The bank holds $3 billion in loans that are seriously delinquent or in

Hello TheUltimateWinner,

I would like to help you out with your doubts.

Ans 1. There is a simple test to ascertain which noun among multiple nouns in the sentence is the correct antecedent for the pronoun. Just replace the pronoun with the possible nouns and the sentence with which noun presents logical meaning. The plural pronoun "they" CANNOT refer to "loans" because "loans are due" does not make much sense. A loan is paid off through multiple installments, and each payment comes with a due date. Hence, "they" can logically refer only to "payments".


Ans 2. The use of the word "when" does present a specific time. The specific time it denotes is "when the payment is due". The usage refers to a specific event that denotes time.


Hope this helps.
Thanks.
Shraddha
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egmat
Thanks for the feedback.
What if:
I've taken $500000 loans from the bank, and the loans are fully due. It seems that 'loans are due' makes sense!
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Hello TheUltimateWinner,

I do not think it makes sense to say that "loans are due". Even if one needs to pay the loan in full, the payment of the loan in full becomes due as one needs to "pay back" the loan.


Hope this helps.
Thanks.
Shraddha
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Hi,
In Opt. (E) payments are not expected to be paid when they will be

Would it be correct, if it had "....when they are due" in it ?

The bank holds $3 billion in loans that are seriously delinquent or in such trouble that they do not expect payments when due.

(A) they do not expect payments when - 'they refer to bank? pronoun reference error'
(B) it does not expect payments when it is - 'first 'it' correctly refers backs to bank. However, second 'it' wrongly refers to plural 'payments'. pronoun reference error'
(C) it does not expect payments to be made when they are - first it correctly refers to bank, second they correctly refers to payments
(D) payments are not to be expected to be paid when - 'payments ... not to be expected to be paid is wordy. why are we saying payments to be paid? it is redundant! Further, the sentence is in passive voice. We should prefer active voice. Also, there is a meaning issue.
(E) payments are not expected to be paid when they will be - 'error from point D repeated.'

Hope it helps, please give me kudos if you find my explanation helpful.

Hi NishanthNambi, there would still be an issue of passive voice (payments are not expected to be paid) in E.

This does not tell us who did not expect payments. C clearly says that it (bank) does not expect payments.
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Moreover, i believe that payments "paid" is redundant.

[quote="Mishari"]The bank holds $3 billion in loans that are seriously delinquent or in such trouble that they do not expect payments when due.

(A) they do not expect payments when
(B) it does not expect payments when it is
(C) it does not expect payments to be made when they are
(D) payments are not to be expected to be paid when
(E) payments are not expected to be paid when they will be

regarding choice D.
"to be to do" is a future tense and is similar to " will do".
future tense is used to say about a plan or prediction. there are many forms such as " be going to", " to be to do" , to be due to do", or " will do". these form are different depending on the level of certainty, which we do not need to know for gmat. future tense is modal meaning.

"payment are not to be expected" is similar to "payment will not be expected". this is not logical in our context. the correct meaning should be " payment are not expected".
so, choice D is wrong

Although I know option C is correct but can someone please tell me why option B and C are using 'expect' and not 'expects'
Since bank is the subject of expect and bank is singular shouldn't it be expects?

It has a negative sentence. Which means they are using "not". Whenever "not" is used, the verb followed by it will be for plural irrespective whether the subject is singular or plural.

This goes for future tense also.

For eg. Sam will eat his food in the afternoon.
This is a future tense sentence, we are using the plural form of the "eat" verb instead of "eats". Had this sentence be in simple present, then "eats" would be used.

I see
Thank you so much, i was pondering over this for like half a day

KarishmaB GMATNinja
Why E is incorrect?
(E) payments are not expected to be paid when they will be
Does E has any grammatical error? I think "payment and paid" is not a deterministic error.
Can you please help me to understand meaning difference in C & E?
I think for any expectation, future tense is fine.

Thanks in advance!

Sneha2021 -

In time clauses with 'when', we use simple present.

For example,
She will come home when she is done.
She will come home when she will be done. - not correct

"When" already gives us a reference of the future.

Same for the 'if clause'

If she helps me, I will be done sooner.

So in (E) "when they will be due" isn't correct.

Also, payments are made, not paid. Money is paid.
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In addition to what KarishmaB correctly mentions, note that option E is in passive voice ("payments are not expected to be paid"). As is often the case, passive voice conceals the "doer" of the action. In other words, it is not clear in E as to who does not expect payments; C on the other hand, clearly states that the bank does not expect payments.

Additionally, E says: payments are not to be paid. We don't pay payments; we make payments.

p.s. Our book EducationAisle Sentence Correction Nirvana discusses Active and Passive voice, their application and examples in significant detail. If you or someone is interested, PM me your email-id; I can mail the corresponding section.
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I have correctly marked C but I am having trouble understanding how to identify whether 'they' is ambiguous or not. I know here it is properly referring to the payments but how to identify whether a pronoun is ambiguous or not. Sorry if it sounds like a noob question, but I would highly appreciate if I can get some explanation on this.

Pronoun ambiguity is definitely a gray area on the GMAT, so that's fair question!

Because "they" is a plural pronoun, we start by looking for plural nouns that the pronoun could refer to. In (C), the only options are "loans" or "payments," and it's fairly obvious that the pronoun refers to "payments" given the context -- we're talking about making payments at (or by) a certain time, so it's reasonable to talk about when the payments themselves are due.

Sadly, there are no black-and-white rules for this sort of thing. If you're down to two options and one is a mess of confusing/ambiguous pronouns while the other option avoids pronoun ambiguity, that might be a vote in favor of the latter. But again, the GMAT is okay with a little bit of pronoun ambiguity, so unless the meaning is utterly unclear, you'll want to be tread lightly with this sort of thing.

For more on that, check out this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhN_KU1bSKU.

And for another perspective, check out egmat's post from earlier in the thread: https://gmatclub.com/forum/the-bank-hol ... e#p2712718.

I hope that helps!
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Hi DmitryFarber egmat GMATNinja,
In this below OG question's explanation, it is mentioned that ''[b]Will be is not the correct verb form[/b]'' in the option E.

Ques: The bank holds $3 billion in loans that are seriously delinquent or in
such trouble that they do not expect payments when due.

Option E: payments are not expected to be paid when they will be.

Although, there is one explanation in the thread by GMATNinja, my bad, i couldn't understand it. Please help??

Thanks!

"Will be" creates a confusing meaning. If I say a payment is due on March 2, that means the date of the payment has been set, and I'm clear about this date in the present. I know that I need to write a check by March 2. Pretty straightforward.

But if I say that a payment will be due on March 2, it's not clear what I'm saying. Am I saying that the due date hasn't officially been set yet, but it will be set for March 2 in the future? That doesn't really make sense. If I know the due date in the present, I'd say the due date is March 2. But if I don't know the due date, I wouldn't give a specific date that I'd announce in the future, right?

Could the "will be" mean that the payment date is itself in the future? That seems pretty obvious. Who gets a notice saying "your payment is due right this second?"

All to say, the "will be" creates an incoherent meaning. At best, it's less clear than an alternative, and that's enough to give an answer choice the boot.

I hope that clears things up!
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