According to some analysts, the gains in the stock market reflect grow

There's no such thing as a silly question.

The subject of instead come is the economy. Just watch out for the will in front of avoid though.

... the economy will (a) avoid the recession that many had feared earlier in the year and (b) instead come in for a 'soft landing'...

If we didn't have a will there:

... the economy (a) avoids the recession and (b) comes in for a 'soft landing'...

AjiteshArun
The correct choice A is again:
According to some analysts, the gains in the stock market reflect growing confidence that the economy will avoid the recession that many had feared earlier in the year and instead come in for a 'soft landing', followed by a gradual increase in the business activity.

The 2nd that is the essential modifier of 'recession'. What if someone think (apart from meaning issue) that 'come' and 'fear(d)' are parallel each other because they're connected with 'and'?

Hi TheUltimateWinner,

It's really hard to read the sentence that way, because "many... had come in for a soft landing" doesn't seem to make any sense in this context.

More generally, you will face similar issues in many, many questions. The only thing we can do in such situations is read the question carefully.

Do you suggest that it is important to have a comma after the word 'year' to make the sentence more readable?

In option A, "AND instead come" what is parallel to what ?

Hi Akshay, come is parallel to avoid.

...the economy will avoid...and instead come....

Instead doesnt break the parallelism?

Hi Akshay, come is parallel to avoid.

...the economy will avoid...and instead come....

Hey guys,

can I assume in this one that the "will" in "will avoid" carries over to "come" making it an implicit "will come"?

Cheers
Rudolf

Is the use of "had" in (A) correct with the phrase "earlier in the year", making it redundant?

Hi guhancr7! I'd be glad to give an explanation for this question! To begin, here is the original with any major differences between the options highlighted in orange:

According to some analysts, the gains in the stock market reflect growing confidence that the economy will avoid the recession that many had feared earlier in the year and instead come in for a 'soft landing', followed by a gradual increase in the business activity.

(A) that the economy will avoid the recession that many had feared earlier in the year and instead come
(B) in the economy to avoid the recession, what many feared earlier in the year, rather to come
(C) in the economy's ability to avoid the recession, something earlier in the year many had feared , and instead to come
(D) in the economy to avoid the recession many were fearing earlier in the year, and rather to come
(E) that the economy will avoid the recession that was feared earlier this year by many, with it instead coming

After a quick glance over the options, we see a few areas we can focus our attention on:

1. will avoid vs. to avoid (Verb Tense & Meaning)
2. feared / had feared / fearing (Verb Tense)
3. and instead come / rather to come / and instead to come / and rather to come / with it instead to come (Parallelism)

The quickest way to answer this question is to actually focus on #3 on our list: parallelism. There are two actions the economy will take in this sentence, and they must be parallel. Let's take a look at the original sentence for clues:

According to some analysts, the gains in the stock market reflect growing confidence that the economy will avoid the recession that many had feared earlier in the year and instead come in for a 'soft landing', followed by a gradual increase in the business activity.

We need to make sure that the options all use parallel wording with "avoid." Let's see how they stack up:

(A) that the economy will avoid the recession that many had feared earlier in the year and instead come = PARALLEL
(B) in the economy to avoid the recession, what many feared earlier in the year, rather to come = NOT PARALLEL
(C) in the economy's ability to avoid the recession, something earlier in the year many had feared , and instead to come = NOT PARALLEL
(D) in the economy to avoid the recession many were fearing earlier in the year, and rather to come = NOT PARALLEL
(E) that the economy will avoid the recession that was feared earlier this year by many, with it instead coming = NOT PARALLEL

There you have it - option A is the correct choice! It's the only option that uses parallel structure throughout the sentence.

So why didn't I start with #1 or #2 on my list?

#1 on my list (to avoid vs. will avoid) is incredibly confusing to try to explain. It has more to do with how to handle modifiers and intended meaning, which will take you more time to work out while taking the GMAT. Parallelism typically is a quicker thing to check for, so it makes more sense to start there.

#2 on my list (how each option ends) relies on your understanding of idioms that use words like "rather" and "instead." As I understand it, the word "rather" deals with degrees of something (it's rather cold outside) and "instead" is used to offer up an alternative (let's go to the mall instead). However, trying to focus on this option will also take a lot more time than necessary.

I hope this helps! By focusing on the grammar concepts that are easier to handle, you might find that they help you answer the question much faster than just picking the first thing you notice! :thumbup:


Don't study for the GMAT. Train for it.

The infinitives "to avoid" and "to come" certainly CAN be parallel. However, in choice (B), we are missing a parallelism marker (such as "and") altogether! We would need something like this to make it work:
"The economy is expected to avoid the recession and, rather, to come in for a soft landing." - The "and" properly links the two infinitives.

GMATNinja :-



rather , instead : can not be used as parallel markers?

So "According to some analysts" is to be interpreted as "Some analysts said" ? Why can't it be interpreted as "Some analysts say" , or does this question just indicate that GMAC is okay with having past perfect in combination with simple present? None of the explanations clarified that. So in any other questions that starts with "According to...." , do we presume it indicates past tense?

Dear Vishalcv
"According to some analysts" is a prepositional phrase that modifies nouns/verbs, in our case "the gains". It is not the working verb/present simple and hence cannot be considered as an addition to the sequence of tenses.

Take a look another instance,
According to U.S. agricultural statistics, the rate of honeybee colony collapse has slowed over the last several years...

Hello,
Thanks for the response.
But my question is why past perfect and not simple past in this case?

Posted from my mobile device