Corporations will soon be required to report to the government whether

Question

Corporations will soon be required to report to the government whether they have the necessary reserves to pay the pension benefits  earned by their employees and that the information be published  in annual reports to shareholders.

(A) earned by their employees and that the information be published

(B) that their employees earned and that the information be published

(C) that was earned by their employees with the information being published

(D) earned by their employees, information that must also be published

(E) earned by their employees and published the information

egmat · Accepted Answer

Hi All,

Corporations will soon be required to report to the government whether they have the necessary reserves to pay the pension benefits  earned by their employees and that the information be published  in annual reports to shareholders.

https://e-gmat.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Meaning-icon-final.png

As usual we will begin by understanding the meaning of this sentence. The sentence is saying that corporations will soon be asked to report to report to the government whether they have the necessary funds to pay the pension benefits earned by their employees. In addition, they will be required to publish this information in annual reports to shareholders.

https://e-gmat.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Grammar.png

Now let’s find the errors by splitting the sentence into clauses:

Cl 1:  Corporations   will  soon  be required  to report to the government
Cl 2: whether  they   have  the necessary reserves to pay the pension benefits  earned by their employees 
Cl 3:  and that  the information   be published   in annual reports to shareholders.

Error Analysis:

1. Presence of “and” indicates the presence of a list. Hence, it is very important to identify correct entities in the list. So the list in the sentence is:
Corporations will soon be required to X and Y.
X = report to the government whether they have the necessary reserves to pay the pension benefits earned by their employees
Y = that the information be published in annual reports to shareholders.

These two entities are not parallel because the first entity is written in “to verb” form while the second one is written in subjunctive verb form.

POE:

A. earned by their employees and that the information be published:   Incorrect   for the reason stated above.

B. that their employees earned and that the information be published:   Incorrect.   Repeats the same parallelism error as in choice A.

C. that was earned by their employees with the information being published:   Incorrect.

1. Singular “was” does not agree in number with plural “pension benefits”. 
2. This sentence distorts the meaning of the sentence. This choice now says that employees earned the benefits with information that was being published in the annual reports. This is clearly not the intended meaning.

D. earned by their employees, information that must also be published:   Correct.   This choice discards the parallelism in the sentence to convey the intended meaning most effectively. Here “information that must also be published…” is a Noun (information) + Noun Modifier “that must be…”) that modifies the preceding clause “whether they have…”.

E. earned by their employees and published the information:   Incorrect.   Past tense “published” is cannot follow “to” and to logically make “to require” and “to publish” parallel.

Hope this helps.
Thanks.
Shraddha

daagh · Answer

This SC is testing sentence construction, use of proper tense etc Corporations will soon be required to do two things. 1. report to the government that they have the necessary reserves to pay the pension benefits earned by their employees and 2. publish that info in the annual reports.

Let us take A. The first part of the sentence uses the infinitive  to require  while the second part employs  the subjunctive mood . This is unparallel.

B also suffers the same malady. In addition, the use of simple past tense earned is rather in appropriate in its implication that such a rule may not apply to current and future earnings. Logical predication is tested here,

C suffers from the use of past tense for the earnings and also from using the GMAT –averse being .  Benefits that was  earned has a number error.

D is perhaps the best choice, using  the past participle earned  and qualifying the entire first portion with appositive noun  information

E is awful by its use of  published  the information for a sentence that uses the future tense  will soon be required to  as the main verb.

Strangely though, I feel that the best way to write this sentence will be - - See how close this is to choice E and yet so far away because of two alphabets.

srini123 · Answer

228. Corporations will soon be required to report to the government whether they have the necessary reserves to pay the pension benefits earned by their employees and that the information be published in annual reports to shareholders.
(A) earned by their employees and that the information be published ( and that the information  has no parallel before  and )
(B) that their employees earned and that the information be published - " pension benefits that someone earned " is wrong; its right to say "pension benefits earned"
(C) that was earned by their employees with the information being published
(D) earned by their employees, information that must also be published - correct (corps will be required to report to the govt. _____ , information ; here the ____ is the 'information' and information correctly modifies the phrase before ,(comma)
(E) earned by their employees and published the information - awkward

IMO D, what is OA?

dixitraghav · Answer

Corporations will be required to X (report... whether... employees) and (to) Y. Except X and Y are not parallel in the original. Eliminate A. Check the other choices for this same issue.

B is matching up the wrong info again - trying to make "that their employees earned" and "that the information" parallel, but that can't work. Then the second item would read "the pension benefits... that the information be published." Doesn't make sense. Eliminate B.

C and D remove the parallelism (the word "and" is gone). Skip those for a moment.

E again has a parallelism problem. Can't match it up with "whether they have" because "whether they have" is in present tense, while "have published" would be present perfect. If you're going to reuse "have" for a present perfect construction, then the first part also needs to be written in present perfect. (Example: She has written three books and published two. "has written... and (has) published.") Eliminate.

Back to C. Now, the meaning is messed up. It seems to be saying that the employees had something to do with the information being published? Eliminate. So D is the answer - only one left.

Now we've got this construction: 
Corporations will soon be required to X (report whether they pay the benefits earned), information (referring back to X) that must (here's the requirement again!) be published...

So it maintains the original meaning (two things will be required), and it appropriately introduces the new word "information" to refer back to the entire concept discussed in X.

daagh · Answer

Information is the appositive that the corporations should say whether they have the necessary reserves to pay the pension benefits earned by their employees. The second part says that the information must also be published. For example, Pl. look at the following passage

People do not mind spending any amount of money when their lives are involved, a fact that is well exploited by the healthcare industry.

Here what is the word   a fact  standing for? Isn’t the entire clause before?

thevenus · Answer

Read the argument as, 
Corporations will soon be required  to report  to the government  whether    (i) they have the necessary reserves to pay the pension benefits earned by their employees  and   (ii) that the information be published in annual reports to shareholders.

"whether" is a connecting two Govt. orders ( of subjunctive ) so try to fix "whether" before the opening of both the parts, you will sure get the answer.

Corporations will soon be  required   to report  to the government  whether  they have the necessary reserves to pay the pension benefits earned by their employees AND   required   whether  that the information  be published in annual reports to shareholders

in (C) "that" is used for particular case, here the Govt. is mentioning for everyone(involved)

(A) earned by their employees and that the information be published
(B) that their employees earned and that the information be published
(C) that was earned by their employees with the information being published
 (D) earned by their employees, information that must also be published 
subjunctive tone applicable for both the orders from the Govt.is perfectly matched.
(E) earned by their employees and published the information

daagh · Answer

(A) earned by their employees and that the information be published ---- combination of infinitive and command subjunctive is un//.

(B) that their employees earned and that the information be published— same as in A

(C) that was earned by their employees with the information being published ---  benefits that was earned – SV error.

(D) earned by their employees, information that must also be published ---  The appositive modifier phrase rightly modifies the the corporations’ report to the Govt. . correct choice

(E) earned by their employees and published the information ----  Earned by their employees is past participle while published is past tense --- Unparallel

AliciaSierra · Answer

Hello egmat/Shraddha,

Could you explain below option once again. I could not get why "publish" cannot follow "to". It is grammatically wrong ?

E. earned by their employees and published the information:   Incorrect.   Past tense “published” is cannot follow “to” and to logically make “to require” and “to publish” parallel

Regards,

EducationAisle · Answer

Hi ammuseeru, E does not use  publish ; it uses  published .

Clearly,  published  cannot follow  to  (basically  to published  is incorrect).

egmat · Answer

Hello ammuseeru , Thank you for the query. :-)

Choice E uses the verb published which is in simple past tense. But in the structure "to verb", to CANNOT be followed by a verb in simple past tense. To must be followed by the base form of the verb, the form that is not followed by suffixes such as "s", "ed", "ing", etc. For example: He has gone to play tennis. She took her mother's help to finish her project. For this very reason, Choice E is incorrect because to cannot be followed by published . Hope this helps. Thanks. Shraddha

Skywalker18 · Answer

Corporations will soon be required to report to the government whether they have the necessary reserves to pay the pension benefits  earned by their employees and that the information be published  in annual reports to shareholders.
(A) earned by their employees and that the information be published - parallelism issue 
(B) that their employees earned and that the information be published - here second choice will read as pension benefits that the information be published - parallelism issue
(C) that was earned by their employees with the information being published - subject verb agreement - benefits required were , also usage of with gives non-sensical meaning

(D) earned by their employees, information that must also be published

(E) earned by their employees and published the information -  "E again has a parallelism problem. Can't match it up with "whether they have" because "whether they have" is in present tense, while "have published" would be present perfect. If you're going to reuse "have" for a present perfect construction, then the first part also needs to be written in present perfect.
 (Example: She has written three books and published two. "has written... and (has) published.") Eliminate. "  - This is Stacey's explanation(MGMAT) on BTG

Past tense “published” is cannot follow “to” and to logically make “to require” and “to publish” parallel.- eGMAT's explanation for E

But in my opinion - the 2 parallel elements in E are - 
whether 
 they have the necessary reserves to pay the pension benefits earned by their employees
 and (have) published the information

Whereas , as per e-gmat explanation , it seems that- pension benefits earned by their employees (Verb ed modifier)
 and published the information ( pension benefits published is non- sensical )

daagh  ,  egmat  ,  mikemcgarry  ,  sayantanc2k  , RonPurewal  , GMATNinja  , EMPOWERgmatRichC  ,  GMATNinjaTwo  other experts - please help with correct interpretation .

mikemcgarry · Answer

Dear Skywalker18 , I'm happy to respond.

This SC question, like all the official questions, is absolutely brilliant. As someone who writes questions professionally, I am always in awe of the official questions! The OA, choice (D), is a paragon of elegance and well-spoken expression. Choice (E) is a brilliant trap answer for folks who think narrowly and mechanically about parallelism. In the narrow sense, (E) appears grammatically correct, because the two participles, " earned . . . and published " appear to be in parallel. There's no obvious grammar flaw there. It would be fine to say: The CEO of the multinational XYZ has the highest salary of any CEO, earned in euros and published in Forbes . In that sentence, the two participles are correctly in parallel. The problem is that, in this SC problem, choice (E) changes the meaning . Part of what the prompt conveys is that the " earning " is already happening , but the " publishing " of this information is something new that the law is going to require . These two participles have matching grammatical forms, so they appear parallel, but ultimately, parallelism is NOT a grammatical construction. Parallelism is a logical construction, and the matching grammar serves to make clear the underlying logical pattern. These two actions are not logically parallel, because one already is happening and the other is going to be required to happen. Stating them in parallel as choice (E) has implies that they both are already happening, and this contradicts the information from the prompt. That's why people say have been calling this version "nonsense," because it uses the superficial appearance of parallelism to create a meaning that complete departs from the prompt. Remember, the GMAT SC is NOT a test of grammar . Instead, on the GMAT SC, grammar and logic and rhetoric all have to come together to produce meaning. A well constructed sentence is one in which the meaning is supported grammatically, logically, and rhetorically, and the GMAT wants to know that you can identify such well constructed sentences. Official questions such as this one are designed, among other things, to punish students who focus exclusively on grammar, to the neglect of the other elements. Does all this make sense? Mike

Rishovnits · Answer

Hi, I have a question regarding the correctness of option A. As per your explanation for option A, subjunctive verb and to verb are not parallel. As per my knowledge, "require" can be used both in subjunctive mood and well as in to verb. In that case, can the usage in both forms not be parallel? Can you please clear my doubt?

thanks in advance.

thanks in advance.

AjiteshArun · Answer

Let's take a look at the sentence that option A leads to:

Corporations will soon be required to report  to the government whether they have the necessary reserves to pay the pension benefits earned by their employees   and  that the information be published in annual reports to shareholders.

Ignoring any other issues, we get:

Corporations will soon be required to report...  ← This is fine.
 and 
 corporations will soon be required that the information be published.  ← This is not correct. Corporations can  be required   to , but they can't  be required   that .

The second half doesn't make sense, because the main verb is passive ( will be required ). We'd really be looking for an  it  as the subject if we had to go for a  require that  with a passive verb.

It  is required that the information be published...

thangvietnam · Answer

in choice d, i do not understand how "information that..." modifies "whether ..." clause. pls. explain, thank you

VeritasPrepErika · Answer

In D, "information that must also be published in annual reports to shareholders" is an appositive that modifies "whether they have the necessary reserves to pay the pension earned by their employees". Appositives are nouns/noun phrases that modify the noun/noun phrase they are adjacent to by redefining or renaming them.

Structurally this works. "Information..." is a straightforward noun phrase. "Whether..." is a less common noun phrase construction, but a noun phrase nonetheless — if we think about the sentence in terms of Subject-Verb-Object, the subject is "Corporations", the verb is "will be required to report", and the object (the thing corporations are required to report) is "whether the have the necessary reserves". An object is a noun, so "whether..." must be a noun, despite its strange construction. So we have two noun phrases adjacent to each other, creating the structure of an appositive.

The meaning of the appositive also works. The appositive tells us that "whether they have the necessary reserves... " is "information that must be published... ", which is logical.

Takeaway: when your modifier is a noun/noun phrase, it must be an appositive, and thus must describe another noun/noun phrase.

dcummins · Answer

That and That are relative pronouns modifying benefits. The requirement is to report the information.

ChiranjeevSingh · Answer

Here's the   official explanation   provided by the GMAC for this question:
 
The original version of the sentence suggests that the author intended to convey the idea that a new regulation would require corporations to report certain information both to the government and to the shareholders. However, the sentence is ungrammatical, and its structure is incoherent.
 
 Option A:  The sentence is ungrammatical, and its structure is incoherent.  And that the information be published  … appears intended to be within the scope of  will soon be required , but  will soon be required that  makes no sense. This structure seems literally to say that corporations will be required to report two things to the government: (1) whether they have the necessary reserves and (2) that the information be published in annual reports to shareholders. However, on that interpretation the subjunctive verb form  be  makes no sense.

Option B:  This has the same flaws as answer choice A except that  earned by their employees  is expressed here in the active voice:  that their employees earned .

Option C:   With the information being published  … illogically appears to modify  earned by their employees .

Option D:  Correct. With this wording, the sentence is grammatically correct and logically coherent.

Option E:  This could plausibly be intended to say that corporations will be required to report both whether they have certain reserves and whether they published certain information in shareholder reports, but the complex series of nested phrases without clarifying punctuation makes the sentence as a whole difficult to parse and not clearly coherent.
 
The correct answer is D.

Please note that I'm not the author of this explanation. I'm just posting it here since I believe it can help the community.

Basshead · Answer

Corporations will soon be required to report to the government whether they have the necessary reserves to pay the pension benefits  earned by their employees and that the information be published  in annual reports to shareholders.

(A) earned by their employees and  that the information be published

-- Parallelism issue.

(B) that their employees earned and  that the  information be published

-- Parallelism issue.

(C) that was earned by their employees with the information  being  published

-- 'being' is incorrect here.

(D) earned by their employees,  information that must also be published

-- Correct. We have an appositive modifying a noun/noun phrase.

(E)  earned by their employees  and published the information

-- if we remove the 'earned by their employees' portion, the sentence does not make sense.

Answer is D.

Corporations will soon be required to report to the government whether

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GMAT Sentence Correction (SC - EA only) Questions

Corporations will soon be required to report to the government whether

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