However much our nation's elected officials may argue that they have

Hi,
two issues..
1) parallelism..agree that they.... and that they... only A and E left..
2) meaning.. the sentence brings out contrast in two situations, so although is correct in original in meaning..
ans A
hope it helped
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One more thing to note is that the original says that 'however much our nation's elected officials may argue". This ‘however much’ and ‘may argue’ factors are required to be carried through in the contenders. Otherwise it will amount to altered intent. B, C, D and E simply don’t do that. Hence A is the best per se.
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Thanks, it does help.

My problem is that I think that "However much our nation's elected officials may argue" sounds absolutely strange and that I am not even completely sure on what that even means!?

Hi,
what it means is ...
whatever amount of argument our nations elected officials may do to tell us tht they have found solutions for deficit..., it is not easy ...

applebus,

here much is modifying arguement, so much is ok..

hope it helped
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Hi guys,
I have a quick question regarding what most people say about SC, which is that you cannot change the intended meaning of the original sentence that the author wrote. my question is: how do you know what is the intended meaning of the author? In the below case, the answer is A, I however chose e, and Kaplan states that e is wrong because it changes the meaning of the sentence, but how do I know what is the "intended" meaning of the sentence? is this a wrong reason as to why e is wrong?

In general terms, if the answer choices have answers that will be different in meaning or change the sentence how do you choose the correct "meaning"??
best
Oloman

So, Ive come across this question in Kaplan CAT.

However much our nation's elected officials may argue that they have found a solution to the national deficit and that they can halt soaring inflation, there is no quick fix, and any real chance for economic stability will necessarily take time, compromise, and sacrifice.

a)However much our nation's elected officials may argue that
b)However much our nation's elected officials argue
c)Although our nation's elected officials may argue
d)Although our nation's elected officials argue
e)Even though our nation's elected officials agree that

Please take extra care to see, the question is well presented as per norms. It is indeed difficult to answer questions, when the underlining is missing
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Hi,
The intended meaning of the author will always be find from the original sentence i.e not from options other than A. First, read the original sentence both underlined and non-underlined part, then figure it out what actually author wants to convey with this sentence. That meaning is the actual / intended meaning of the author. In option A the author meaning is that 'officials may argue', and replacing 'agree' in place of 'argue' has changed the meaning. 'argue' does not mean 'agree'.

Options b,c,d are out because they need 'that' to make the sentence parallel. E are out because of the change in meaning, as explained above.

Hello, thanks for the reply, so is it safe to say that the intended meaning of the author is ALWAYS stated in the original sentence regardless of whether it is right or wrong? In this specific case, I could not have concluded that the intended meaning of the author is to use argue and not may argue, because in the original sentence he uses "may argue"
best

[quote="oloman"]Hello, thanks for the reply, so is it safe to say that the intended meaning of the author is ALWAYS stated in the original sentence regardless of whether it is right or wrong? In this specific case, I could not have concluded that the intended meaning of the author is to use argue and not may argue, because in the original sentence he uses "may argue"
best

Absolutely. The intended meaning will always be concluded from the original sentence.

No,the original sentence can carry a ambiguous meaning (as seen in comparison sentences) or a meaning error (misplaced modifiers) Our job is to understand the intended meaning of the author and choose the best option that is grammatically correct and conveys the intent clearly and unambiguously. Original sentence can have both grammatically and meaning errors

The perception that the original text only contains the intended meaning may not be correct all the times. Sometimes they may carry absurd meanings that are contrary to common sense, in which case it becomes necessary to choose an option that carries the correct intention in the other choices.
.
But in the given case the there is no reason to change the intent since it is nothing out of the usual. So the original is good enough.

There are three splits given in the topic.

1. may argue --- say some may argue, some may not argue; may be 50% this and 50% that.
2. argue----- 100% argue – The author does not intend this.
3. agree --- Not even any argument here. 100% simply agree. This isn’t what the author wants to say
You can see the difference implicit in each of the choices.

Now, can we find fault with the first choice? Is it any thing absurd? No. therefore any choice that says 'may argue' is good enough.
One can now see why choice E is incorrect.

This looks like a simulated version of yet another old popular question

However much United States voters may agree that there is a waste in government and that the government as a whole spends beyond its means, it is difficult to find broad support for a movement towards a minimal state

a) However much United States voters may agree that
b) Despite the agreement among United States voters to the fact
c) Although United States voters agree
d) Even though United States voters may agree
e) There is agreement among United States voters that

It is worthwhile to go through Ron’s authoritative views about the intent part as well as many other aspects of this topic

https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/foru ... t3375.html
HTH
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"that they have found...that there is no quick fix" would be parallel.
Hence, it's between A and E.
Even though always loses to although. So E is out.
A it is.

E changes the meaning, from the elected official’s making an argument to being in consensus. So it is out. C and D also slightly change the meaning. The original meaning says that in spite of how much the elected officials argue that they have found a solution…, By substituting the word ‘Although’ these options remove the implication that the officials are making that argument a lot. Now A seems wordier than B but ‘argue that’ is much clearer than just ‘argue’. I am going to say that the correct option is A.

Had option e been *although our nation’s elected officials argue that*, then e would have been correct right?

Not quite sure of the difference between although and however.

Posted from my mobile device

The new option will have a slightly different meaning (although/however, and the absence of may, which is there in option C). I'm not sure I'd be comfortable taking a decision on the basis of just the although/however split.

Although: "even though"
However much: "no matter the extent"

With although:
Even though they say X, the reality is Y.

With however much:
No matter how much they say X, the reality is Y.
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The logic here is wrong. They can't argue about the fact that they have found a solution. If they argue, then there has to be at least two separate groups, for example two parties. The original sentence was clear, because they all agreed that the government was wasting bla bla. And here they disagree that they have found a fix for the economy? Doesn't make sense. The correct answer is E, because they all agree, but actually, everything is much more complicated.

Posted from my mobile device

Is "much" correct in this statement? because the expression "our nation's elected officials" is countable, so it must join to many