma would act as a stop between the forked X element and the second element of the list. However, I would certainly disfavor (E) as a list if I had another iteration of the sentence that clearly separated X, Y, and Z, and here, we have three such options in (A), (B), and (D).

You do not owe me or the community a rebuttal, but if you feel inclined to defend (E), I would like to hear your thoughts.

- Andrew

Dinesh654 · Answer

Thank you all for sharing your thoughts,
 AndrewN  I like your thoughts on E and how E is less preferred than other choices. 
However, I do agree with  MartyTargetTestPrep 
I have heard a lot from many experts, may be you’ll agree with me that comma is not a decision point. And even if it is—

first of all, in the question, the comma is not even underlined and still rest of choices are including it in the end. 
hence choices- A,B,D and E all are wrong, because there is no such concept called as double comma- “,,” . Only C is not including the comma, making me think- should I include the comma or not? leads to a confusion. Hence I think - the question is poorly constructed or it has a typing error.

Which is why I got confused with E as A along with B and C seemed ok and wrong at the same time.

P.S. I usually don’t do random questions but it came on Gmat club’s “daily practice questions”.

MartyTargetTestPrep · Answer

All I'm saying is that there isn't anything clearly wrong with (E).

The point of the sentence could be to focus on expressing that offering tax rebates leads to a rise in consumer confidence and to then use "along with" to mention an additional effect, "an increase in consumer spending," and finally tack on a last effect, "a decrease in unemployment."

Nothing wrong with that.

innochandan · Answer

Can someone please explain what is wrong with B?

Posted from my mobile device

AndrewN · Answer

Hello again, Marty. I wanted to thank you for circling back and providing the above response. I think it is important for community members to see both sides of an issue whenever Experts may find small differences to debate. In this case, we seem to be approaching the question from different angles: I have been writing from the perspective of a test-taker, as though I saw this (quite debatable) question on the screen in front of me during an exam and was forced to select an answer; at the risk of speaking on your behalf, I believe you are approaching the question from a correct/incorrect standpoint.

I do not think you and I have ever disagreed on anything fundamental pertaining to a Verbal question, and this case proves no different.

- Andrew

VerbalBot · Answer

Hello from the GMAT Club VerbalBot!

Thanks to another GMAT Club member, I have just discovered this valuable topic, yet it had no discussion for over a year. I am now bumping it up - doing my job. I think you may find it valuable (esp those replies with Kudos).

Want to see all other topics I dig out? Follow me (click follow button on profile). You will receive a summary of all topics I bump in your profile area as well as via email.

One viewpoint of how to strengthen the economy suggests that offering

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

One viewpoint of how to strengthen the economy suggests that offering

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