After decreasing steadily in the mid-1990's, the percentage of student

After decreasing steadily in the mid-1990's, the percentage of students in the United States finishing high school or having earned equivalency diplomas increased in the last three years of the decade, up to 86.5 percent in 2000 from 85.9 percent in 1999 and 84.8 percent in 1998.

(A) finishing high school or having earned equivalency diplomas increased in the last three years of the decade, up to 86.5 percent in 2000 from 85.9 percent in 1999 and
(B) finishing high school or earning equivalency diplomas, increasing in the last three years of the decade, rising to 86.5 percent in 2000 from 85.9 percent in 1999 and from
(C) having finished high school or earning an equivalency diploma increased in the last three years of the decade, and rose to 86.5 percent in 2000 from 85.9 percent in 1999 and from
(D) who either finished high school or they earned an equivalency diploma, increasing in the last three years of the decade, rose to 86.5 percent in 2000 from 85.9 percent in 1999 and
(E) who finished high school or earned equivalency diplomas increased in the last three years of the decade, to 86.5 percent in 2000 from 85.9 percent in 1999 and


I confirm: the OA is E. (well said aditya8062 )
The use of the -ing form modifies the noun before, Unites States in this case. This is clearly wrong: out A B C. D is unclear: "they" makes the sentence redundant.

The idiom in this sentence is To X From Y? Is that correct?

to 86.5 percent in 2000 from 85.9 percent

Yes, that's correct. But if I am not mistaken, also the other way round is correct "From X to Y"; both cases are fine.

Hello egmat, how can who modify United States? Can who modify a country?

Please note that when "who" is used as a non-essential modifier, ie. with a comma right before "who", then "who" modifies the noun right before the comma.
Else, when "who" is used as an essential modifier, ie. without a comma right before "who", then "who" doesn't necessarily modify the noun right before the comma. So, in this case, "who" modifies "students in the United States".

Here are my colorful 2 cents on the answer choices.

Hi "mohish",

Well, that's what my point is. The way cannot refer to United States, in the same way the other noun modifiers after "United States" also do not refer to the Unites States because logically they all refer to a little far away noun "students".

Thanks.
Shraddha

Thanks Shraddha for your response. It is clear now.

In Choice E isn't comma between decade & 86.5 wrong?

"who finished high school or earned equivalency diplomas increased in the last three years of the decade, to 86.5 percent in 2000 from 85.9 percent in 1999 and"

The phrase needs a "who" because saying "someone having done something" is not idiomatic. Answer choice D has "they", rendering the answer choice incorrect. Answer choice E is the correct one.

egmat,

Between A and E - how do we get to the correct answer? why is A incorrect and E the correct answer choice?

Thanks!

Hi egmat,

Thanks for your elaborate reply.

Though now I know why we cant eliminate A, B, C outright due to the noun modifier rules just explained, I am having trouble to find out on what grounds exactly we eliminated A,B,C .

Is it due to -
A - increased..up to = ''up'' being incorrect/redundant
B - no verb hence its a sentence fragment
C - increased.. and rose to = ''rose'' being incorrect/redundant ; Also, , and is not required because the intention is to use this part as a modifier rather than as an independent clause and there is no Independent clause following it

Is my understanding for POE correct?

A: Correct idiomatic construction is ‘from X to y’ – Notice the ‘up to 86.5’ is incorrect
B: Fragment – no verb for the subject ‘the percentage of students in the United States’
C: Increased AND rose are redundant
D: Parallelism violated in ‘either X or y’
E: Correct

Notice correct structure is 'from X and Y to Z'. On the other hand, structure 'from X and from Y to Z' is wordy and the second 'from' can be omitted.

Hi Experts

GMATNinja KarishmaB MartyTargetTestPrep

Sir is having finished and having earned equivalency in option C and A wrong? If yes then why?

And also except for idiom error (upto) what other things are wrong in option A

Same question as above for option C

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(A) finishing high school or having earned equivalency diplomas increased in the last three years of the decade, up to 86.5 percent in 2000 from 85.9 percent in 1999 and

(C) having finished high school or earning an equivalency diploma increased in the last three years of the decade, and rose to 86.5 percent in 2000 from 85.9 percent in 1999 and from

'finishing'/'earning' are present participles while 'having finished'/having earned' are perfect participles (they show completion). Perfect participles often show what happened because of the completion of the action.

Having earned a diploma in theatre, she moved to New York.
It gives you the reason why she moved to New York. Likely to be where Broadway is.

'high school and equivalency diplomas' are equal elements. So they must be in parallel. One does one or the other and both are considered equal.
Hence it doesn't make sense to use present participle for one and perfect participle for the other. If we are to add the numbers, we should add of people "who have finished high school and who have earned the diploma" or we should add numbers of people "who are in the process of finishing high school and in the process of earning the diploma."
We can't add "finished high school" to "earning diploma."

Hence both (A) and (C) are incorrect.

Option (C) has two verb phrases joined with 'and' though the two verb phrases are not independent actions.

... the percentage of students in US increased in the last three years of the decade, and rose to 86.5 percent ...

It did not do two actions - increase and rise. The rise is an explanation of the increase so a prepositional phrase is enough as done in (E).

(B) finishing high school or earning equivalency diplomas, increasing in the last three years of the decade, rising to 86.5 percent in 2000 from 85.9 percent in 1999 and from


... the percentage of students in US ... increasing in the last three years of the decade, rising to ...

The main verb is missing. It is a sentence fragment.

(D) who either finished high school or they earned an equivalency diploma, increasing in the last three years of the decade, rose to 86.5 percent in 2000 from 85.9 percent in 1999 and

Either X or Y - X and Y should be parallel.
either finished high school or they earned an equivalency diploma

Here the two are not parallel. X is a verb phrase while Y is a clause (with subject).
Also ' who either ...' modifies 'students' and 'increasing ...' modifies 'percentage' which is far away.

(E) who finished high school or earned equivalency diplomas increased in the last three years of the decade, to 86.5 percent in 2000 from 85.9 percent in 1999 and

'finished' and 'earned' are parallel. Prepositional phrase 'to 86.5 ...' is used. Everything is correct here.

Answer (E)