Rather than ignore a company that seems about to fail, investment anal

Question

Rather than ignore a company that seems about to fail, investment analysts should recognize that its reorganization and recent uptick in revenue, combined with its dynamic new leadership, indicate that the firm’s prospects must be taken seriously.

A. Rather than ignore a company that seems about to fail,
B. Rather than ignoring a company that is about to seemingly fail,

A. Rather than ignore a company that seems about to fail,
B. Rather than ignoring a company that is about to seemingly fail,
C. Instead of a company that is seemingly about to fail being ignored,
D. Instead of ignore a company that seems about to fail,
E. In place of ignoring a company’s imminent failure seemingly about to occur,

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OG2020 NEW QUESTION

EMPOWERgmatVerbal · Accepted Answer

Hello Everyone!

Let's tackle this question, one thing at a time, and narrow down our options to the right answer! To begin, here's the original question with major differences highlighted in  orange :

Rather than ignore a company that seems about to fail, investment analysts should recognize that its reorganization and recent uptick in revenue, combined with its dynamic new leadership, indicate that the firm’s prospects must be taken seriously.

A. Rather than ignore a company that seems about to fail,
B. Rather than ignoring a company that is about to seemingly fail,

A.  Rather  than  ignore  a company  that seems about to fail ,
B.  Rather  than  ignoring  a company  that is about to seemingly fail ,
C.  Instead  of a company  that is seemingly about to fail  being  ignored ,
D.  Instead  of  ignore  a company  that seems about to fail ,
E.  In place  of  ignoring  a company’s  imminent failure seemingly about to occur ,

After a quick scan over the options, a few key differences jump out:

1. Rather than / Instead of / In place of ( Idioms & Meaning )
2. ignore / ignored / ignoring ( Subject-Verb Agreement & Parallelism )
3. that seems about to fail / that is about to seemingly fail / that is seemingly about to fail / imminent failure seemingly about to occur ( Wordiness )

Let's start with #1 on our list because it will eliminate 2-3 options right away.  While it might seem like the phrases "rather than" and "instead of" could be interchangeable, they are not:

Rather than  = shows preference of one item/action over another
 Instead of / In place of  = one item/action replaces another

For this sentence, it makes more sense to say that investment analysts should  prefer  one action over another. Therefore, using the phrase "rather than" makes more sense here:

A.  Rather than  ignore a company that seems about to fail,
B.  Rather than  ignoring a company that is about to seemingly fail,
C.  Instead of  a company that is seemingly about to fail being ignored,
D.  Instead of  ignore a company that seems about to fail,
E.  In place of  ignoring a company’s imminent failure seemingly about to occur,

We can eliminate options C, D, & E  because the phrases "instead of" and "in place of" don't convey the intended meaning.

Now that we've narrowed it down to only 2 options, let's tackle #2 on our list: ignoring/ignore/ignored.  This is actually an issue with parallelism! To make this easier to spot, we've added the non-underlined portion for you. Here's how they shake down:

A. Rather than  ignore  a company that seems about to fail, investment analysts should  recognize  that its reorganization and recent uptick in revenue, combined with its dynamic new leadership, indicate that the firm’s prospects must be taken seriously. 
This is  CORRECT ! The two actions being compared here are written using parallel verbs (ignore/recognize).

B. Rather than  ignoring  a company that is about to seemingly fail, investment analysts should  recognize  that its reorganization and recent uptick in revenue, combined with its dynamic new leadership, indicate that the firm’s prospects must be taken seriously. 
This is  INCORRECT  because the two actions being compared are not written using parallel verbs (ignoring/recognize).

There you have it - option A was the correct choice after all!

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

GMATGuruNY · Answer

I received a PM about the phrase in red.
 X is about to happen  =  X will soon happen .

A:  a company that seems  about to fail  
The phrase in green conveys the following meaning.
 The company will soon fail. 
Here, it appears that the company will ACTUALLY soon fail.

B:  a company that is  about to seemingly fail  
The phrase in red conveys the following meaning:
 The company will soon APPEAR TO fail .
Here, the company will only APPEAR TO fail but will not ACTUALLY fail -- a distortion of the intended meaning.
Eliminate B.

daagh · Answer

Rather than ignore a company that seems about to fail, investment analysts should recognize that its reorganization and recent uptick in revenue, combined with its dynamic new leadership, indicate that the firm’s prospects must be taken seriously.

A. Rather than ignore a company that seems about to fail,
B. Rather than ignoring a company that is about to seemingly fail,

(A) Rather than ignore a company that seems about to fail, --  The best choice

(B) Rather than ignoring a company that is about to seemingly fail, --- 1 about to seemingly fail is awkward. 2. For the sake of parallelism, we cannot use ignoring as parallel to 'should recognize'.  
 
(C) Instead of a company that is seemingly about to fail being ignored, --  1. Instead of is wrong 2. 'Being ignored' is a modifier for the company and hence is incorrect.  
 
(D) Instead of ignore a company that seems about to fail, --- Instead of wrong in the face of rather than 
 
(E) In place of ignoring a company's imminent failure seemingly about to occur, ---  clumsy sentence; In the place of and instead of are both equal in meaning.

JS1290 · Answer

This is based on a Manhattan question, which is quite interesting actually. Here is the link for anyone who is interested. Going through this will certainly help! https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/foru ... t1177.html

MikeScarn · Answer

Let's look at the   verb phrases   in  colors  to try to identify  parallel structure

(A) Rather than  ignore a C ,  analysts should recognize  that X and Y, combined with Z,  indicate  that the firm's prospects  must be taken  seriously.

(B) Rather than  ignoring a C ,  analysts should recognize  that X and Y, combined with Z,  indicate  that the firm's prospects  must be taken  seriously.

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Breaking the sentence down even further:

(A) Rather than  ignore , analysts should  recognize  that X and Y, combined with Z,  indicate  A.

(B) Rather than  ignoring , analysts should  recognize  that X and Y, combined with Z,  indicate  A.

sj24 · Answer

Hi.

As per the official explanation, "rather than ignoring" is correct.

reynaldreni · Answer

Rather than Vs. Instead Of

There IS a crucial difference between "rather than" and "instead of" that you should know.  "Rather than" is a conjunction  and so can be  followed by basically anything,  whereas  "instead of" is a (complex) preposition  -- and a preposition should be  followed only by a noun.

Now, the noun can be an "-ing" verb, known as a gerund. So, the sentences you quote are not grammatically wrong in this regard. However, the GMAT seems to prefer "rather than" in comparisons of verbs, because the parallelism is clearest:

(1) "I ski rather than snowboard." -- Correct.
(2) "I ski instead of snowboarding." -- Correct, but a 'little' less parallel, so (1) is slightly preferable. The GMAT probably won't test this point in isolation, though, so we're going to revise the question.

You can also use "rather than" to compare phrases or clauses. In that context, "instead of" is absolutely wrong, even though it's heard in spoken English:
(3) "I went in the cellar rather than in the attic." -- Correct.
(4) "I went in the cellar instead of in the attic." -- INCORRECT although this 'sounds' normal to me, to be honest! (That's why you have to retrain your ear -- it's not always grammatically right!)
(5) "I went in the cellar instead of the attic." -- Also correct. No difference in preference between (3) and (5).

As for the meaning of the two expressions -- to my ear, they have slightly different connotations or nuances ("instead of" sounds more like an actual replacement to me than "rather than," which is somehow softer), but the GMAT doesn't seem to test that connotational difference.

So -- when in doubt, go with "rather than"!

Source: manhattanprep

wolfman · Answer

GMATNinja  The answers already mentioned on the thread suggest that choice (B) is incorrect because 'ignoring' is not parallel to 'recognize'. I understand that both are acting as verbs (?) here and are parallel, am I correct? What am I missing?

Also, what's the deal with 'rather than' vs 'instead of' is that basis enough to reject other choices?

Thanks for your input, your post and videos have been tremendously helpful.

DmitryFarber · Answer

wolfman

A good rule of thumb is that -ing words are NEVER verbs, even though they are built from verbs. Imagine saying "I recognize the danger but ignoring it." We can't do it. We'd need to add a verb ("am ignoring") or use a normal verb form ("ignore," "will ignore," etc.).

Basshead · Answer

Aside from the parallelism issue, B also has a split infinitive:

B. Rather than ignoring a company that is about   to    seemingly    fail  ,

When an adverb (seemingly) appears between to and the verb itself, we get a split infinitive. In formal writing, it is considered bad style to split an infinitive.

A avoids this issue altogether and is the clear winner.

brt · Answer

Rather than ignore a company that seems about to fail, investment analysts should recognize that its reorganization and recent uptick in revenue, combined with its dynamic new leadership, indicate that the firm’s prospects must be taken seriously.

A. Rather than ignore a company that seems about to fail,
B. Rather than ignoring a company that is about to seemingly fail,

A. Rather than ignore a company that seems about to fail,
B. Rather than ignoring a company that is about to seemingly fail,
C. Instead of a company that is seemingly about to fail being ignored,
D. Instead of ignore a company that seems about to fail,
E. In place of ignoring a company’s imminent failure seemingly about to occur,

Rather than is used to show preference and instead of is used to show substitution. Here the verbs used are recognize, indicate etc so the ans should have ignore rather than ignoring. So the ans is A.

Aishyk97 · Answer

Hi  GMATNinja

Can we actually eliminate answer choices based on the use of instead of vs. rather than?

What would be a good approach to solve this question?

GMATNinja · Answer

(C) is gone right away because the contrast is off: "Instead of a company, investment analysts should recognize..." This seems to compare  a company  to  investment analysts , and that's not what we want.

(B) and (E) share a couple of similar issues:

"Rather than (or in place of)  ignoring , investment analysts should  recognize  that its reorganization..." In this phrase, notice that "ignoring" and "recognize" are not interchangeable. You can't say, "investment analysts should   ignoring  ..." It would be better to use "ignore" (e.g. "Rather than  ignore , investment analysts should  recognize ...") so that the items being contrasted are in the same form.
 
 In (B), "seemingly fail" is odd. If the company is about to " seemingly  fail," does that mean that it doesn't actually fail? That doesn't make any sense.
 
 (E) also has a funky meaning issue in the phrase "a company’s imminent failure seemingly about to occur". "Imminent" failure refers to a failure that's about to occur. So according (E), the thing that's  seemingly about  to occur is: the company is  about  to fail. Being "about to fail" isn't really something that "occurs". At best, this wording is redundant and confusing compared to the wording in (A): "a company that seems about to fail."

Now we're down to (A) vs (D), and the only decision point left to consider is "rather than ignore" vs. "instead of ignoring," and unfortunately this decision point is largely idiomatic. Take a look at these posts and see if they help at all:

https://gmatclub.com/forum/in-commercial-garment-construction-one-advantage-of-serging-over-sing-272095.html 
 
  https://gmatclub.com/forum/instead-of-vs-rather-than-vs-oppose-to-104503.html

VerbalBot · Answer

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Rather than ignore a company that seems about to fail, investment anal

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Rather than ignore a company that seems about to fail, investment anal

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