According to a recent study of consumer spending on prescription

Exactly. And "the remainder" is introducing a modifier. Think of it as saying "with the remainder." That might be clearer, but we often see modifiers introduced in this way, with the expected link missing. For instance, we might say "The university awarded 200 PhD's last year, the majority in the sciences."

I read all posts but I still have a doubt between B and C

The remainder came from sales of the 9,850 prescription medicines that companies did not advertise or advertised very little. Isnt this sentence a independent clause. And I belive a connector like AND would be a better choice over option C

This is the sentence that option B leads to:

According to a recent study of consumer spending on prescription medications, increases in the sales of the 50 drugs that were advertised most heavily were what accounted for almost half of the $20.8 billion increase in drug spending last year; the remainder of the increase coming from sales of the 9,850 prescription medicines that companies did not advertise or advertised very little.

Coming is not a verb, so the remainder coming is not a complete thought.

Doesn't the phrase "the remainder of which" logically refer to the noun immediate to its left, in this case, "drug spending last year"?. This is my thinking because when I saw the word "which" in the "remainder of which", I applied the same rule as when I see comma + which (modifying the noun immediately before the comma). I understand why B is wrong, I just want to clarify that part in your explanation.

Thanks!

Hello Diwabag!

You can't apply the same logic to comma+which clauses as you do "the remainder of which." Even if you did, you'd end up applying it to the closest noun, not noun phrase, which is the word "year." Since that doesn't really make sense, you would still rule this out.

I hope that helps!

AjiteshArun

I have read explanations on this post. Experts suggested that option B is incorrect because the latter part after semicolon in not an independent clause.
I know that semicolon is used between two independent clauses and clause is a phrase with both subject and verb.However, this option doesn't has dependent marker such as after, although, as, as if, because, before, even f, even though, in order to, since, though, unless, until, whatever, when, whenever, whether, and while.
i am not able to figure out what is subject and verb in the latter clause after semicolon.

can someone please help me out with this .

Hi Smitc007,

1. Let's take the word because. Because is a subordinating conjunction. Subordinating conjunctions introduce (start) subordinate clauses (also known as dependent clauses). For example:

Sales of cars increased ← Independent clause, subject + verb
because prices came down. ← Dependent clause, subordinating conjunction + subject + verb

2. A semicolon can be placed in between two independent clauses:

a. Sales of cars increased; prices came down. ← Don't worry about meaning here, as we are looking only at structure.
b. Sales of cars increased; because prices came down. ← This is incorrect, as the structure after the semicolon is not an independent clause.

Now let's take another example in which we don't have an independent clause after the semicolon.

c. Sales of cars increased; prices coming down. ← This is incorrect.

Here we have an -ing (coming). An -ing is never a "complete" verb capable of supporting the subject of an independent clause on its own. Instead, to do that, it needs a helping verb. So, for example, we can consider the following "complete" verbs:

are coming down, have been coming down, were coming down...

However, "coming down" is not a complete verb, and it cannot combine with prices to create an independent clause.

This is why option B is incorrect. The coming at the end is not a ("complete") verb, and we therefore don't have an independent clause after the semicolon.

... increases in the sales... were...; the remainder of the increase coming from...

3. An additional point (not related to this question): semicolons can also be used as "big commas".

AjiteshArun,

Understood that option 'C' is the best and that I missed the verb part, after semi colon, in the option 'B'.

Just for my understanding and not relating to any other options available, if the option 'B' had, after the semi colon, 'came' instead of 'coming' would it then have been a grammatically correct sentence?

I think yes because now in the independent clause the subject 'remainder of the increase' has 'came' as its verb.


Thanks
Saurabh

Hi Sarjaria84,

Yes, it would have been grammatically correct. Still not better than C, but better than it originally was.

dear GMATNinja
is not option A is wrong because 2 clauses are just joined by a comma?

Thnaks and regards

This actually isn't much different than a normal noun modifier clause:

• "In 1920, archaeologists discovered the treasure, which was hidden for over 500 years." - No problem here. The "which" clause modifies "treasure" and is separated from the rest of the sentence by a comma. The part after the comma is not a complete sentence on its own, so we don't need a conjunction.
• "The museum houses 1,000 paintings, of which half were donated by a wealthy art collector." - Again, no problem. The part after the comma is not a complete sentence, so no conjunction is needed.
• "In 1920, archaeologists discovered most of the treasure, the remainder of which was discovered by hikers in 1970." - Same idea here. The "of which" clause is just a comma-separated modifier, not a complete thought.

Now if we remove "of which" from that last example, it's an entirely different story:

• "In 1920, archaeologists discovered most of the treasure, the remainder was discovered by hikers in 1970." - This is no longer correct. The part after the comma IS a complete sentence ("The remainder was discovered by hikers."), so we would need a conjunction after the comma (or a semicolon instead of a comma).

I hope that helps!

Can someone please explain why D is wrong?

the word Accounting is modifying to the whole phrase before it.

Many answers in the discussion are saying that this answer is missing a verb. However, I am wondering, if the word "increase" after $20.8 billion can be considered as a verb?

Hi,
can someone explain why the clause " ,the remainder of the increase coming from sales of the 9,850 prescription medicines that companies did not advertise or advertised very little." doesn't need a working verb? , isn't it a dependant clause so doesn't it have to have verb?

Hi Sanjay, if this portion were to have a verb, the sentence would have been a run-on sentence (two Independent clauses connected by just a comma), and hence wrong.

So basically, the following is an Independent clause, and not a dependent clause):

the remainder of the increase came from sales of the 9,850 prescription medicines.

Please note that the presence of phrase the remainder of the increase does not make this clause a dependent clause. An easy way to remember is that dependent clause can pretty much be constructed only by two ways: the use of subordinating conjunctions and the use of relative pronouns.

You can watch our video on Independent and Dependent Clauses.

p.s. Our book EducationAisle Sentence Correction Nirvana discusses Independent and Dependent Clauses, their application and examples in significant detail. If you or someone is interested, PM me your email-id; I can mail the corresponding section.

Hi,
Thanks for your reply. Even if it is an independent it must have working verb right? but in the correct answer it has coming which gerund.

For that reason, in my previous post, I changed the sentence to include came.

By the way, coming is not used as a gerund here, but as a participle.

But the correct answer is C, which has coming in it.