It's strange for this sentence to work without the preposition 'on'. In British English this sentence would never make sense, but I guess it's an American exam though so I will need to adapt

I have a doubt here. Couldn't some other person announce the executive's plans?
Then in that case, C looks good to me.

If the problem is about using Wednesday barely without the preposition on, then I would say tht it is an accepted version all over American journalism and composition to use timelines without the proposition on. This choice also proves GMAT has taken it. Otherwise, D is the correct choice for reasons given by gmatdog

A, B, C can be elimniated as 'his' can only refer to the chief executive and not to his plans.
Between D and E, 'plans to cut' is much better than 'plans that are to cut'.
D is the correct answer.

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