The attorney turned down the law firm’s offer of a position because sh

Question

The attorney turned down the law firm’s offer of a position because she suspected that it was meant merely to fill an affirmative action  quota with no commitment to minority hiring and eventually promoting .

(A) quota with no commitment to minority hiring and eventually promoting

(B) quota, having no commitment to minority hiring and eventually promoting

(C) quota and did not reflect a commitment to minority hiring and eventual promotion

(D) quota, not reflecting a commitment to minority hiring and eventual promotion

(E) quota, not one that reflected that minority hiring and eventual promotion was a commitment

I chose D, but the OA is C. Can someone please explain why? I didn't choose C because I thought it's missing the relative pronoun "that." How come option C is not written this way:

for option c:  quota and (that it) did not reflect a commitment to minority hiring and eventual promotion

why is option C not written this way? cause i don't see how option C makes sense the way it is written. help!

VeritasPrepBrian · Accepted Answer

Good discussion, all - a quick word on D:

When you're using a present-tense verb, participial modifier (like "not reflecting..." here), it generally (or at least often) modifies the subject of the sentence. Here, that would be illogical - "not reflecting" doesn't describe the attorney or his/her decision, so D at best introduces some confusion as to the referent of the modifier (which should correspond to the quota).

Because C leaves no such room for doubt, it's correct.

daagh · Answer

I looked at it this way. The word order in Choice A, B, D and E, with the modifier phrase touching the noun  quota , with or without comma, gives the feeling the that it is the quota that is not having the commitment blah blah rather than the law firm. C is the only one that corrects this fatal error by inserting the conjunction ‘and’. This indeed breaks the tyranny of the modifier issue.Thus C is the answer. I couldn’t cut shorter than this.

vscid · Answer

I got C for parallelism.
I think the presence of 'that it' would be redundant here.

tarek99 · Answer

then how come there are many other examples of question sentences that would repeat "that it", but is considered redundant in this question? Isn't it considered parallel to repeat relative pronouns in order to secure clarity?

huntgmat · Answer

for option c: quota and (that it) did not reflect a commitment to minority hiring and eventual promotion

I think that is not required above because it is a single clause. What you say would have been correct for the following.

for option c: quota,(comma) and that it did not reflect a commitment to minority hiring and eventual promotion.

In the above two ICs are joined using "and" and we need a clear pronoun in the second sentense.

Well .... a example I can make out
He went back to home and slept.
He went back to home, and he slept.

:wall

..... is my explanation that bad

noboru · Answer

OA is C. However I dont understand why there are 2 clasues: 
- suspected that it was meant merely to fill an affirmative action quota 
- did not reflect a commitment to minority hiring and eventual promotion

For me the second can be like a consequence of the first so the subordinate clause in D sounds perfect for me.

Could anybody explain this point?

Thanks in advance.

gettinit · Answer

C is correct for parallelism and meaning. You can say ...she suspected it...and did not reflect in one sentence referring back to the original point however when you use D its contruction ",...not reflecting" what is not reflecting? the law firms choice or her suspicion? "not reflecting" cannot modify all that comes before it thats why you need to use 2 clauses here. Hope it makes sense.

noboru · Answer

I cannot agree with that. "not reflecting" could be an adverbial modifier modifying the whole previous clause.
What do you think on that?

thanks in advance!

VeritasPrepBrian · Answer

Hey noburu,

Good point - and, actually, I think that gets to the crux of the issue here. We can disagree on the function of that modifier: I say that it could very well modify the attorney, you can claim that it's supposed to modify the clause immediately prior. The point is that there is room for debate - honestly, I can't say that either of is right or wrong, which is why D is incorrect. Because it leaves that ambiguity, it's not an effective modifier (particularly when compared to C, which leaves no room for doubt).

USCTrojan2006 · Answer

Couldn't you also argue that the words "not reflecting" is modifying quota, but should be modifying offer?

walkerme13 · Answer

I think C is the answer due to parallelism and proper sentence structure

noboru · Answer

I could argue that the modifier "not reflecting" can modify "offer", "quota", "attorney" (which would not make any sense) or "the whole previous clause"; and because of that, I have learned that there is ambiguity and therefore is wrong.

And I agree that it should modify offer.

Ironclaw · Answer

The attorney turned down the law firm's offer of a position because she suspected that it was meant merely to fill an affirmative action quota with no commitment to minority hiring and eventually promoting .
(C) quota and did not reflect a commitment to minority hiring and eventual promotion

(D) quota, not reflecting a commitment to minority hiring and eventual promotion

can u please shed more light on how d is wrong here.

thanks in advance,

keerthi

egmat · Answer

Hi Keerthi, In choice C, the comma + verb-ing modifier "not reflecting" modifies the preceding clause. So either this modifier will present additional information about the how aspect of the verb or will present the result of the action in the preceding clause. If it presents the how aspect of the verb in the preceding clause, then this modification does not make sense to say that the offer was meant by not reflecting a commitment. If this modifier presents the result of the preceding clause then the sentence will mean that the offer was meant resulting into not reflecting the commitment. In both cases the modification is illogical. Choice D on the other hand presents the characteristics of the offer in parallel structure - the verbs and makes complete sense. Hope this helps.

Thanks. Shraddha

thangvietname · Answer

why A is wrong.

"with..." is correct because it is adverbial here.

pls help

manishk30 · Answer

A: Quota with no commitment -- it is not quota without commitment but the position is with no commitment.
B: having no commitment -- Clause, verb+ing shows the cause and effect relationship or describes the clause. Here it is neither cause-effect nor description rather the continuation of what has been said before.
D: Out
E: Out

thangvietnam · Answer

i think d is more logic than c. 
not reflecting is resulf of is meant to fil...

so d, not c is correct

mrinal0308 · Answer

(A) quota with no commitment to minority hiring and eventually promoting
--> minority hiring and eventually promoting is wrong. Promotion should be the right word.

(B) quota, having no commitment to minority hiring and eventually promoting
--> Same as A

(C) quota and did not reflect a commitment to minority hiring and eventual promotion
--> Correct. minority hiring and eventual promotion is the correct usage.

(D) quota, not reflecting a commitment to minority hiring and eventual promotion
--> reflecting is not a consequence of quota. This sentence seems saying this.

(E) quota, not one that reflected that minority hiring and eventual promotion was a commitment
--> Wordy

=============Hit +1 Kudos if that helped==================

RamSep · Answer

Dear  egmat 
Thanks for explanation.
Please notice that you misplaced options C & D among answer choices!

The attorney turned down the law firm’s offer of a position because sh

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