That the companies would merge was a certainty, though less clear were

Question

That the companies would merge was a certainty, though less clear were when the merger would take place, who among the top executives would be the chief executive, and who, if anyone, would voluntarily leave.

A. That the companies would merge was a certainty, though less clear were when the merger would take place, who among the top executives would be the chief executive, and who, if anyone, would voluntarily leave.

B. The companies’ merger was a certainty, though less clear was when the merger would take place, who among the top executives would be the chief executive, and who, if anyone, would voluntarily leave.

C. The companies’ merger was certain, though less clear was when the merger would take place, who among the top executives the chief executive would be, and who, if anyone, would voluntarily choose to leave.

D. It was certain that the companies would merge, though less clear was when the merger would take place, who among the top executives would be the chief executive, and if anyone leaves, who.

E. It was certain that the companies would merge, though less clear was when the merger would take place, who among the top executives would be the chief executive, and who, if anyone voluntarily leaves, would do so.

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ChandlerBong · Answer

C. The companies’ merger was certain, though less clear was when the merger would take place, who among the top executives the chief executive would be, and who, if anyone, would voluntarily choose to leave.

Only option C maintains the parallelism correctly.

The companies merger was certain,

1.  when  the merger would take place,
2.  who  among the top executives the chief executive would be, AND
3.  who , if anyone, would voluntarily choose to leave.

kushalrungta · Answer

Option B has the exact same parallelism with better diction. Can someone post the OE?

testtango · Answer

I think only A is correct since the "less clear" list has 3 elements so "less clear were" is correct over "less clear was"

anand123prk · Answer

‘less clear were’ is a better phrase to point the numerous reasons than ‘less clear was’. Except A, rest of the choices have this error.

Bunuel · Answer

VERITAS PREP OFFICIAL SOLUTION:

When the entire sentence is underlined, finding actionable decision points is a primary concern. Here you may initially note that the second half of the sentence is a list of items (things that were less clear), so a good starting point would be scanning each choice for parallelism in a series.

Another decision point that the list brings up is that of subject-verb agreement: there are three items in that list, but only answer choice (A) uses a plural verb "were" to introduce them. If you see that Agreement decision point between "were" vs. "was" you can be done quickly as three things were less clear (you would never say "X, Y, and Z was less clear.") The testmakers simply "hide the right answer here" by using a strange subject in choice (A) - "that the companies would merge" is the subject - and by inverting the subject and verb of the second clause (the subject is the three items, but the verb "was" precedes them).

That the companies would merge was a certainty, though less clear were

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GMAT Sentence Correction (SC - EA only) Questions

That the companies would merge was a certainty, though less clear were

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