Parents hope that by giving their children access to games and

Official Explanation:

Parents hope that by giving their children access to games and streaming movies during road trips, enough has been provided with which the kids can be distracted for several hours and they will not have to hear “Are we there yet?” repeatedly.

A. enough has been provided with which the kids can be distracted for several hours and they will not have
B. enough has been provided to distract the kids for several hours, thus not having
C. that they have provided enough to distract the kids for several hours and not have
D. they have provided enough to distract the kids for several hours and will not have
E. they have provided enough to distract the kids for several hours and thus not having

A review of our answer options shows a split between starting with “enough” or with “they.” We also have to decide if we need to use “not having,” “not have,” or “will not have” as the second portion of this compound clause.

When trying to determine which subject is needed, we need to ask who is providing the distraction. The subject of the non-underlined portion of the sentence is the parents. The pronoun “they” tells us that “the parents” are the ones who are providing. This makes sense. Options A and B have “enough” as the subject. “Enough” also has to work with the portion of the sentence that isn’t underlined. In Option A, “they” is once again, we guess, referring to the parents, but with the introduction of “enough” as a subject, this second “they” could also be referring to games and streaming movies. Confused? It’s no wonder. This option lacks clarity. In Option B how can “enough” not have to hear? “Enough” can’t hear; that doesn’t make sense. Options A and B cannot be the correct answers.

Option E uses “thus,” which it is used to show the outcome of an event, but we don’t know if the distractions will actually work. The sentence would read “They have provided enough to distract the kids and thus not having to hear “Are we there yet?” repeatedly.” That doesn’t make sense. Option E cannot be the correct answer.

Option C uses “not have,” which is present tense and does not indicate anything about the future. The parents provide a distraction now so that they do not have to hear endless whining and questions in the future. A tense that indicates the future would make more sense. Additionally, Option C starts with “that.” The non-underlined portion of the sentence also has a that clause, so we have two relative clauses back-to-back. This should be avoided. Option C cannot be the best answer.

The only option left is the correct choice: option D.

Well done, Raxit85! You cracked the code on this one!

Hello sampriya!

You were so close! You are on the right track with option A - the pronoun "they" is absolutely vague! It could refer back to the parents, children, or even the games and streaming services! Good call to rule that one out!

However, you do need to look at the two events in each option as happening at the same time (kids distracted for several hours & not bothering their parents with "are we there yet?"). That should help you see the correct choice here is D - it's the only one that is clear, concise, and uses consistent verb tense for both events.

I hope that helps! Please feel free to tag me at EMPOWERgmatVerbal if you have any questions!

EMPOWERgmatVerbal - Could you please check my PoE here?

A. enough has been provided with which the kids can be distracted for several hours and they will not have -- "with which" is the incorrect usage of "with" preposition.

B. enough has been provided to distract the kids for several hours, thus not having -- sentence structure is main clause 1, modifier 1, modifier 2. Grammatically, modifier 2 here is referring back to modifier 1 and not main clause which is the intention of sentence.

I have a general question here. Can modifier 2 in general refer back to the main clause under any situation? Or am I misconstruing "enough has been.." as a modifier when it is an independent clause with "enough" as the subject and "has been provided" as the verb, "to bla bla hours" as the object?

C. that they have provided enough to distract the kids for several hours and not have -- illogical verb sequence. the "worry" is in future and hence "will" is needed. "and not have" is actually present perfect and incorrect (its still a verb, just an illogical one). "have" One can argue that "would" will be better here since its a hypothetical.

D. they have provided enough to distract the kids for several hours and will not have -- Correct.

E. they have provided enough to distract the kids for several hours and thus not having -- Parallelism error. "they have provided X" (element 1 is a clause) and "thus not having.." (gerund) are not parallel to each other.

Thanks for asking ravigupta2912!

I think your logic in how you answered the question is pretty good. You can also check out the official explanation in the comments above for how we tackled it.

To answer your specific question about option B, let's look at what the entire sentence would look like with option B plugged in:

Parents hope that by giving their children access to games and streaming movies during road trips, enough has been provided to distract the kids for several hours, thus not having to hear “Are we there yet?” repeatedly.

You are on the right track when you ask if the phrase "enough has been provided to distract the kids for several hours" is, in fact, an independent clause! It is!

The main problem with option B is that the independent clause is this:

Enough has been provided to distract the kids for several hours.

What's the subject of this sentence?

Enough

THIS is our problem - by changing the subject of the sentence to "enough," the two modifiers don't make sense because they're both supposed to be referring to parents. Since "parents" do not appear anywhere in the independent clause, the modifiers CANNOT refer to them.

In options D & E, they introduce the pronoun "they," which CAN easily stand in for "parents." When you add in a pronoun that can easily stand in for "parents," now the 2 modifiers can easily refer to the subject in a way that makes sense.

Of course, in the end, you'll end up eliminating option E because of the wrong verb tense, leaving you with option D.

I hope that helps clear things up!

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.