Outlining his strategy for nursing the troubled conglomerate back to

could you please help me to clarify about "that", here in E "that" cannot jump over Wednesday and modify "plans"???

Hi pleaman,

e-gmat team wishes you a very Happy New Year.
Not using a preposition such as "on" before the name of the days is a very American style of writing. You can read the online publications of The Wall Street journal or The New York Times to find this common usage.

Hope this helps.
Thanks.
Shraddha

Hi there,

Outlining his strategy for nursing the troubled conglomerate back to health, the chief executive's plans were announced on Wednesday for cutting the company's huge debt by selling nearly 512 billion in assets over the next 18 months.

We certainly have modifier issue in this sentence. The opening verb-ing modifier “outlining…” is in the non-underlined portion of the sentence. Now this modifier denotes some action. It denotes the action of someone outlining “his” strategy for something. Hence, it needs a doer. The context of the sentence clearly tells us that it was the chief executive who outlined his plans by announcing.

Let’s take a simple example here:

1. Riding a bicycle, Joe crossed the bridge.

The opening modifier “riding” denotes an action. It needs a doer for that action. Hence, this modifier associates with the subject of the following clause “Joe”. This makes perfect sense because Joe rode the bicycle and that’s how he crossed the bridge. Here the verb-ing modifier “riding” makes sense with the subject “Joe”. Also notice that here the opening modifier is modifying the entire following clause and not just the subject “Joe”.

2. Presenting detail of his project, Joe’s plans were announced to start the production within thirty days.

Now in this sentence, you might argue “Joe’s plan”, the subject, can very well be associated with “presenting” as plans can present details. OK. However, “presenting” needs doer and “Joe’s plan” cannot be a doer because someone else announced the plan. Also notice that the opening modifier is not only modifying the subject of the main clause. It is modifying the entire main clause. It is talking about the detail that was presented, that is the production date. Hence the above mentioned sentence is incorrect.

The official question suffers from the same flaw. The opening modifier needs a doer and “chief executive’s plans” cannot be that doer. Also the opening modifier should modify the entire main clause because the main clause talks about the strategy outlined by the executive.

Now let’s come to the example that you have cited:

So dogged were Frances Perkins’ investigations of the garment industry, and her lobbying for wage and hour reform was persistent, Alfred E. Smith and Franklin D. Roosevelt recruited Perkins to work within the government, rather than as a social worker.

Here the sentence structure is very different from the “chief executive’s plan” sentence. Here we have an opening dependent clause that is the cause followed by the main clause that is the effect. The correct answer follows the construction of “so X that Y”. This construction correctly and clearly presents the cause-effect relationship between the two clauses.

In the question at hand, this is not the scenario. Here we have an opening verb-ing modifier that needs a doer as well as it must modify the following clause as well. Hence, choice D is the correct answer.

PS: To know in detail about the function of the verb-ing modifier when it appears in the ebginning of the sentence, view more examples, and practise quiz, log on to e-gmat.com, register for free and go thorugh the concept "Modifiers - Verb-ing" listed in the preview level concepts that are free.

Hope this helps.
Thanks.
Shraddha

egmat Hi Shraddha. How is "plans Wednesday" in (D) correct? Don't we need a preposition between plans and Wednesday?

adityaganjoo, as other members and experts have pointed out already, announced plans Wednesday is just a stylistic way of writing that is quite common in American english. Best suggestion would be to just remember this.

Brian123 Thanks! It would be a great help if you could provide some examples of this kind of usage. This style of writing would looks like an easy elimination!

Off the top of my head, I can't think of a lot of phrases that break the conventional grammar "rules" except these 2 (I'm pretty sure the poetic realm of English has plenty of weird phrases/constructions)
1. I came, I saw, I conquered - This construction lacks the word and
2. ... government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth - same style as the above example

^I'm not sure if these 2 would ever show up on the GMAT and I'm not even sure if these would be accepted if they do show up (I think they would be accepted, but I'm no expert).

This is like saying, " Hey ! I forget to tie my shoe lace ,its very common. It's the right thing to do.

Also D coveys - X Plans wednesday to do Y.
When did a weekday start doing stuff? Yes ! Saturday Night gives me Party Vibes , but Wednesday ?

GMATNinja VeritasKarishma DmitryFarber

dear egmat,
I completely agree and understand why D is the correct answer choice and why E is wrong.

E. executive announced plans Wednesday that are to cut the company's huge debt by selling nearly $12billion in assets over the next 18 months

could you please help me to clarify about "that", here in E "that" cannot jump over Wednesday and modify "plans"??? As Wednesday cannot be placed anywhere in the sentence without distorting its meanign.

thank you in advance!

GMATNinja Can u please explain this one. A plan can outline one's strategy of action, so why is this opening modifier incorrect. Also the chief executive plans were announced on wed as per the meaning and this meaning is completely missing in D. Why is C not correct?

Gagan

we need a doer of action
action: Outlining his strategy
who/what can outline strategy?
outline: Describe roughly or briefly or give the main points or summary of
how can a plan give main points? we need some body to give /write summary
hence A,B and C are out of windows.

A is passive. D is active. that's another reason to choose D over E( it's not a strict rule but a prefered choice to consider ). In this case as A is already out so I would use my energy to choose D or E.

Finally D wins over E.

Hi there,

Outlining his strategy for nursing the troubled conglomerate back to health, the chief executive's plans were announced on Wednesday for cutting the company's huge debt by selling nearly 512 billion in assets over the next 18 months.

We certainly have modifier issue in this sentence. The opening verb-ing modifier “outlining…” is in the non-underlined portion of the sentence. Now this modifier denotes some action. It denotes the action of someone outlining “his” strategy for something. Hence, it needs a doer. The context of the sentence clearly tells us that it was the chief executive who outlined his plans by announcing.

Let’s take a simple example here:

1. Riding a bicycle, Joe crossed the bridge.

The opening modifier “riding” denotes an action. It needs a doer for that action. Hence, this modifier associates with the subject of the following clause “Joe”. This makes perfect sense because Joe rode the bicycle and that’s how he crossed the bridge. Here the verb-ing modifier “riding” makes sense with the subject “Joe”. Also notice that here the opening modifier is modifying the entire following clause and not just the subject “Joe”.

2. Presenting detail of his project, Joe’s plans were announced to start the production within thirty days.

Now in this sentence, you might argue “Joe’s plan”, the subject, can very well be associated with “presenting” as plans can present details. OK. However, “presenting” needs doer and “Joe’s plan” cannot be a doer because someone else announced the plan. Also notice that the opening modifier is not only modifying the subject of the main clause. It is modifying the entire main clause. It is talking about the detail that was presented, that is the production date. Hence the above mentioned sentence is incorrect.

The official question suffers from the same flaw. The opening modifier needs a doer and “chief executive’s plans” cannot be that doer. Also the opening modifier should modify the entire main clause because the main clause talks about the strategy outlined by the executive.

Now let’s come to the example that you have cited:

So dogged were Frances Perkins’ investigations of the garment industry, and her lobbying for wage and hour reform was persistent, Alfred E. Smith and Franklin D. Roosevelt recruited Perkins to work within the government, rather than as a social worker.

Here the sentence structure is very different from the “chief executive’s plan” sentence. Here we have an opening dependent clause that is the cause followed by the main clause that is the effect. The correct answer follows the construction of “so X that Y”. This construction correctly and clearly presents the cause-effect relationship between the two clauses.

In the question at hand, this is not the scenario. Here we have an opening verb-ing modifier that needs a doer as well as it must modify the following clause as well. Hence, choice D is the correct answer.

PS: To know in detail about the function of the verb-ing modifier when it appears in the ebginning of the sentence, view more examples, and practise quiz, log on to e-gmat.com, register for free and go thorugh the concept "Modifiers - Verb-ing" listed in the preview level concepts that are free.

Hope this helps.
Thanks.
Shraddha

Hi Experts,
VeritasKarishma GMATNinja

(E) executive announced plans Wednesday that are to cut the company's huge debt by selling nearly $12 billion in assets over the next 18 months
Why "are to cut" is incorrect in E? Can you please help to understand the meaning difference in D and E.
I think "That are to cut" presents more details about the plans.
We generally use sentence like - "The plan is to do X" or The plan is to do long-term projects, uncovering misdeeds in government, business and organizations.
So why "the plans are to cut the debt" is incorrect?

Thanks!

Outlining his strategy for nursing the troubled conglomerate back to health, the chief executive's plans were announced on Wednesday for cutting the company's huge debt by selling nearly $12 billion in assets over the next 18 months.

(A) executive's plans were announced on Wednesday for cutting the company's huge debt by selling nearly $12billion in assets over the next 18 months

(B) executive's plans, which are to cut the company's huge debt by selling nearly $12 billion in assets over the next 18 months were announced on Wednesday

(C) executive's plans for cutting the company's huge debt by selling nearly $12 billion in assets over the next 18 months were announced on Wednesday

(D) executive announced plans Wednesday to cut the company's huge debt by selling nearly $12 billion in assets over the next 18 months

(E) executive announced plans Wednesday that are to cut the company's huge debt by selling nearly $12 billion in assets over the next 18 months

Hi Experts,
VeritasKarishma GMATNinja

(E) executive announced plans Wednesday that are to cut the company's huge debt by selling nearly $12 billion in assets over the next 18 months
Why "are to cut" is incorrect in E? Can you please help to understand the meaning difference in D and E.
I think "That are to cut" presents more details about the plans.
We generally use sentence like - "The plan is to do X" or The plan is to do long-term projects, uncovering misdeeds in government, business and organizations.
So why "the plans are to cut the debt" is incorrect?

Thanks!