Section 301 of the 1988 Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness

Dear Friends,

Here is a detailed explanation to this question-

Meaning is crucial to solving this problem:
Understanding the intended meaning is key to solving this question; the intended meaning of the crucial part of this sentence is that if negotiations with an unfair trader do not end to the United States government's satisfaction, the United States Trade Representative is enabled to impose sanctions on the unfair trader.

Concepts tested here: Meaning + Verb Forms + Parallelism + Awkwardness/Redundancy

• All elements in a list must be parallel.
• "to + base form of verb" is the correct infinitive verb form construction.

A: This answer choice alters the meaning of the sentence through the phrase "conclude by the United States government's being satisfied"; the construction of this phrase leads to an incoherent meaning; the intended meaning is that if negotiations with an unfair trader do not end to the United States government's satisfaction, the United States Trade Representative is enabled to impose sanctions on the unfair trader. Further, Option A fails to maintain parallelism among "single out a country as an unfair trader", "begin trade negotiations with that country", and "to impose sanctions"; please remember, all elements in a list must be parallel.

B: This answer choice alters the meaning of the sentence through the phrase "conclude by the United States government's satisfaction"; the construction of this phrase leads to an incoherent meaning; the intended meaning is that if negotiations with an unfair trader do not end to the United States government's satisfaction, the United States Trade Representative is enabled to impose sanctions on the unfair trader.

C: This answer choice fails to maintain the correct infinitive verb form construction, as it uses the present participle ("verb+ing" - "imposing" in this sentence) rather than the base form of the verb; please remember, "to + base form of verb" is the correct infinitive verb form construction. Further, Option C uses the passive voice construction "the United States government's being satisfied", leading to awkwardness and redundancy.

D: Correct. This answer choice uses the phrase "conclude to the United States government's satisfaction", conveying the intended meaning - that if negotiations with an unfair trader do not end to the United States government's satisfaction, the United States Trade Representative is enabled to impose sanctions on the unfair trader. Further, Option D correctly uses the base form of the word - "impose", maintaining the correct infinitive verb form construction ("to + base form of verb' - "to + impose" in this sentence). Additionally, Option D maintains parallelism among "single out a country as an unfair trader", "begin trade negotiations with that country", and "impose sanctions". Besides, Option D is free of any awkwardness or redundancy.

E: This answer choice fails to maintain the correct infinitive verb form construction, as it uses the present participle ("verb+ing" - "imposing" in this sentence) rather than the base form of the verb; please remember, "to + base form of verb" is the correct infinitive verb form construction.

Hence, D is the best answer choice.

All the best!
Experts' Global Team

Contendors- B and D

Conclude to signifies reaching to an end. In general, the preposition 'To' is used to denote a destination; for instance , " Travelling to Venice" or more relevantly- "Don't jump to a conclusion."
The preposition 'by' mainly describes the 'how' of the action.
Example: " I've informed the mayor by calling his secretary" or "Donald Trump concluded his tenure of presidency by declaring a war with North Korea"
---D---
Hope it helps.

(A) by the United States government's being satisfied, to impose
error with parallelism (single, begin, to impose), conclude by is incorrect and government's being satisfied is also incorrect
(B) by the United States government's satisfaction, impose
conclude by.. satisfaction is not correct, parallelism is correct ( single, begin, impose)
(C) with the United States government's being satisfied, imposing
conclude with would change the meaning of the sentence, being satisfied is incorrect and parallelism is wrong (single, begin, imposing)
(D) to the United States government's satisfaction, impose
conclude to..satisfaction is correct, parallelism is correct- best choice
(E) to the United States government's satisfaction, imposing
conclude to... satisfaction is correct, parallelism is incorrect (single, begin, imposing)

Hi Rocket7, think about the construct in this way:

If the negotiations do not conclude to the United States government's satisfaction, Section 301 enables US Trade Representative to impose sanctions.

The issue is that the meaning is nonsensical.

"Conclude by" is used in a few ways, but "conclude by ... satisfaction" is meaningless. There is no way to "conclude by ... satisfaction."

Something can conclude by 2 pm, or someone can conclude by summarizing his points, but nothing can conclude by satisfaction.


The relevant idiom in this case is "x to y's satisfaction," which means that some person or group y is satisfied with outcome x.

Examples:

The job was completed to the board's satisfaction.

The car was fixed to the owner's satisfaction.

The negotiations concluded to our satisfaction.

Honestly though, this question is from a long time ago, and now the GMAT has moved away from using many idioms in order for the test to be fair to non-native speakers.

So, you don't need to study so called "GMAT idioms," which are really idiomatic expressions, much. You're better off going through an list of idiomatic expressions relatively quickly to review some and working on learning about prepositions and other things you need to understand in order to understand meaning conveyed than you are spending a lot of time on idioms.

For a list of some idiomatic expressions that may appear on the GMAT, see this post. 101 Common GMAT Idioms

Section 301 of the 1988 Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act is one thing, one section. So, "Section 301 of the 1988 Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act" is not a compound subject.

Notice that "Competitiveness Act" would not on its own be a subject. In order to work correctly as a subject, it would have to be "the Competitiveness Act."

So, if the subject were a compound subject, the word "the" would be repeated as in, "Section 301 of the 1988 Omnibus Trade and the Competitiveness Act ..."

I'm sorry but now I'm confused,

What is the difrence between:

- United States government's
- Government of the United States
- United States's government

Guys just wanted to ask you guys a quick question about if-then construction in this question. Here is what I am thinking and can anyone confirm if I am correct:

if simple present (do), then simple present (impose)
if the negotiations do not conclude..... then impose sanctions.

thanks

Section 301 of the 1988 Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act enables the United States Trade Representative to do ‘X’, ‘Y’ and ‘Z’

A - INCORRECT

1) ‘X’ and ‘Y’ use the active construction whereas ‘Z’ uses passive construction
2) Parallelism issue: to single| begin | to impose
3) ‘By’ – incorrect idiom

B - INCORRECT

1) By – incorrect idiom

C - INCORRECT

1) ‘X’ and ‘Y’ use the active construction whereas ‘Z’ uses passive construction
2) Parallelism issue: to single| begin | imposing

D – CORRECT

This uses the correct active form and more importantly uses the correct parallel structure
To (single| begin | impose)

E – INCORRECT

1) Parallelism issue: to single| begin | imposing

HI GMATNinja, mikemcgarry, egmat, DmitryFarber, MagooshExpert (Carolyn), ccooley, GMATGuruNY, EMPOWERgmatVerbal , EducationAisle

Can we eliminate the above two options based on the meaning that imposing -ing verb referring to the preceding clause and subject of that clause?

So here imposing refers to negotiations and negotiations cannot impose sanctions.

I know there is parallelism issue but I want to know is my above reason valid?

NandishSS I wouldn't read it that way. It's hard to say exactly what a sentence means when it's wrong, but we should use the overall structure. We need "impose" to be parallel with "single out" and "begin." These are the actions that the OTCA enables. The "if" part is a modifier for the verb "impose," and not the other way around.

Hi NandishSS, you seem to be suggesting that negotiations is the subject of the preceding clause. Actually the subject of the preceding clause is Section 301 (and not negotiations).

Nevertheless, we cannot interpret it in this manner for multiple reasons.

1) The structure you are referring to is:

Clause, present participial phrase.

For example: India won all the league matches, reaching the finals.

In this case however, the presence of and (and, if the negotiations…) precludes the possibility of interpreting C and E in the manner you have suggested.

2) In C and E, the barebones structure of the sentence is:

Section 301 enables United States to single out…, begin…, and imposing…

It is very clear that imposing is not parallel with single and begin.

MartyTargetTestPrep

Dear Marty,
could you elaborate, does it compound subject?

Section 301 of the 1988 Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act enables the United States Trade Representative to....

Section 301 of the 1988 Omnibus Trade
and
Section 301 of the Competitiveness Act
enables?

Why number(301) of Section 301 of one act and the same number of that of another act need to be same ? It doesn't make sense under normal circumstance. Even after repetition of "OF ", it doesn't make sense.
Secondly, Act is not repeated before and ( Section 301 of the 1988 Omnibus Trade ACT) . Again doesn't make sense.

Actually this part is anyways in non-underlined part, So I think its not worth arguing or imagining different scenarios.

If it were underlined, we would have other hints to accept or reject the part.

MartyTargetTestPrep mgmat egmat
Hi experts,

I can't understand why B is wrong?
Is it because - negotiation do not conclude by "satisfaction"- is senseless?

or its because of the idiom, conclude by - is always wrong?

Can you please suggest something about idioms, especially for non natives, its tough to decode the meaning!

*Is there a frequently tested list?

*Or should I strengthen my prepositions?
*If yes, Is there any reliable source for prepositions related to Gmat?

Thanks!