Targeted toward the crucial 18-49 demographic, each of the television

Question

Targeted toward the crucial 18-49 demographic, each of the television network’s new scripted dramas feature attractive, bankable stars both from the music and modeling industries, known more for their good looks than for their acting abilities.

A. Targeted toward the crucial 18-49 demographic, each of the television network’s new scripted dramas feature attractive, bankable stars both from the music and modeling industries, known more for their good looks than for their acting abilities.

B. Targeted at the crucial 18-49 demographic, each of the television network’s new scripted dramas features attractive, bankable stars from both the music and modeling industries, known more for their good looks than for their acting abilities.

C. Targeted at the crucial 18-49 demographic, each of the television network’s new scripted dramas features attractive, bankable stars both from the music and modeling industries, known more for their good looks than for their abilities as actors.

D. Targeted to the crucial 18-49 demographic, each of the television network’s new scripted dramas feature attractive, bankable stars from both the music and modeling industries, known more for their good looks than for their abilities as actors.

E. Targeted to the crucial 18-49 demographic, each of the television network’s new scripted dramas features attractive, bankable stars both from the music and modeling industries, known more for their good looks than for their acting abilities.

Verbal Question of The Day: Day 21: Sentence Correction 
 Subscribe to GMAT Question of the Day:   E-mail  |  RSS 
 For All QOTD Questions  Click Here

GMATNinja · Accepted Answer

I don’t think this is a particularly difficult question, and if you’re doing it the right way, it’s a really quick and painless question. But there are some speedbumps here if you’re not focused on the right issues. The semi-trap in this question: if you’re distracted by the idiom, you’re missing the point. In real life, I don’t know anybody – including any of my friends who are native English speakers and/or professional editors – who knows or cares whether the correct idiom is “targeted toward”, “targeted to”, “targeted at”, or “targeted on.” It’s a dumb thing for the GMAT to test, in my opinion. But the GMAT doesn't care what I think.

More importantly: if you see an idiom split and you’re not 100% sure what the right idiom is, look for other stuff. Sure, sometimes there’s no way to escape the idiom. But if they give you an opportunity to “work around” the idiom, please take it. (More on idioms -- and why they might not be worth studying -- in this article .) And there’s another potential distraction here: the word “their” looks ambiguous, since it could refer to “industries” or “stars” – and since “industries” is the most recent plural noun, the pronoun doesn’t look ideal. But pronoun ambiguity isn’t ALWAYS wrong on the GMAT: click here for an old thread on this topic, click here for an official example of acceptable pronoun ambiguity -- and we also covered this issue in a YouTube video . And in this situation, the pronoun is irrelevant, anyway: “their” appears in all five answer choices, in exactly the same place. Bottom line: if you didn’t get sidetracked by the pronouns or idiom, you win. “Each” is singular, so “each… feature” is wrong. Plus, “both from… and modeling” is not parallel. We don’t even need to think about the idiom or the pronouns. Eliminate (A). Both the parallelism and subject-verb agreement look good here. Let’s keep (B). Subject-verb is fine here, but the parallelism error is the same as in (A). We can still ignore the idiom and the pronouns. Eliminate (C). The parallelism is acceptable here, but “each… feature” doesn’t work. And we still have no reason to worry about the idiom. (D) is gone. Parallelism error again, so (E) is gone, and (B) is our winner.

warriorguy · Answer

Question :  Targeted toward the crucial 18-49 demographic, each of the television network’s new scripted dramas feature attractive, bankable stars both from the music and modeling industries, known more for their good looks than for their acting abilities.

The subject of the main clause -   each   of the television network’s new scripted dramas --> is singular because of the presence of keyword - 'each'. So we need a singular verb - features.

Looking at the idiom, both X and Y - X and Y need to be parallel -

Targeted at - seems idiomatic as it conveys the meaning aptly - the intended audience

Analyzing each option: -

A. Targeted toward the crucial 18-49 demographic, each of the television network’s new scripted dramas  feature  attractive, bankable stars  both from the music and modeling industries,  known more for their good looks than for their acting abilities.
- Subject Verb agreement error and idiom error.

B. Targeted at the crucial 18-49 demographic, each of the television network’s new scripted dramas  features  attractive, bankable stars from both the music and modeling industries, known more for their good looks than for their acting abilities.

Corrects both the errors from option A.

C. Targeted at the crucial 18-49 demographic, each of the television network’s new scripted dramas  features  attractive, bankable stars   both from the music and modeling industries  , known more for their good looks than for their abilities as actors.

idiom error in C - from the music is not || to modelling industries

D. Targeted to the crucial 18-49 demographic, each of the television network’s new scripted dramas  feature  attractive, bankable stars from both the music and modeling industries, known more for their good looks than for their abilities as actors.
 
 Subject- Verb agreement error

E. Targeted to the crucial 18-49 demographic, each of the television network’s new scripted dramas features attractive, bankable stars both from the music and modeling industries, known more for their good looks than for their acting abilities.

idiom error in C - from the music is not || to modelling industries

Choice B seems correct -

AliciaSierra · Answer

Targeted toward the crucial 18-49 demographic, each of the television network’s new scripted dramas feature attractive, bankable stars both from the music and modeling industries, known more for their good looks than for their acting abilities. 
 
A. Targeted toward the crucial 18-49 demographic,  each of the television network’s new scripted dramas   feature  attractive, bankable stars both from the music and modeling industries, known more for their good looks than for their acting abilities. ---  each of the   is singular so verb should be  features . Eliminate this option
B. Targeted at the crucial 18-49 demographic, each of the television network’s new scripted dramas features attractive, bankable stars  from both the music and modeling  industries, known more for their good looks than for their acting abilities.--  S-V are in agreement. Idiom Both-And is correct . 
C. Targeted at the crucial 18-49 demographic, each of the television network’s new scripted dramas features attractive, bankable stars  both from the music and modeling  industries, known more for their good looks than for their abilities as actors. -- Sentence uses Both from X and Y. Idiom should be Both from X and from Y. 
D. Targeted to the crucial 18-49 demographic, each of the television network’s new scripted dramas feature attractive, bankable stars  from both  the music  and  modeling industries, known more for their good looks than for their abilities as actors. ---  Same as A. Eliminate this option .
E. Targeted to the crucial 18-49 demographic, each of the television network’s new scripted dramas features attractive, bankable stars  both from  the music  and  modeling industries, known more for their good looks than for their acting abilities.---  wrong usage of idiom. Sentence uses Both from X and Y. Idiom should be Both from X and from Y

I go for option B

pratik521992 · Answer

Hi  GMATNinja

I have one small query.
Can you please enlightened me that -> what is  their  in the line "known more for their good looks than for their acting abilities" is pointing to?
although every option is same in this aspect, but just for my clarity i would like to know why we don't have an ambiguity as  their  can point to starts as well as industries........

GMATNinja · Answer

The important thing to keep in mind is that pronoun ambiguity isn't an absolute rule on the GMAT. (More on that in  this video .) Sure, if the ONLY difference between two answer choices is that one has an ambiguous pronoun and the other does not, then you'd obviously prefer the answer choice without pronoun ambiguity. But in plenty of official questions, the correct answer might technically have some pronoun ambiguity -- it's just that the other answer choices would have WORSE errors in that scenario.

In this particular question, the pronouns are the same in all answer choices, so they're an absolute non-issue.

I hope this helps!

daagh · Answer

'Their' is no issue at all about ambiguity between the stars and industries since we expect neither good looks nor acting abilities from the industries.

hiranmay · Answer

Targeted toward the crucial 18-49 demographic, each of the television network’s new scripted dramas feature attractive, bankable stars both from the music and modeling industries, known more for their good looks than for their acting abilities.

A. Targeted toward the crucial 18-49 demographic,  each  of the television network’s new scripted dramas  feature  attractive, bankable stars both from the music and modeling industries, known more for their good looks than for their acting abilities. 
B. Targeted at the crucial 18-49 demographic,  each  of the television network’s new scripted dramas  features  attractive, bankable stars from both the music and modeling industries, known more for their good looks than for their acting abilities. -->  correct 
C. Targeted at the crucial 18-49 demographic,  each  of the television network’s new scripted dramas  features  attractive, bankable stars both  from  the music and modeling industries, known more for their good looks than for their abilities as actors.
D. Targeted to the crucial 18-49 demographic,  each  of the television network’s new scripted dramas  feature  attractive, bankable stars from both the music and modeling industries, known more for their good looks than for their abilities as actors.
E. Targeted to the crucial 18-49 demographic,  each  of the television network’s new scripted dramas  features  attractive, bankable stars both  from  the music and modeling industries, known more for their good looks than for their acting abilities.

venkivety · Answer

first understanding the meaning of the sentence..while going through found the SV flaw..

finding out the SV agreement flaw..
options A and D are gone..

looking into B,C and E.

the major difference we found is parallelism error.
should be " from both A and B " or " both from A and from B "
so C and E are ruled out..

B is the choice

akshay88 · Answer

GMATNinja   daagh   souvik101990

Meaning wise - keeping aside the parallelism error

"..stars both from the music and modeling industries.."

doesn't it mean that -> both the stars are from the mentioned industries?
(also implying that we are talking about two stars)

whereas,
"stars from both the music and modeling industries"
is more clear in terms of saying that the drama features stars from both the industries.

Is this interpretation correct? Isn't there a slight difference in the meaning?

GMATNinja · Answer

Yes, the phrase "stars both from the music and modeling industries" could imply that we are talking about two stars, both of whom are from the music and modeling industries (though you'd probably want to put a comma before the "both" to make that interpretation more clear).

As you said, "stars from both the music and modeling industries" makes more sense in this case, because it clearly implies that the drama features stars from both industries.

Saitejanukala · Answer

GMATNinja

Between attractive and bankable "and" should be used right as both are representing stars

Kindly explain

Regards,
Sai Teja

Posted from my mobile device

FazliddinKD · Answer

Targeted toward the crucial 18-49 demographic, each of the television network’s new scripted dramas feature attractive, bankable stars both from the music and modeling industries, known more for their good looks than for their acting abilities.

A. Targeted toward the crucial 18-49 demographic, each of the television network’s new scripted dramas feature attractive, bankable stars both from the music and modeling industries, known more for their good looks than for their acting abilities.

B. Targeted at the crucial 18-49 demographic, each of the television network’s new scripted dramas features attractive, bankable stars from both the music and modeling industries, known more for their good looks than for their acting abilities.

C. Targeted at the crucial 18-49 demographic, each of the television network’s new scripted dramas features attractive, bankable stars  both from  the music  and  modeling industries, known more for their good looks than for their abilities as actors. - Parallelism issue:  both from X and from Y

D. Targeted to the crucial 18-49 demographic,  each of the television network’s new scripted  dramas  feature  attractive, bankable stars from both the music and modeling industries, known more for their good looks than for their abilities as actors. - each conveys singular noun, so feature must be  features

E. Targeted to the crucial 18-49 demographic, each of the television network’s new scripted dramas features attractive, bankable stars  both from  the music  and  modeling industries, known more for their good looks than for their acting abilities. - Parallelism issue:  both from X and from Y

IMO B

GMATNinja · Answer

The "and" is not strictly required, and it's perfectly fine to separate the two adjectives with only a comma in this case.

When "and" IS used, you of course want to carefully check the parallelism. But the GMAT is fairly lenient when it comes to comma usage, so it's best to be conservative and look for better decision points.

For an example of an OA that omits the "and" in a parallel list, check out  this question  (and  our ensuing explanation ).

I hope that helps!

sonalchhajed2019 · Answer

GMATNinja

Greetings!

In this question, I want to know what is the role of "known more for their good looks than for their acting abilities"

Is this acting as a modifier? What part of a sentence is this? What is the role of the comma before known? Here clearly it looks like "known more for their good looks than for their acting abilities" is providing more information about the actors. But I want to know if this Is working in a similar way as the ", + ing" modifier which modifies the entire clause. How do I make sure that the modifier is modifying just the object and not the entire clause?

Also, another thing I want to know is how to train myself to spot just the right things to solve the sentence correction questions. When I read your explanations it looks like these are most of the things I have already learned but that's not what is my default way of solving? How do I train myself to spot just the right things

GMATNinja · Answer

You understood this perfectly. "Known more for their good looks..." is describing the "stars." The comma is simply telling the reader that this information isn't crucial to the meaning of the sentence. It's more of an aside.

The more challenging question is: how do we know this? First, while you're right that "-ing" modifiers tend to describe the entire clause when they follow a comma and a clause, other modifiers don't have to operate that way. After all, a person is more likely to be "known" than an action.

Also, if you catch the possessive pronoun "their" you'll see that this modifier pretty much has to be describing the referent for that pronoun. So context tells us what the modifier is doing.

Last, all of the answer choices have "known for..." in the same place in the sentence, so even if you had doubts about the modifier, you know it can't possibly be wrong!

This is a big question. First, know that there aren't necessarily "right" things to spot in a sentence. Any given sentence could have multiple elements that are incorrect or worth analyzing. The "right" one is sometimes simply the one you notice and feel confident about.

But as you probably know by now, there are classic triggers you should recognize whenever you see them, since they appear frequently on SC questions. It might be worth checking out our  SC for beginners  and our  video series  to see how we tend to think about setting priorities on SC.

I hope that helps a bit!

Crytiocanalyst · Answer

A. Targeted toward the crucial 18-49 demographic, each of the television network’s new scripted dramas feature attractive, bankable stars both from the music and modeling industries, known more for their good looks than for their acting abilities.
Toward would have been more accurate usage of idiom therefore out

B. Targeted at the crucial 18-49 demographic, each of the television network’s new scripted dramas features attractive, bankable stars from both the music and modeling industries, known more for their good looks than for their acting abilities.
The idiomatic usage and meaning is perfect therefore let us hang on to it

C. Targeted at the crucial 18-49 demographic, each of the television network’s new scripted dramas features attractive, bankable stars both from the music and modeling industries, known more for their good looks than for their abilities as actors.
as actors in the end isn't required since the comparison is perfect without it

D. Targeted to the crucial 18-49 demographic, each of the television network’s new scripted dramas feature attractive, bankable stars from both the music and modeling industries, known more for their good looks than for their abilities as actors.
Similar reasoning as C

E. Targeted to the crucial 18-49 demographic, each of the television network’s new scripted dramas features attractive, bankable stars both from the music and modeling industries, known more for their good looks than for their acting abilities.
idiomatic usage of at is far better therefore out

Therefore IMO B

thakurarun85 · Answer

"A missile might be targeted at the enemy, but marketing campaigns are generally targeted to certain groups of consumers."

Here the group is identified as single demographic point (possibly on a graph). Looks like only B and C remains with this logic.

correct me if I am wrong.

VerbalBot · Answer

Hello from the GMAT Club VerbalBot!

Thanks to another GMAT Club member, I have just discovered this valuable topic, yet it had no discussion for over a year. I am now bumping it up - doing my job. I think you may find it valuable (esp those replies with Kudos).

Want to see all other topics I dig out? Follow me (click follow button on profile). You will receive a summary of all topics I bump in your profile area as well as via email.

Targeted toward the crucial 18-49 demographic, each of the television

Prep Toolkit

Top 5 GMAT Debrief Videos

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards

GMAT Sentence Correction (SC - EA only) Questions

Targeted toward the crucial 18-49 demographic, each of the television

Prep Toolkit

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards