Pack 15 Q5: According to the traffic engineers who scrutinized its...

Question

Pack 15, Question 5 of 5:

According to the traffic engineers who scrutinized its new route,  an escalating amount of stopped vehicles entered from the highway recently developed by city planners, which created more gridlock and also possibly disrupting  other traffic patterns.

A. an escalating amount of stopped vehicles entered from the highway recently developed by city planners, which created more gridlock and also possibly disrupting
 
B. an escalating amount of stopped vehicles entered from the highway recently developed by city planners, and it created more gridlock and also possibly disrupted
 
C. an escalating amount of stopped vehicles entered from the highway recently developed by city planners, creating more gridlock and also possibly disrupting
 
D. the highway recently developed by city planners, recently entered by an escalating amount of stopped vehicles, created more gridlock and it possibly disrupted

E. the highway recently developed by city planners, recently entered by an escalating amount of stopped vehicles, creating more gridlock and it possibly disrupted

◀ Pack 15, Question 4  
 ▶ Pack 16, Question 1   COMING SOON! 
 ⏏ Question Pack Home

48 Hour Window To Win An $85 EMPOWERgmat Tuition Credit (1 Month Free!)   
Share your explanation!  The GMAT Club member with the most verified Kudos  in total on the 5 question SC Block 15 question pack will  win an $85 EMPOWERgmat tuition credit , which will entitle the winner to a full month of complete access to the EMPOWERgmat system. Even if you're not sure about your answer or your rationale, share your explanation to help boost your learning and earn a chance to win.

To be eligible, your explanation must:
 be submitted within the 48 hour window after this post was created
should explain your reasoning why the answer you chose is correct, and why the other 4 options are incorrect within 48 hours of this post

The OA and official explanation will be held until the 48 hour window has lapsed.

vishumangal · Answer

According to the traffic engineers who scrutinized its new route, an escalating amount of stopped vehicles entered from the highway recently developed by city planners, which created more gridlock and also possibly disrupting other traffic patterns.

A. an escalating amount of stopped vehicles entered from the highway recently developed by city planners, which created more gridlock and also possibly disrupting - Incorrect ( which modifies the incorrect identity and distorts the meaning) - Planners are not creating grid locks

B. an escalating amount of stopped vehicles entered from the highway recently developed by city planners, and it created more gridlock and also possibly disrupted - (Incorrect) ( No Possible antecedent for "It"" is present. Logically it is escalating amount of stopped vehicles which are causing problems.

C. an escalating amount of stopped vehicles entered from the highway recently developed by city planners, creating more gridlock and also possibly disrupting - Correct - ( Cause and Effect relationship explains the effect)

D. the highway recently developed by city planners, recently entered by an escalating amount of stopped vehicles, created more gridlock and it possibly disrupted- Sentence Fragment (Incorrect)

E. the highway recently developed by city planners, recently entered by an escalating amount of stopped vehicles, creating more gridlock and it possibly disrupted - verb+ing modifier should modify the preceding clause. But there is no clause before comma. - Incorrect

Saasingh · Answer

IMO C

According to the traffic engineers who scrutinized its new route, an escalating amount of stopped vehicles entered from the highway recently developed by city planners, which created more gridlock and also possibly disrupting other traffic patterns.

A. an escalating amount of stopped vehicles entered from the highway recently developed by city planners, which created more gridlock and also possibly disrupting

Here, WHICH refers to city planners. It's not the city planners that created gridlock.. It's the stopped vehicles. 
Also, created more gridlock AND ....disrupting are not parallel.

WRONG.

B. an escalating amount of stopped vehicles entered from the highway recently developed by city planners, and it created more gridlock and also possibly disrupted

IT is used to refer to stopped vehicles which us plural. 
Also, ENTERED, CREATED, and DISRUPTED are all parallel grammatically, but logically CREATED and DISRUPTED are sub clause because "the entered stopped vehicles results in both CREATE and DISRUPT event and thus we must preserve the authors intent.
 
WRONG.

C. an escalating amount of stopped vehicles entered from the highway recently developed by city planners, creating more gridlock and also possibly disrupting

Parallel structure is correct. ENTERED is main verb and (creating and disrupting) are correctly structured as parallel constructs which are not parallel to ENTERED unlike B. It clearly shows that create event and disrupt event ARE A RESULT OF entered stopped vehicles.

CORRECT.

D. the highway recently developed by city planners, recently entered by an escalating amount of stopped vehicles, created more gridlock and it possibly disrupted

Same issue as B. ENTERED, CREATED, DISRUPTED change the authors intent to show that create and disrupt events are the result of entered vehicles. Also, the use of recently twice is awkward.

WRONG.

E. the highway recently developed by city planners, recently entered by an escalating amount of stopped vehicles, creating more gridlock and it possibly disrupted

This option contains a series of modifiers and therefore the main verb is missing resulting in Fragment.

WRONG.

Final answer is C

Posted from my mobile device

HoneyLemon · Answer

imo ,  C

According to the traffic engineers who scrutinized its new route,  an escalating amount of stopped vehicles entered from the highway recently developed by city planners, which created more gridlock and also possibly disrupting  other traffic patterns.

Meaning  : 
 According to the traffic engineers who scrutinized the highway's new route , an escalating amount of stopped vehicles entered from the highway that is recently developed by city planners . 
The result of this clause : The entry of stopped vehicles created more gridlock and also possibly disrupted other traffic patterns.

Its correctly refer to to highway. ...recently Developed is a modifier to highway.

Error   : 
 1. which is modifying to city planners.. And that is not making any sense for the meaning .. 
2. There is a parallelism error . Created and disrupting is not parallel. 
3.Also the sentence lacks the cause and effect,that it tries to convey in the original choice

A. an escalating amount of stopped vehicles entered from the highway recently developed by city planners, which created more gridlock and also possibly disrupting

-- Error mentioned above in the analysis  
 
B. an escalating amount of stopped vehicles entered from the highway recently developed by city planners, and it created more gridlock and also possibly disrupted

1. The sentence lacks the cause and effect,that it tries to convey in the original choice
2.It incorrectly refer to stopped vehicles  
 
C.  an escalating amount of stopped vehicles   entered  from the highway recently developed by city planners,  creating  more gridlock and also possibly  disrupting 
 
 -- Correct . The sentence correctly mention the cause and effect with the structure of, ING verb form. Subject-verb pair is also correctly intact . The sentence got rid of unnecessary pronoun. The intended meaning of this sentence is clear .

D. the highway recently developed by city planners, recently entered by an escalating amount of stopped vehicles, created more gridlock and it possibly disrupted
 
1. The sentence lacks the cause and effect, that it tries to convey in the original choice
2. Change of meaning with the change of placement of word recently . 
3.created and disrupted are used as verbs for which no subject is there .

E. the highway recently developed by city planners, recently entered by an escalating amount of stopped vehicles, creating more gridlock and it possibly disrupted

1. There is a parallelism error . creating and disrupted are not parallel. 
2.Also the sentence lacks the cause and effect, that it tries to convey in the original choice

C  is the correct choice .

harsh8686 · Answer

" According to the traffic engineers who scrutinized   its   new route"   is a starting modifier and it should modify the highway. Why? Because   "its"   should be touching its antecedent.

For that reason A, B, and C are wrong.

Between D and E, in E there is S-V problem. 
 
E. the highway recently developed by city planners, recently entered by an escalating amount of stopped vehicles,  creating  more gridlock and it possibly disrupted

D is the Answer?

EMPOWERgmatVerbal · Answer

Official Explanation

According to the traffic engineers who scrutinized its new route,  an escalating amount of stopped vehicles entered from the highway recently developed by city planners, which created more gridlock and also possibly disrupting  other traffic patterns.

A.  an escalating amount of stopped vehicles  entered from the highway recently developed by city planners,  which created  more gridlock and  also possibly disrupting  
 
 B.  an escalating amount of stopped vehicles  entered from the highway recently developed by city planners,  and it created  more gridlock and  also possibly disrupted  
 
 C.  an escalating amount of stopped vehicles  entered from the highway recently developed by city planners,  creating  more gridlock and  also possibly disrupting  
 
 D.  the highway recently developed by city planners , recently entered by an escalating amount of stopped vehicles,  created  more gridlock and  it possibly disrupted

E.  the highway recently developed by city planners , recently entered by an escalating amount of stopped vehicles,  creating  more gridlock and  it possibly disrupted

After a quick glance over the options, there are a few key differences we can focus on:

1. “...and escalating amount of stopped vehicles” / “the highway” ( Modifiers )
2. which created / and it created / creating / created ( Parallelism )
3. disrupting / disrupted ( Parallelism )

This sentence deals with modifiers and parallelism.  We need to decide if the traffic engineers are scrutinizing the vehicles or the city planners. Since there are only 2 ways that the options handle this, let’s look at them individually to make sure any modifiers have antecedents that make sense:

Option #1: 
  an escalating amount of stopped vehicles entered from the highway recently developed by city planners ,  creating more gridlock and also possibly disrupting  
 
This is  OKAY  because the “-ing” modifier (highlighted in blue) modifies the phrase before it, which in this case makes total sense. It also shows a clear cause-effect relationship (more stopped vehicles entering the highway → more gridlock and disruption of traffic patterns).

Option #2: 
 the highway recently developed by  city planners ,  recently entered by an escalating amount of stopped vehicles , created more gridlock and it possibly disrupted

This is  WRONG  because the modifier “recently entered by an escalating amount of stopped vehicles” is being wrongly attached to “city planners.” The city planners aren’t being entered by vehicles - the highway is.

This means we can eliminate options D & E because they have modifier-antecedent agreement problems.  Now that we have it narrowed down to only 3 options, we can move on to #2 & #3 on our list. We need to make sure that whatever versions of “to create” and “to disrupt” we use, they’re consistent. Let’s see how each option stacks up:

A. an escalating amount of stopped vehicles entered from the highway recently developed by city planners, which  created  more gridlock and also possibly  disrupting  
This is  INCORRECT . “Created” and “disrupting” are not parallel verb forms.
 
 B. an escalating amount of stopped vehicles entered from the highway recently developed by city planners, and  it created  more gridlock and also possibly  disrupted  
This is  INCORRECT  because “it created,” and “disrupted,” are not written using parallel structure (they both need to start with “it” or not at all). 
 
 C. an escalating amount of stopped vehicles entered from the highway recently developed by city planners,  creating  more gridlock and also possibly  disrupting  
This is  CORRECT . Both the verbs “creating” and “disrupting” are in the same form.

There you have it - option C is our correct choice!

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

EMPOWERgmatVerbal · Answer

Well done, vishumangal ! You cracked the code on this question! Kudos to you! We look forward to seeing more great explanations from you in Pack 16, which starts on Monday!

EMPOWERgmatVerbal · Answer

Well done Saasingh ! You cracked the code on this one! Kudos to you! We look forward to seeing what you have to say about our Pack 16 questions, which start on Monday!

EMPOWERgmatVerbal · Answer

Another great explanation  DasAshishAshutosh ! Kudos to you! Looking forward to more great explanations in Pack 16!

EMPOWERgmatVerbal · Answer

Welcome back to the contest, harsh8686 ! You were close on this one - but not quite right. Check out the explanation in the comments to see how to tackle this question!

HarryStamper · Answer

EMPOWERgmatVerbal  - I got this correct. But, I wanted to know whether the use of both "and" + "also" creates some form of redundancy. Please could you shed some light on this? Thanks.

VerbalBot · Answer

Hello from the GMAT Club VerbalBot!

Thanks to another GMAT Club member, I have just discovered this valuable topic, yet it had no discussion for over a year. I am now bumping it up - doing my job. I think you may find it valuable (esp those replies with Kudos).

Want to see all other topics I dig out? Follow me (click follow button on profile). You will receive a summary of all topics I bump in your profile area as well as via email.

Pack 15 Q5: According to the traffic engineers who scrutinized its...

Prep Toolkit

Top 5 GMAT Debrief Videos

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards

GMAT Sentence Correction (SC - EA only) Questions

Pack 15 Q5: According to the traffic engineers who scrutinized its...

Prep Toolkit

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards