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Proceeding without a definite plan for upcoming labor negotiations, li

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Bunuel

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Updated on: 16 Jun 2021, 16:31

Originally posted by Bunuel on 27 Apr 2019, 04:43.
Last edited by Bunuel on 16 Jun 2021, 16:31, edited 1 time in total.

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Proceeding without a definite plan for upcoming labor negotiations, like the firm had agreed to last year, it would surely have proven to be a disaster in the face of the skilled and resolute opposition involved this time.

A. Proceeding without a definite plan for upcoming labor negotiations, like the firm had agreed to last year, it would surely have proven to be a disaster

B. Proceeding without a definite plan for upcoming labor negotiations, as the firm agreed last year to do, would surely have proven to be a disaster

C. Going ahead without the presence of a definite plan for upcoming labor negotiations, like the firm had agreed last year to do, would surely have proven disastrous

D. To proceed without the presence of a definite plan for upcoming labor negotiations, as the firm had agreed to last year, would surely have proven disastrous

E. Going ahead without their having a definite plan for upcoming labor negotiations, as they agreed to last year, it would surely have proven to be a disaster for the firm

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27 Apr 2019, 23:40

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rheachandra One problem with D is that it uses the past perfect ("had agreed") inappropriately. To use the past perfect, we need to have another past event that the action we're describing clearly precedes.

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21 May 2019, 04:51

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Bunuel

A. Proceeding without a definite plan for upcoming labor negotiations, like the firm had agreed to last year, it would surely have proven to be a disaster

What does "it" refer to? The entire clause of "Proceeding without a plan...." maybe? That isn't right.

Also, like is not the correct word.

Bunuel

B. Proceeding without a definite plan for upcoming labor negotiations, as the firm agreed last year to do, would surely have proven to be a disaster

Hold

Our verb tenses make sense.

Bunuel

C. Going ahead without the presence of a definite plan for upcoming labor negotiations, like the firm had agreed last year to do, would surely have proven disastrous

Past Perfect error. There is no need for the "had" in "had agreed."

Also, like is not the correct word.

"without the presence of a plan" is a very weird thing to say.

Would you say: "Going to basketball practice without the presence of proper bball shoes is an ankle injury waiting to happen." Heck no.

Bunuel

D. To proceed without the presence of a definite plan for upcoming labor negotiations, as the firm had agreed to last year, would surely have proven disastrous

The only error I see here, as DmitryFarber pointed out, is that we have the past perfect "had agreed" and "have proven" without another past event that precedes the past perfect.

TBH, this one sounds fine to me from a verb tense perspective. The introductory infinitive "To proceed" probably throws a lot of people off from spotting the past perfect error.

"without the presence of a plan" is a very weird thing to say.

Would you say: "To host a sales meeting without the presence of a powerpoint slide deck would be a bad decision." Heck no.

Bunuel

E. Going ahead without their having a definite plan for upcoming labor negotiations, as they agreed to last year, it would surely have proven to be a disaster for the firm

(E) Never even introduces the subject (the firm), yet we're using several pronouns? Yikes.

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04 Nov 2022, 02:33

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Dear Friends,

Here is a detailed explanation to this question-

Bunuel

Concepts tested here: Pronouns + Tenses + Comparisons + Awkwardness/Redundancy

• The simple past tense is used to refer to an action that concluded in the past.
• The past perfect tense (marked by the use of helping verb "had") is used when a sentence contains two actions in the past; the helping verb "had" is used with the action in the "greater past".
• “like” is used for comparing nouns, “as” is used for comparing actions/clauses, and “such as” is used for giving examples.

A: This answer choice incorrectly uses the past perfect tense verb "had agreed" to refer to an action that concluded in the past; remember, the simple past tense is used to refer to an action that concluded in the past, and the past perfect tense (marked by the use of helping verb "had") is used when a sentence contains two actions in the past; the helping verb "had" is used with the action in the "greater past". Further, Option A incorrectly uses "like" to compare the actions "Proceeding without a definite plan" and "had agreed to last year"; remember, “like” is used for comparing nouns, “as” is used for comparing actions/clauses, and “such as” is used for giving examples. Additionally, Option A uses the needlessly wordy clause "it would surely have proven to be a disaster", leading to awkwardness and redundancy.

B: Correct. This answer choice avoids the pronoun error seen in Option E, as it uses no pronouns. Further, Option B correctly uses the simple past tense verb "agreed" to refer to an action that concluded in the past. Additionally, Option B correctly uses "as" to compare the actions "Proceeding without a definite plan" and "agreed last year to do". Besides, Option B is free of any awkwardness or redundancy.

C: This answer choice incorrectly uses the past perfect tense verb "had agreed" to refer to an action that concluded in the past; remember, the simple past tense is used to refer to an action that concluded in the past, and the past perfect tense (marked by the use of helping verb "had") is used when a sentence contains two actions in the past; the helping verb "had" is used with the action in the "greater past". Further, Option A incorrectly uses "like" to compare the actions "Going ahead without the presence of a definite plan" and "had agreed last year to do"; remember, “like” is used for comparing nouns, “as” is used for comparing actions/clauses, and “such as” is used for giving examples. Additionally, Option C uses the needlessly wordy phrase "Going ahead without the presence of a definite plan", leading to awkwardness and redundancy.

D: Trap. This answer choice incorrectly uses the past perfect tense verb "had agreed" to refer to an action that concluded in the past; remember, the simple past tense is used to refer to an action that concluded in the past, and the past perfect tense (marked by the use of helping verb "had") is used when a sentence contains two actions in the past; the helping verb "had" is used with the action in the "greater past". Further, Option D uses the needlessly wordy phrase "To proceed", leading to awkwardness and redundancy.

E: This answer choice incorrectly uses the plural pronouns "they" and "their" to refer to the singular noun "the firm". Further, Option E uses the needlessly wordy phrases "Going ahead without their having" and "it would surely have proven".

Hence, B is the best answer choice.

To understand the concept of "Simple Tenses" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~2 minutes):

To understand the concept of "Past Perfect Tense" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~2 minutes):

To understand the concept of "Like" versus "As" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~2 minutes):

All the best!
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27 Apr 2019, 05:00

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Bunuel

Proceeding without a definite plan for upcoming labor negotiations, like the firm had agreed to last year, it would surely have proven to be a disaster in the face of the skilled and resolute opposition involved this time.

A. Proceeding without a definite plan for upcoming labor negotiations, like the firm had agreed to last year, it would surely have proven to be a disaster
B. Proceeding without a definite plan for upcoming labor negotiations, as the firm agreed last year to do, would surely have proven to be a disaster
C. Going ahead without the presence of a definite plan for upcoming labor negotiations, like the firm had agreed last year to do, would surely have proven disastrous
D. To proceed without the presence of a definite plan for upcoming labor negotiations, as the firm had agreed to last year, would surely have proven disastrous
E. Going ahead without their having a definite plan for upcoming labor negotiations, as they agreed to last year, it would surely have proven to be a disaster for the firm

SC89941.01
Verbal Review 2020 NEW QUESTION

IMHO the correct answer is B

A. Proceeding without a definite plan for upcoming labor negotiations, like the firm had agreed to last year, it would surely have proven to be a disaster
B. Proceeding without a definite plan for upcoming labor negotiations, as the firm agreed last year to do, would surely have proven to be a disaster CORRECT
C. Going ahead without the presence of a definite plan for upcoming labor negotiations, like the firm had agreed last year to do, would surely have proven disastrous
D. To proceed without the presence of a definite plan for upcoming labor negotiations, as the firm had agreed to last year, would surely have proven disastrous
E. Going ahead without their having a definite plan for upcoming labor negotiations, as they agreed to last year, it would surely have proven to be a disaster for the firm

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27 Apr 2019, 23:30

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I still don't understand why option D is wrong?

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28 Apr 2019, 00:19

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DmitryFarber thanks understood. Also, im wondering if this is another problem with this sentence structure or not:
"To proceed without..... would have proven to be...." - is this wrong? should it instead be "To proceed without.... would prove to be..."

not sure if there is any rule it violates here^

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28 Apr 2019, 00:32

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That's not necessarily a problem. The version in D echoes the correct answer in that it addresses a hypothetical about a past event: if the firm HAD PROCEEDED without a plan, this WOULD HAVE proven disastrous. Your version addresses a future hypothetical: If the firm WERE to proceed without a plan in the future, this WOULD prove disastrous. That doesn't convey the meaning intended in the question.

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28 Apr 2019, 22:31

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Bunuel

Proceeding without a definite plan for upcoming labor negotiations, like the firm had agreed to last year, it would surely have proven to be a disaster in the face of the skilled and resolute opposition involved this time.

A. Proceeding without a definite plan for upcoming labor negotiations, like the firm had agreed to last year, it would surely have proven to be a disaster
B. Proceeding without a definite plan for upcoming labor negotiations, as the firm agreed last year to do, would surely have proven to be a disaster
C. Going ahead without the presence of a definite plan for upcoming labor negotiations, like the firm had agreed last year to do, would surely have proven disastrous
D. To proceed without the presence of a definite plan for upcoming labor negotiations, as the firm had agreed to last year, would surely have proven disastrous
E. Going ahead without their having a definite plan for upcoming labor negotiations, as they agreed to last year, it would surely have proven to be a disaster for the firm

SC89941.01
Verbal Review 2020 NEW QUESTION

Proceeding without a definite plan for upcoming labor negotiations, like the firm had agreed to last year, it would surely have proven to be a disaster in the face of the skilled and resolute opposition involved this time.
Now, Proceeding without a definite plan for upcoming labor negotiations is a noun phrase, and requires a verb after that.
Like is used to compare nouns and AS to compare actions or clause etc.

A. Proceeding without a definite plan for upcoming labor negotiations, like the firm had agreed to last year, it would surely have proven to be a disaster
...Proceeding without a definite plan for upcoming labor negotiations~~, like the firm had agreed to last year,~~ it would surely have proven to be a disaster
LIKE is wrong....requires a verb or a correct modifier.

B. Proceeding without a definite plan for upcoming labor negotiations, as the firm agreed last year to do, would surely have proven to be a disaster
The errors have been corrected

The remaining choices have also very obvious errors.

B

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Updated on: 04 Apr 2020, 09:36

Originally posted by thangvietnam on 29 Apr 2019, 09:00.
Last edited by thangvietnam on 04 Apr 2020, 09:36, edited 1 time in total.

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[quote="Bunuel"]Proceeding without a definite plan for upcoming labor negotiations, like the firm had agreed to last year, it would surely have proven to be a disaster in the face of the skilled and resolute opposition involved this time.

A. Proceeding without a definite plan for upcoming labor negotiations, like the firm had agreed to last year, it would surely have proven to be a disaster
B. Proceeding without a definite plan for upcoming labor negotiations, as the firm agreed last year to do, would surely have proven to be a disaster
C. Going ahead without the presence of a definite plan for upcoming labor negotiations, like the firm had agreed last year to do, would surely have proven disastrous
D. To proceed without the presence of a definite plan for upcoming labor negotiations, as the firm had agreed to last year, would surely have proven disastrous
E. Going ahead without their having a definite plan for upcoming labor negotiations, as they agreed to last year, it would surely have proven to be a disaster for the firm

what is the difference between 'to do' and 'doing" ?

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29 Apr 2019, 11:35

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thangvietnam "To proceed" and "to learn" are infinitives, so they don't have a tense, future or otherwise. You can say "To learn X would be hard" or "I found X hard to learn."

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22 May 2019, 21:06

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I'm sure I haven't caught all the errors in each answer choice, but I'll take a stab at explaining my choice.

Quote:

At first glance, this is a run-on sentence due to the "it." I'll rephrase it in a clearer way and remove the extra information.

"Last year, the firm agreed to follow a definite plan. Proceeding without that plan would have proven to be a disaster."

The conditional "would (surely) have" in the original sentence tells me that the firm followed a plan, and the result did not end in disaster.

Quote:

A. Proceeding without a definite plan for upcoming labor negotiations, like the firm had agreed to last year, it would surely have proven to be a disaster

Incorrect. Run-on sentence. "Had agreed" might be the wrong tense.

Quote:

B. Proceeding without a definite plan for upcoming labor negotiations, as the firm agreed last year to do, would surely have proven to be a disaster

"As the firm agreed last year to do" sounds a bit strange, and at first I got tripped up because I thought "do" was referring to "plan," and one does not "do" a plan. So what did the firm agree to do? To proceed. Looks fine, but I'll check the other choices.

Quote:

C. Going ahead without the presence of a definite plan for upcoming labor negotiations, like the firm had agreed last year to do, would surely have proven disastrous

Incorrect. "Presence of a definite plan" changes the meaning of the sentence. Also, "like" should be swapped for "as."

Quote:

D. To proceed without the presence of a definite plan for upcoming labor negotiations, as the firm had agreed to last year, would surely have proven disastrous

Incorrect. "Presence of a definite plan" changes the meaning of the sentence. Also, when rephrased, "To proceed as it agreed to" sounds wrong - it should be "To proceed as it agreed to do."

Quote:

E. Going ahead without their having a definite plan for upcoming labor negotiations, as they agreed to last year, it would surely have proven to be a disaster for the firm

Incorrect. Another run-on sentence. "Their" and "they" are not the correct pronouns for "firm." "Without their having" is an unnecessary change that is awkward and verbose. "Proceeding" is changed to the more informal and more unclear "going ahead." My opinion is that this is the worst answer choice if we're comparing the number of errors in each choice.

By process of elimination, the answer is B.

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25 May 2019, 10:26

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it is possble that to do show a fact, not a hypothetical future action. but in some patterns to do show a hypothetial actions and so, it go with only a few nouns in some patterns.

to learn gmat is to learn US
my purpose is to learn gmat well

above is correct because the meaning of future hypothetical action of to do is fit with purpose, a future thing.

in our problem, to proceed in choice d is wrong

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A peculiar part of this official question is the semantics behind the use of the term 'as agreed' or 'as had agreed" last year. What did the firm last year agree upon to do? It looks as if the firm agreed last year to come to the table without any preparation this year too. One may go to a negotiation table without preparation but never agree to go without preparation

One can understand if the diction is 'as it did last year' instead of "as it agreed or had agreed last year".

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30 May 2019, 00:38

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daagh Yes, it seems that this odd scenario is just what the sentence is suggesting. The firm actually agreed to proceed without a plan! Otherwise, what would "do" refer to? There's no mention of any action taken with a plan, so we have no choice!

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Updated on: 16 Jun 2019, 11:56

Originally posted by jawele on 14 Jun 2019, 11:25.
Last edited by jawele on 16 Jun 2019, 11:56, edited 1 time in total.

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Hi

Could anybody please comment on the following:

B. [ Subject ] Proceeding without a definite plan for upcoming labor negotiations, as the firm agreed last year to do, [ Verb ] would surely have proven to be a disaster

How the heck "to do" is parallel to anything since "proceeding" is a gerund, which plays a noun function (i.e. main subject) in this sentence. As many of you have already proposed, and I agree, "to do" finishes off as "to proceed". The problem seems to be that there is no "proceed" in the sentence. Why it can be implied? What's the reasoning behind this? Are there any other similar SC off. problems? This is frustrating ... this was one of those "aha! Parallelism issue" moments for me aaaaaaaaand ............. it's not.

Thank you guys

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09 Jul 2019, 11:36

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jawele

Quote:

For starters, it sounds like you might be assuming that two things are parallel just because they happen to be in the same form. That's backwards, in a way: parallelism occurs in a sentence when there's a darned good reason for it, such as some sort of parallelism "trigger" ("and", "or", etc.) that will indicate the presence of a list of some sort. (More on parallelism and meaning in this video.)

I suppose that you could argue that the comparison demands parallelism, but I think that misses the point. When you see a comparison, your job is to make sure that the comparison makes logical sense; I don't think it's a great idea to obsess over the structural parallelism, because the logic of the comparison is infinitely more important. (And if you want an excessive set of videos about comparisons, here's one video and here's another.)

The other key concept is that the word "do" (or "does" or "did") functions sort of like a pronoun, except that it refers back to a verb (or verb phrase) instead of a noun. For example:

did

ate four pizzas in an evening

The idea is similar here:

Replacing "do" with a verb form of "proceeding", we get:

proceed

No problem, right? The comparison makes perfect sense now -- and that's most important thing.

I hope this helps!

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10 Sep 2019, 14:36

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My understanding of this question is that: If the company did this in the past, it would have been disastrous -> The action "proceeding without plan" already happened -> The promise must come even before that -> Past-perfect tense -> I choose "D" because it has the word "had", which is the exact reason why you guys cross it out.

So can anyone help me understand what the phrase "Proceeding without a definite plan for upcoming labor negotiations would surely have proven to be a disaster" mean in simple English?
Also, when is the structure "would have...." normally used? Thanks guys

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10 Sep 2019, 19:46

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Darselle

Hi Darselle,

Last year
1. The opposition (labor representatives, most likely) was not "skilled and resolute".
2. The firm agreed to proceed without a definite plan for labor negotiations.

This year
3. The opposition was "skilled and resolute".
4. The firm did not try to move ahead without a definite plan for labor negotiations.
5. But if it had, the result would have been disastrous.

In other words, because the opposition was skilled and resolute this time around, the strategy that the firm followed last year would have "proven to be a disaster" if it had been adopted this year as well.

sssanskaar

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Schools: IIMA PGPX'23

GMAT 1: 710 Q48 V39 (Online) Verified score

Posts: 221

Kudos: 119

22 Sep 2020, 04:35

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Proceeding without a definite plan for upcoming labor negotiations, like the firm had agreed to last year, it would surely have proven to be a disaster in the face of the skilled and resolute opposition involved this time.

A. Proceeding without a definite plan for upcoming labor negotiations, like the firm had agreed to last year, it would surely have proven to be a disaster
B. Proceeding without a definite plan for upcoming labor negotiations, as the firm agreed last year to do, would surely have proven to be a disaster
C. Going ahead without the presence of a definite plan for upcoming labor negotiations, like the firm had agreed last year to do, would surely have proven disastrous
D. To proceed without the presence of a definite plan for upcoming labor negotiations, as the firm had agreed to last year, would surely have proven disastrous
E. Going ahead without their having a definite plan for upcoming labor negotiations, as they agreed to last year, it would surely have proven to be a disaster for the firm

SC89941.01
Verbal Review 2020 NEW QUESTION

I can understand why option B is the correct choice among all of the given options.
What I am facing difficulty with is the subject-verb agreement in all of these options -

B. Proceeding without a definite plan for upcoming labor negotiations, as the firm agreed last year to do, would surely have proven to be a disaster in the face of the skilled and resolute opposition involved this time.

Here, Proceeding (a gerund) is combined with 'would HAVE proven'. Can't wrap my head around this.