The tourism commission has conducted surveys of hotels in the most

Hello Soham68,

We hope this finds you well.

Having gone through the question and your query, we believe we can resolve your doubt.

Here, "who" refers to "guests". In such cases, to determine what noun the pronoun refers to you must look at the meaning of the sentence. In these answer choices the verb that acts upon the pronoun "that/who" is "express"; "expressing" is an action that a "number" cannot do, so the pronoun must refer to "guests".

We hope this helps.
All the best!
Experts' Global Team

(A) with the ultimate goal of reducing the guests who end up expressing overall dissatisfaction with the service in the hotels
The meaning isn't perfect therefore out

(B) with the goal to ultimately reduce the number of guests who end up expressing overall dissatisfaction with the hotels’ service
The placement of ultimately is wrong distorting the meaning therefore out

(C) ultimately with the goal to reduce expressions of overall dissatisfaction by the guests with the hotel service
reduce expression isn't making much sense therefore out

(D) in an ultimate attempt to reduce the number of guests that ends up expressing overall dissatisfaction with the hotels’ service
the attempt isn't ultimate the goal is the final one therefore out

(E) with the ultimate goal of reducing the number of guests who express overall dissatisfaction with the hotels’ service
The meaning is perfect therefore let us hang on to it

Therefore IMO E

(E) with the ultimate goal of reducing the number of guests who express overall dissatisfaction with the hotels’ service

Even if (E) might be the best answer choice among the five, I don´t think it is semantically correct. "who express overall dissatisfaction" refers back to the guests, which would mean that the guests in the hotel express overall dissatisfaction with the hotels´ service and the hotel therefore tries to reduce the number of guests. That doesn´t make any sense. The hotel only wants to reduce the number of those guests that actually complain. My suggestion would therefore be:

"with the ultimate goal of reducing the number of guests that expresses overall dissatiscation with the hotels´ service"

Please feel free to correct me if I´m wrong.

road740
Actually, E already achieves exactly what you're going for. Because we always use WHO to modify people (not which or that, despite how we speak in daily life), it can serve as either an essential or a non-essential modifier. In other words, it can serve where we would use WHICH or THAT in describing an object. So E is doing what you're asking for. It's narrowing down the word "guests" to just refer to guests who express dissatisfaction.

In your version, it appears that you're trying to apply "that" to number, but a number can't express dissatisfaction; only people can. So "expresses" doesn't work. In some cases, I might jump over the modifier "of guests" to say something like "We had precisely the number of guests that we expected," but in that case we aren't making the number into the subject of a verb.

Hello road740,

We hope this finds you well.

Having gone through the question and your query, we believe we can resolve your doubt.

The construction you have suggested is incorrect, as it implies that the "number" of guests express dissatisfaction; this meaning is illogical, as a "number" cannot be said to express anything. The verb "express" must refer to "guests".

As DmitryFarber has written, the meaning that Option E conveys is that the goal is to reduce the number of those particular guests who express dissatisfaction. In other words, to make it so that there are fewer guests who express dissatisfaction. One way to tell that the "who" phrase here is an essential modifier is the fact that it is not introduced with a comma. When "who" is not preceded by a comma, the information the "who" phrase conveys is an essential attribute of the noun "who" modifies.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
Experts' Global Team

The verb associated with "who" or "that" will tell you whether the modified noun needs to be singular or plural. You'd then look to see if there's a nearby noun that both agrees in number and is logical. If there is, the "who" or "that" is fine. If there isn't, it's an error. Simple as that.

For example:

The box of records that is marked "Tim's thrash/klezmer collection" is considered off-limits.

Because the relevant verb, "is" is singular, we know "that" must refer to a singular noun. In this case, the only possibility is "box." Does it make sense for the box to be marked with a label? Sure. So this is fine.

However, consider an alternative:

The box of records that are marked "Tim's thrash/klezmer music" is considered off-limits.

Now the verb, "are" tells us we're dealing with a plural noun. The only possibility this time is "records." Does it make sense for the records to have the label on them? This seems okay, too. It just has a different meaning, one I wouldn't want to use as a concrete error.

So let's go back to the relevant phrase in (E):


The verb, "express" is plural, so we need to look for a plural noun. "Guests" is right there. Would it make sense for the guests to express dissatisfaction? It sure would, so this construction is fine.

The takeaway: when you see a "that" or a "who" don't agonize over what they should refer to. Instead, use the verb to determine what kind of noun they must refer to, then see if you can find an eligible noun that makes sense. If you can, it's not an error. No need to make it any more complicated than that.

I hope that helps!

Hi MartyTargetTestPrep - i try to emulate the strategy you did here on another question here - specifically the purple higlight in the screenshot

You eliminated by
-- first finding what the main clause (Devoid of any modifiers) of the choice is
-- seeing if the literal meaning of the main clause(Devoid of any modifiers) , makes sense

^^^^^^

MartyTargetTestPrep -

I tried to follow the strategy you used in the other question in this one - i.e. read the essential clause (devoid of any modifiers) literally.

I then see if this essential clause is in line with the author's intent.

I eliminated B / D and E, immediately when I read the bits in the red.

B, D and E, read literaly is saying,

X conducted survey with a goal of/to Reduce the number of guests....

That cannot be the goal !!! The goal cannot be to reduce the number of guests

Thus i picked C because C is the only answer choice that made sense literally

A goal of a survey CAN BE To (C) reduce expressions of overall dissatisfaction

Hi EducationAisle - option A always has the intended meaning.

Between ultimate vs. ultimately -- why is ultimate goal prefered over ulimately reduce ?

Option (A) does have any intended meaning. The idea that the original version has some kind of special "intended meaning" is a myth. The correct version has simply to effectively convey a meaning that makes sense, not some special meaning also conveyed by the original version.

"Ultimate goal" plays a logical role in the sentence's describing the end goal of the Tourism Commission.

"Ultimately reduce" is not quite logical. What exactly is ultimately reducing something? "We want to ultimately reduce X," isn't really logical.

"Reduce expressions" does not make as much sense as "reducing the number" of something. "Reduce expressions" seems to convey that the goal is to make the expressions themselves smaller.

So, actually, your system would have worked if you had seen that key issue.

That said, eliminating all modifiers is not always the path to correctly answering an SC question. After all, often, modifier issues are the key flaws that support choosing one choice over others, as is the case with this question. For one thing, the uses of "ultimate" and "ultimately" make sense in some choices and not in others.

Thanks MartyTargetTestPrep for responding.

Interesting you say the yellow-- When i read "expressions of overall dissatisfaction" -- i thought of yelp reviews.

I thought 'expressions' in this case was analagous to Reviews (posted online, dissatsfied yelp reviews by the guests)

Thus, i thought from a meaning perspective the goal of the survey : what makes more sense ?

Reduce yelp reviews vs reduce number of guests

Reducing yelp reviews CERTAINLY makes more sense than Reducing number of guests

That interpretation is fine, but if we read "reduce Yelp reviews" literally, it seems to suggest that the goal is to shrink the review themselves rather than to reduce the number of negative reviews.

Hi MartyTargetTestPrep - thank you so much for your response

Just playing devils advocate - no one will think shrinking yelp reviews is a logical interpretation of "reduce Yelp reviews".

That can't be a logical interepretation, can it ?

I thought an expression was considered ambigious only if there were two LOGICAL interepretations (one cant include ILL LOGICAL interpretations)

The blue is not a logical interepretation per my understanding of the expression "reduce Yelp reviews".

jabhatta2
This isn't a matter of ambiguity. The point is that since there is no logical meaning to "reduce expressions" or "reduce reviews," we don't want to say that. We can't just give the sentence the benefit of the doubt and read it to mean what it *should* be saying. That's what we do in real life to understand each other, but we're trying to find the answer that clearly and correctly expresses the intended meaning. Since the intended meaning can't be to reduce expressions (since that doesn't make sense), we need to talk about reducing a number.

Thanks so much DmitryFarber. i understand ultimately is wrong in option B and option C

But i have read, 'ultimately' in option C is placed incorrectly as well

post here - bullet 3 specifically


The placement of 'ultimately' in option C -- somehow does not make sense with the previous clause

Do you see that yourself by any chance ?

my notes (no need to respond)

ultimately -- can mean -- 5 years or 50 years from now.

The survey was conducted to reduce number of guests (5 years from now or 50 years from now)

utlimate goal -- makes more sense because that is the final result that the survey wants.