Sales of wines declines in the late 1980s, but they began to grow agai

Luckily, all five answer choices use "1991 report," so we don't need to worry about it!

I say this pretty often, and here it comes again: it's generally a bad idea to take something you see in one SC problem and turn it into a rigid rule. In THIS particular question, "1991" modifies "report" in every option, so we know that using the year as a modifier is okay here.

Does that mean we can, "conclude that any such phrases that can be written as <noun> OF <adj>, can also be written as <adj><noun>?" I wouldn't take it that far. GMAT SC isn't about coming up with a list of rules to blindly apply to future problems. It's about comparing five options and determining which is the best AMONG those five.

(Check out this post for more on that general idea.)

I hope this helps!

Dear experts, can you please help me clear the following doubts:
mikemcgarry IanStewart VeritasKarishma daagh EMPOWERgmatVerbal EMPOWERgmatRichC DmitryFarber GMATNinjaTwo

1. Moderate consumption of alcohol, particularly of red wine - this sentence structure is correct because of correct parallelism between "of alcohol" and "of red wine".
In case I tweak this sentence - moderate alcohol consumption, particularly of red wine - Will it be parallel?
As per my analysis - as long as we consider red wine to be a sub-group of "alcohol", this construction should be correct
If it is wrong, what is the exact reason?

2. While I know that "moderate alcohol consumption, particularly red wine" is incorrect. I am unable to dispel the thought that "red wine" can refer to a far away noun "alcohol". Then why is this construction incorrect?
As per my analysis - "particularly of red wine" is not correct because it is not a noun phrase. A noun phrase has a structure - "noun + that/which/of etc. + phrase describing the noun" - similar to "particularly of red wine"
Is my understanding correct?

3. In option B, while almost everyone has focused on "moderate alcohol consumption, particularly red wine,", I would like to know if the use of "past continuous tense" is correct?
As per my analysis - past continuous tense is used when we need to show that a simultaneous action is occurring along with another event. The action "they began growing," did not happen instantly after the report was published. Rather the growth must have taken time to manifest.
Is the applicability of past continuous tense correct?

aniket16c These are very subtle questions, and they take us beyond what the GMAT is likely to test. I can give my opinion, but I'm not sure all of these are amenable to a definitive ruling.

1. We can't say that your new version violates parallelism, since there really isn't a parallelism cue. Certainly, we can use a prepositional phrase in a modifier when it isn't also applied to the main noun: "Heavy rain, especially in the Northwest . . . " I don't think I'd be likely to write the thought the way you propose, but I wouldn't rule out an answer on that basis alone.

2. "Particularly red wine" (with or without the "of") is not a noun phrase, since "particularly" is not a noun. It's a modifier, and it can't modify "alcohol" because "alcohol" is itself just working as a modifier for "consumption." (Remember that when we see two nouns in a row, the first one is usually working as an adjective.) So "consumption" is the only noun available to modify.

3. The distinction about "began growing" vs. "began to grow" doesn't matter here, because anything that begins has to do so at some point in time. We might get away with "began growing" here, but it's clearly not required. I'd prefer the infinitive (as used in A), but I can't cite a rule for that.

Hi @lakshya-

The non-underlined portion of the sentence " Sales of wine declined in the late 1980s." is an independent clause that states a fact about wine sales in the late 1980s. This portion of the sentence could stand on its own. All requirements for an independent clause are fulfilled here- subject-verb pair, and complete meaning. If this was dependent one of these elements would be missing.

The "but" that follows indicates a contrast but has no bearing on the independent clause that precedes it.


Hope this helps.

Cheers!
Stacey

can you please explain in option A, and before particularly is joining with what.I did not understand what is parallel with particularly of red wine in option A.I eliminated all the other options but confused with option A .

report that linked moderate consumption of alcohol, and particularly of red wine

experts, what makes answer choice A correct? two commas are separated by a conjunction "and". how can that be correct?

Hi shenwenlim,

We can definitely arrive at Option A by elimination.
However, to answer your question first, it is not two commas that are separated by the conjunction ‘and’. The phrase “and particularly of red wine” is what is separated from the rest of the sentence by commas because the phrase provides some additional information.
The sentence itself is made up of two independent clauses –
1. Sales of wines declined in the late 1980s
2. they began to grow again after the 1991 report that linked moderate consumption of alcohol, and particularly of red wine, with a reduced risk of heart disease

These clauses are joined by the conjunction ‘but’, which indicates the slight contrasting meaning.
The second independent clause is made up of a subject + verb (they began) + predicate (to grow again after the 1991 report) + subordinate clause that describes ‘report’ (that linked moderate consumption of alcohol, and particularly of red wine, with a reduced risk of heart disease).
The two commas are merely setting off or helping to separate the phrase that provides extra information within that subordinate clause.

A quick look at eliminating the other options:

Option B can be eliminated because of the idiomatically inappropriate present continuous form “are growing”. One does not generally refer to the growth of sales in the continuous form.
However, there are other problems with this option. One is the indefinite article before the uncountable noun – a moderate alcohol consumption.
The other is the phrase “particularly red wine”. We cannot be sure which subject this phrase is modifying.
The word order is also awkward. It is better to place the contrast immediately after the first independent clause and then add the modifier.
So, Option B can be eliminated.

In Option C, the pronoun ‘them’ is ambiguous. While there are no other plural antecedents in the sentence, the pronoun is placed very far away from the noun ‘sales’. Moreover, the phrase “to begin to grow again” is also idiomatically inappropriate. So, Option C can be eliminated.

In Option D, the expression “began growing again” is idiomatically inappropriate. The more appropriate usage is “began to grow again”.
The subject of the phrase modifier “in particular red wine” is vague. The phrase may have modified alcohol consumption if it had been as follows – in particular of red wine.
The word order is also awkward just as it is in Option B.
So, Option D can be eliminated.

Option E conveys the meaning that a reduced risk of heart disease is linked to red wine in particular. However, the intended meaning is that a reduced risk of heart disease is linked to moderate alcohol consumption, particularly of red wine. Since the meaning is distorted and the word order is awkward in this option also, Option E can be eliminated.

Therefore, A is the most appropriate option as the order of words is clear.

This question is largely based on sentence construction and meaning. We must try to understand the intended meaning and look for the option that conveys it most effectively.

I hope this helps.

Jayanthi Kumar.

I would still like to understand how

"moderate consumption of alcohol, and particularly of red wine " are parallel.

it's like saying - " I ate fruits and apples. "

does not red wine come under alcohol?

Yes, but the sentence is telling us two things:

1) That the report linked moderate consumption of alcohol (in general) with a reduced risk of heart disease.
2) That the report linked moderate consumption of red wine (in particular) with a reduced risk of heart disease.

The correlation existed for alcohol in general, but it was even stronger in the case of red wine. Even though red wine is indeed a type of alcohol, the report is describing two separate and distinct findings. So the parallelism is acceptable here.

Thirsty, anyone??

Hi Experts,

Sales of wines declined in the late 1980s, but they began to grow again after the 1991 report that linked moderate consumption of alcohol, and particularly of red wine, with a reduced risk of heart disease.
Doubt
Whether "declined" is verb or "verb+ed" ?

I have read an article link

Here Sales is definitely not the doer of the action. I assumed that it is a modifier.

Can you please explain how to judge whether "declined" is a "verb" or a "verb+ed" modifier ?

GMATNinja ChiranjeevSingh

Firstly, I hope you realize that following is a complete sentence:

Sales of wines declined in the late 1980s.

If you agree that it is a complete sentence, it must have a verb (because very sentence must have a verb).

Now hopefully it should be clear that the only word in this sentence that qualifies as a verb, is declined. Hence, we know that declined is a verb.

This was a quick approach. Our book EducationAisle Sentence Correction Nirvana discusses a famework to distinguish between Simple Past tense verb and Past participle. If you or someone is interested, PM me your email-id; I can mail the corresponding section.

Actually, if we ask what "declined," we see that "sales" is what "declined."

Thus, "sales" is indeed the doer of the action "declined."

So, "Sales of wines declined in the late 1980s," is a clause with subject "sales" and main verb "declined."

is there a strong basis to eliminate option B] or its just the feel of it.

No GMAT answer will ever be right or wrong because of "the feel of it".


One issue is
a moderate alcohol consumption, particularly red wine
...which doesn't work because red wine is not a type of alcohol consumption.

These modifiers of the same type would both be fine here:
moderate alcohol consumption, particularly OF red wine
moderate consumption of alcoholic beverages, particularly red wine


Another problem is "began growing". The correct idiomatic pairing here is "began + TO [verb]".

in A] we have an oxford comma before 'and'?

I am unable to digest that 'alcohol' and 'red wine' are two elements of a list. I thought 'red wine' is used as an example of alcohol here?

in B] can we say 'growing' is a noun gerund in 'they began growing' what is wrong in using 'ing gerund' here besides the idiomatic rule

You have the correct intended meaning. They're not separate elements.

Making a parallel list of separate, independent elements is the job of "and" by itself.

When "and" has an ADVERB attached to it, that's no longer an accurate job description.
I'm sure you've seen plenty of sentences with cause/effect relationships that illustrate this distinction. For instance, all of the following constructions link a cause with its effect:
• "and thus"
• "and therefore"
• "and as a result"

Cause/effect seems to be GMAC's primary use case for "and + ADVERB", but similar constructs can be used for other relationships as well—including "and especially" or "and more particularly" to link a more general class of observations with a specific subset of those same observations.




It's unidiomatic. That's the problem.

If a structure is actually ungrammatical, then idiomatic usage is NEVER involved in that judgment.
"Unidiomatic" pairs of words/phrases are ALWAYS perfectly fine from a grammatical standpoint—that's the only reason why you even arrive at the point of using arbitrarily agreed conventions (idioms) to eliminate them!