The current economic downturn has significantly reduced advertising

A.has significantly reduced advertising income both for business journals as well as general consumer magazines, especially if focusing - Incorrect idiom

B.has significantly reduced advertising income both for business journals and for general consumer magazines, especially those focusing

C.significantly reduced advertising income for both business journals and for general consumer magazines, especially when focused - The context seems to be wrong. It seems to be saying there are two business journals and many general consumer magazines.

D. reduced both business journals’ and general consumer magazines’ advertising income significantly, especially if focused both X and Y - Correct idiom BUT apostrophe usage

E.reduced advertising income significantly for both business journals, as well as for general consumer magazines, especially those focusing - Incorrect idiom. Same mistake as A.


This is how I thought

A, E - Same idiom error.

Left with B, C , D

C - Wrong context

Left with B & D

B is better than D due to apostrophe usage

Hence "B" is the answer.

I'm going with B in this one.

A and E don't use the correct idiom Both X and Y, so out.

In C the idiom is not parallel "for both business journals and for general consumer magazines"

In D especially if focused modifies the current economic downturn. I'd say that this is not correct.

Although I think option B is correct, What does those refer to? Both business journals and consumer magazines? Also shouldn't be more correct to write "for both business journals and general consumer magazines"?

There is just one prominent decision point to arrive a correct answer.
Economic downtown has reduced income for journals and magazines ... what kind of journals and magazines ??- "Those" focused on technology.
Option A,C, D are out.

Option B and E remaining.

Now it boils down to idiom. The correct idiom is "both X and Y". Option B uses it correctly.
E is wrong because it uses an incorrect idiom- both X as well as Y. WRONG

Therefore B is the correct answer.

A.has significantly reduced advertising income both for business journals as well as general consumer magazines,especially if focusing
B.has significantly reduced advertising income both for business journals and for general consumer magazines, especially those focusing
C.significantly reduced advertising income for both business journals and for general consumer magazines, especially when focused
D.reduced both business journals’ and general consumer magazines’ advertising income significantly, especially if focused
E.reduced advertising income significantly for both business journals, as well as for general consumer magazines, especially those focusing

[quote="mao"]The current economic downturn has significantly reduced advertising income both for business journals as well as general consumer magazines, especially if focusing on technology.

(A) has significantly reduced advertising income both for business journals as well as general consumer magazines, especially if focusing

(B) has significantly reduced advertising income both for business journals and for general consumer magazines, especially those focusing

(C) significantly reduced advertising income for both business journals and for general consumer magazines, especially when focused

(D) reduced both business journals’ and general consumer magazines’ advertising income significantly, especially if focused

(E) reduced advertising income significantly for both business journals, as well as for general consumer magazines, especially those focusing

This question is based on Tense Usage, Pronouns and Modifiers.

The sentence mentions the current economic downturn, which indicates that the present tense, rather than the past tense must be used. Options A and B contain the present perfect tense ‘has reduced’. Options C, D, and E contain the past tense ‘reduced’. On this basis, we can rule out these three options.

The modifier at the end of the sentence provides information about the business journals and consumer magazines, so a pronoun referring to them will make the sentence clearer. The pronoun ‘those’ is present in Options B and E.

Option E also has an idiomatic error. The conjunction 'both' is paired with 'as well as' instead of 'and. So, E can be ruled out for two reasons.

The pronoun is also missing in Options A, C, and D.

Option A also contains the same idiomatic usage error as Option E. The conjunction ‘both’ should be paired with ‘and’. However, in Option A, it is incorrectly paired with ‘as well as’. So, Option A can be ruled out.

Therefore, B is the most appropriate option.

Jayanthi Kumar.

Hi LogicGuru1

Can option D be eliminated cause there is no clarity on what is focused on technology ? i.e. is the usage of "if" causing ambiguity?

The current economic downturn has significantly reduced advertising income both for business journals as well as general consumer magazines, especially if focusing on technology.

(A) has significantly reduced advertising income both for business journals as well as general consumer magazines, especially if focusing

(B) has significantly reduced advertising income both for business journals and for general consumer magazines, especially those focusing

(C) significantly reduced advertising income for both business journals and for general consumer magazines, especially when focused

(D) reduced both business journals’ and general consumer magazines’ advertising income significantly, especially if focused

(E) reduced advertising income significantly for both business journals, as well as for general consumer magazines, especially those focusing

A is wrong because of unidiomatic usage, both to X and Y, we use either to both X and Y, or Both to X and both to Y
B This choice corrects the idiom error by using Both for X and for Y, those correctly modifies business journal and magazines, since "those" is a descriptive pronoun it can be used for BJ and mag.
C There is this past tense, waging is used. Generally past tense is used when a time line is given and also meaning of sentence is to show they still have effect of reduced income. Past tense is incorrect. Also especially when focused seems to modify current economy downturn

D same as C past tense, and incorrect modification by especially if

E same idiom error and past tense error

For the "especially those focusing on technology" part of the passage, does this only refer back to the "general consumer magazines" and not the "business journals"?

I was not sure if "those" captures both types of magazines. According to the Official Guide's answer, it seems like "those" only modifies general consumer magazines.

Thank you!

This one was an easy question but got me thinking because of the "those", it makes it hard to understand what it is referring to, I understand pronoun ambiguity is not an absolute rule, is this one of those? GMATNinja AndrewN?

Hey IN2MBB2PE and woohoo921

Happy to step in on this discussion.

No, "those" here does not violate any pronoun ambiguity rule.

"Those" refers to/replaces the noun "magazines" and not both "journals" and "magazines".

Let's begin with a quick Meaning Analysis:
The current economic downturn has significantly reduced advertising income both for business journals and for general consumer magazines, especially those focusing on technology.

Aspects:

a. The current economic downturn has significantly reduced advertising income for two things:

i. Business journals
ii. General consumer magazines
b. Among general consumer magazines, those focusing on technology have been impacted more.


o As you can see, "general consumer magazines" are a broad category of magazines. "Magazines focusing on technology" are a subset of "general consumer magazines".
o They are not a subset of "business journals" because that creates a conflict in meaning. How can 'business journals" focus on technology. That's a bit illogical. We'd expect "Technology Journals" to focus on technology.
o So, purely on the basis of logic and meaning, 'those' must refer to 'magazines' alone.

Takeaway: In GMAT SC, if a potentially ambiguous pronoun has only one possible logical antecedent in the sentence, then that pronoun may not be considered deterministically ambiguous. You need to look for worse errors in such choices to eliminate them confidently.

I hope this helps improve your understanding of the importance of identifying the logical antecedent of pronouns in GMAT SC.

Happy Learning!

Abhishek

Thanks Abhishek, this is crystal clear now! Amazing analysis!

Apart from the past tense issue in D, Is there a parallelism issue in the Both X and Y structure in D?
Is "especially if..." phrase correct in D? Does it also have to be parallel to X and Y?

The parallelism is technically fine since both "business journals'" and "general consumer magazines'" can be paired with "advertising income". This is easier to see if you split it up into two sentences:

1) The current economic downturn reduced business journals’ advertising income significantly.

2) The current economic downturn reduced general consumer magazines’ advertising income significantly.

Both parts fit the pattern "reduced ____'s advertising income", so the parallelism is fine. That said, the parallelism in (B) is MUCH clearer and easier to follow, giving us a vote against (D).

The problem with the "if focused" part is that it's hard to tell what it modifies -- again, the wording in (B) is much clearer.

I hope that helps!