In 1929 relatively small declines in the market ruined many speculator

My guess: C is correct. It uses the correct tense and the semicolon is followed by an actual sentence

This is related to tense structure.



Keeping this in mind we move on to choices.

A) speculators having bought on margin; they had to sell, and
"Having bought on margin" is not good and also is incomplete. Ignore

B) speculators who had bought on margin; having had to sell
The part before semicolon is fine. Who correctly refers to speculators and had bought is as per the tense . But the part part after semicolon is blatant.
It sounds awkward.

C) speculators who had bought on margin; they had to sell, and
The first part is correct as explained in option B. After semicolon is also a nice structure and is as per the tense structure as well. It also concisely represents the timing of the events . Hold on.

D) speculators, those who had bought on margin; these speculators had to sell
Those who is not needed . Option C is better choice. Ignore.


E) speculators, who, having bought on margin and having to sell
This is completely out of tense structure. Incorrect

IMO C.

generis GMATNinja VeritasKarishma aragonn egmat

Can you help me in choosing between A and C?


Intended meaning: This sentence presents a few facts.
It says: In 1929 relatively small declines in the market ruined many speculators who had bought on margin.
Spectators had to sell, and their act of selling pushed other investors to the brink.
A semicolon separates two independent clauses.

I see nothing much wrong here. Having + verb usually denotes earlier of two events in a sequence.
E.g. Having studied for the day, Roy went to play tennis to get refreshed.
Earlier action: Studying
Later action: Playing
I see no parallelism issue with subject: they
having is a modifier which modifies speculators.

Where is the subject in the independent clause after semi-colon?

See no issue here, had bought correctly denotes past perfect tense.
ie earlier of two events.
The sequence of events on the timeline:

• Spectaculators bought on timeline
• They sold
• Their action of selling created panic among other investors.

who is a relative pronoun modifier modifying speculators.


coma+ those is awkward. Why do we need noun: the speculators when we can use pronoun they?

Where is the subject in the independent clause after semi-colon? Who must refer back to some noun/ subject in
second independent clause.

I ignored based on modifier issue. Having bought on margin in option A is not correctly referring to speculators.

Via meaning it seems the option A says that speculators were bought on margin.Read below again:-

In 1929 relatively small declines in the market ruined many speculators having bought on margin.

This is not logical. This is why I ignored A. However in C who correctly refers to speculators.

Hope I am not wrong in my reasoning above.

A) speculators having bought on margin; they had to sell, and
Having is not used correctly..so OUT

B) speculators who had bought on margin; having had to sell,
Having is not used correctly..so OUT


C) speculators who had bought on margin; they had to sell, and
Correct. Had usage describes the timeline correctly. Clauses are correctly separated by semi colon

D) speculators, those who had bought on margin; these speculators had to sell, and
No need to mention these speculators again.Wordy as compared to C

E) speculators, who, having bought on margin and having to sell,
Wrong usage of having

Having is used to show two timelines in the past; both are happening in different time frame

In 1929 relatively small declines in the market ruined many speculators having bought on margin; they had to sell, and their selling pushed other investors to the brink.

A) speculators having bought on margin; they had to sell, and
B) speculators who had bought on margin; having had to sell,
C) speculators who had bought on margin; they had to sell, and
D) speculators, those who had bought on margin; these speculators had to sell, and
E) speculators, who, having bought on margin and having to sell,

My analysis:

looking at the options, I got to know that
a. after a semi-colon, we have an independent clause
b. "having" is usually wrong on the exam (please correct me on this)

Reject A,B,E - because of "Having"
Between C and D, the use of relative pronoun "who" is much better.

so C.

u1983 if " their "shouldn't be underlined then "many" shouldn't be either

dave13 - you are correct. I just checked the source.
I am not going to win any awards for formatting today
Edited, thanks.

I just thought that I could remember questions in which the OA said that if only "Josephine Baker's life" is mentioned, the antecedent is Josephine Baker's life and not Josephine Baker herself. I guess I mixed it up. Thanks!

In 1929 relatively small declines in the market ruined many speculators having bought on margin; they had to sell, and their selling pushed other investors to the brink.

Even before delving further,
I am removing E for its brazen fragmentation
I am removing B, because, the modification in the second part is awry
I am eliminating D for the redundancy of 'speculators those.' We will discuss A and C

A) speculators having bought on margin; they had to sell, and --- ' having bought on margin' -- This phrase indicates a cause and effect. The choice implies a cause and effect that "because they had bought on margin they had to sell. The reasons were the declines, small or significant, that drove them to sell and not the margin buying.
When you trade on margins, because of the leverage, the losses are likely to be colossal and as such the exchanges will square up those deals without notice, bringing in a cascading effect and leading to eventual collapse.
Therefore having bought is not an appropriate expression. This is a subtle technicality and can be best understood by those who indulge in margin trading in
the stock market
But there is no doubt that having bought refers to the speculators who bought and not speculators who were bought! If we want to say that the speculators had been bought, we must say, "speculators having been bought"

C) speculators who had bought on margin; they had to sell, and; Green signal has already been given by rejecting all the other four to declare this as the correct one with legitimate modification and pronoun reference.

Time - Volume 114, Part 2 - Page 130

In 1929 relatively small drops in the market ruined many plungers who had bought on margin. They had to sell, and their selling pushed other investors to the brink. The bull market had been built on flimsy credit, and when it started to topple, it did not fall slowly, but all at once.

(A) speculators having bought on margin; they had to sell, and
Wrong: Having brought is an incorrect structure

(B) speculators who had bought on margin; having had to sell,
Wrong: after a semicolon, it is necessary to have IC

(C) speculators who had bought on margin; they had to sell, and
Correct: speculators modified with the relative pronoun 'who', and after a semicolon we have IC

(D) speculators, those who had bought on margin; these speculators had to sell, and
WRONG: modifier error and 'had to sell'

(E) speculators, who, having bought on margin and having to sell,
WRONG: again having bought error

My OA is C
who had bought is better than having bought so A rejected
Secondly in D those and thses are just making the sentence messier
Thirdly in who had is better than who having so E rejected
Now left with B and C
In B having had to sell
Who had to sell is not clearly mentioned.
So C is the answer
Please correct me if I am wrong

Please, for this post, no kudos.
This is the first OE ("official explanation") post in the series. It contains
• GMAC's official explanation
• further explanation, and
• my chance to be appreciative.

Thank you to all who posted!

• Some posters here have been on the forum for awhile; I mention their tenure because people in this group
have enriched the forum, enlivened debate, and contributed in more ways than I can describe.

That group includes: dave13 , u1983 , warrior1991 , adkikani , hazelnut , Cbirole , daagh , push12345 , saurabh9gupta , KS15, and teaserbae

• Other posters are relatively or very new. I mention their tenure as a segue to say: Welcome to GMAT Club!
That group includes vsowmiya , julie123 and Manfo.

• And if this wonderfully diverse group has not yet convinced a few lurkers, l hereby do so directly:
Please post. It's okay if you get the answer wrong or not quite right or make a mess of the formatting (per the latter, I already won that prize on this question.)

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION
A few answers note a problem with "having bought on margin."

• Recognizing that having bought on margin is a problem, even if you do not know exactly why, is a very good start
• Explaining why having bought on margin is a problem is, of course, is ideal

The takeaway in this case is a fairly simple guideline about past tenses.
If more than one event happened in the past; and sequence is not clear from dates or words such as "before" and "after";
and the event or its effect does not affect the present, then

-- the first event is constructed using HAD + PAST PARTICIPLE
This "had + past participle" construction is often described as the "past of the past."
-- the final event uses (or the final events use) simple past tense construction.

The ever-resourceful hazelnut provided us with original material from which GMAC crafted the question:
In 1929 relatively small drops in the market ruined many plungers who had bought on margin. They had to sell, and their selling pushed other investors to the brink.

The Times sentence above uses
[HAD + PAST PARTICIPLE],
[SIMPLE PAST],
and [SIMPLE PAST]

-- HAD + PAST PARTICIPLE will indicate a sequence IF both events happened in the past and at least one of them is rendered, as here, in the simple past.

-- HAVING + PAST PARTICIPLE does not mean the same thing as HAD + PAST PARTICIPLE.
Almost always, to talk about a series of events that all occurred in the past
and that have no relevance now, use HAD + past participle, not HAVING + past participle.

Option A is confusing. As daagh points out , the causal order is specialized knowledge.

The verb tenses, however, do not require special knowledge.

One event ======> 2 events|| ended
Then use
HAD/HAVE + past participle=>SIMPLE past|| ended

This test is multiple choice. Compared to (C), option (A) does not use a clear "past of the past."



That explanation does not say much.

As a few have pointed out, the word we are looking for is redundant

The OE states that (D) is "needlessly wordy" and "repetitious."

The first phrase itself borders on redundancy. I haven't seen too many needfully wordy sentences lately.

And WHY is (D) "needlessly wordy"? Answer: because (D) uses nouns and pronouns "repetitiously." The OE's explanation is itself redundant.

D) speculators, those who had bought on margin; these speculators had to sell, and

The option does indeed produce an awkward sentence, but
unless you are down to exactly two choices and you cannot see any other errors,
do not use what you think is "awkward" to eliminate answers.
That guideline applies to native and non-native speakers alike.

If you can start to describe "awkward," the situation improves.
"This option is awkward because it sets the noun speculators with its pronoun those right next to one another.
Compared to option __________ , the construction in (D) is indeed awkward."


We were not clear. We want answers with explanations. The latter need not be long.
For example, if you have marked a portion of the sentence as inaccurate, explain why it is inaccurate.

Best replies get 2 kudos today (We will need 4-5 hours to award the second kudos)
Excellent replies get 1 kudo today


Best non-expert reply: vsowmiya
Best reply generally daagh

Honorable mentions: adkikani , warrior1991 , and push12345

Nice work, all!

saurabh9gupta , I would not rely on the proposition that "having" is "usually wrong" on the GMAT
unless I were guessing or rushed or both.

True, GMAC includes "having ___ " in one or two incorrect answer choices on a fairly frequent basis.
I did a quick analysis of the first 20 and last 20 questions in OG Verbal Review 2018.

In the first 20, "having ____" was incorrect in these questions/options:
195 B; 196 B; 201 D and E; 205 A; and 207 D

In the last 20, "having ______" was incorrect in these questions/options:
283 D and 290 B

Not one of 40 questions contained the correct use of "having _____."

So if you can't find another reason to eliminate an answer,
the odds are indeed usually in your favor.

I am not a fan of playing the odds when I can't see the expressions
of the human beings who are dictating the odds.

THIS question, from GMAT Prep,
for example, correctly uses having ______.

Having + past participle
or
Having + been + past participle

Both of those having _____ are called "perfect participles."
You do not need to know the terminology, although in this case, I think jargon might help.

Perfect participles are not verbs.
Perfect participles almost always act as an adjective.

One way to check "having + past participle," (having + verbED) then, is to see whether it modifies a subject or noun. Is the phrase an adjective? If so, there is a good chance that the phrase is correct.

Having peered skyward just in time, he witnessed a shooting star and made a wish.
-- "having peered skyward" modifies the man who saw a shooting star.
The phrase is an adjective. It is placed next to the subject/noun.
-- Nor could we make a sentence. (The phrase is not a verb.)
We could not say "He having peered skyward just in time and made a wish."

By contrast, we could say, He had peered skyward just in time to see a shooting star, and made a wish.

So I would just be careful about eliminating options only because they contain "having ____."

A similar guideline about the word "being" was in effect a few years ago,
and after this "guideline" circulated for awhile, GMAC released OG questions whose correct answer included "being."

I hope that helps.

Two questions.
Is there anything grammatically incorrect about D other than the fact that it is wordy?
More importantly, I get that had is used to identify an event that happened earlier in time, but is the use of had twice OK?
Answer C has "who had bought, and they had to sell" Does that not create ambiguity about what happened first?