The computer company reported strong second-quarter earnings that surp

A. The computer company reported strong second-quarter earnings that surpassed Wall Street’s estimates and announced the first in a series of price cuts intended to increase sales further...

Here that surpassed wall street's estimates
shouldn't this be estimate ???

No, because there can be many estimates. Wall Street isn't actually one person or entity, but a whole collection of firms, analysts, etc., that can produce estimates. Even one analyst might produce several estimates over time, and the firm's earnings could exceed all of them.

In general, verbs must agree strictly in number with their subjects, so if "estimate" were a verb, we'd see the singular "Wall Street estimates that" or the plural "Wall Street analysts estimate that." However, nouns are under no such restriction. We can say "Dmitry's book" or "Dmitry's books" depending on the intended meaning. I'm very glad I'm not limited to owning one book, because I'm afraid it would have to be the OG, and that would just be sad.

Hi Prakhar, hopefully you noticed that all 5 answer choices use estimates. So, it's a non-issue here.

This is actually important because test-takers should develop that orientation to quickly figure out what really matters in a question. Clearly, estimates/estimate is not a differentiator here.

The computer company reported strong second-quarter earnings that surpassed Wall Street’s estimates and announced the first in a series of price cuts intended to increase sales further.

Issue: Modification Structure | Meaning

Analysis:
The sentence can be broken down as following:

The computer company
├─ reported strong second quarter earnings
│ └─ the earnings surpassed Wall Street’s estimates
and
└─ announced price cuts to increase sales

The correct option will connect these thoughts succinctly and unambiguously.


A. The computer company reported strong second-quarter earnings that surpassed Wall Street’s estimates and announced the first in a series of price cuts intended to increase sales further.

B. The report of the computer company showed strong second-quarter earnings, surpassing Wall Street’s estimates, and they announced the first in a series of price cuts that they intend to increase sales further.
- The subject in this option is "report" with "computer company" part of prepositional phrase that modifies report. In this option, "they" does not have a clear referent. Also, "that they ..." following "price cuts" leads to meaning issue.


C. Surpassing Wall Street’s estimates, the report of the computer company showed strong second-quarter earnings, and, for the purpose of increasing sales further, they announced the first in a series of price cuts.

- "surpassing..." incorrectly modify "the report"
- "they" does not have a clear referent

D. The computer company reported strong second-quarter earnings, while announcing the first in a series of price cuts for the purpose of increasing sales further that surpass Wall Street’s estimates.
- "for the purpose of" seems redundant.
- "that surpass Wall Street’s estimates" is too far from "second-quarter earnings" as in it does not clearly modify "second-quarter earnings" (though it should)

E. The computer company, surpassing Wall Street’s estimates, reported strong second-quarter earnings, while announcing that to increase sales further, there would be the first in a series of price cuts
- "surpassing..." incorrectly modify "The computer company"

Answer: A.

The computer company reported strong second-quarter earnings that surpassed Wall Street’s estimates and announced the first in a series of price cuts intended to increase sales further.

A. The computer company reported strong second-quarter earnings that surpassed Wall Street’s estimates and announced the first in a series of price cuts intended to increase sales further. Correct answer.
B. The report of the computer company showed strong second-quarter earnings, surpassing Wall Street’s estimates, and they announced the first in a series of price cuts that they intend to increase sales further. 'They' is arguable.
C. Surpassing Wall Street’s estimates, the report of the computer company showed strong second-quarter earnings, and, for the purpose of increasing sales further, they announced the first in a series of price cuts. Wordy and complicated,while they is arguably refering to two antecedents.
D. The computer company reported strong second-quarter earnings, while announcing the first in a series of price cuts for the purpose of increasing sales further that surpass Wall Street’s estimates.The reports and the announcement did not surpass the estimates,only the report did.
E. The computer company, surpassing Wall Street’s estimates, reported strong second-quarter earnings, while announcing that to increase sales further, there would be the first in a series of price cuts The computer company did not surpass the wall street's estimates,the repords did.

A - correct answer.
"reported" and "announced" are parallel to each other.

B - "surpassing wall street's estimates" is a comma + -ing modifier at the end of a sentence.
It modifies the subject of the preceding clause - "the report of the computer company".

"they" does not have a logical referent.
"price cuts that they(the company) intend to increase sales further" - does not make any sense.

C - modifier error. "Surpassing Wall street's estimates" should have modified "earnings".
"they" does not have a logical referent.

D - "surpassing Wall Street's estimates" modifies "the computer company". Illogical.
"and" requires parallelism. "and announcing" is not logically parallel to anything. Note that if it were parallel to "surpassing", the comma before the "and" would not be necessary.

E - "surpassing wall street's estimates" modifies "the computer company".
"announcing that ..." seems to modify "there would be the first in a series of price cuts". - Modifier error.
"announcing that ..." should apply to the "the computer company".

"...to increase sales further, there would be the first in a series of price cuts" - this seems to imply that only the first price cut would contribute to increased sales.

Usage of "while" (= at the same time as) does not make sense here. "reporting" and "announcing" did not happen at the same time.

Long underline. I think there will be structure, meaning, or parallelism issues.

A: Regarding structure, there's a subject and a verb. I don't see any issues, so I'll look at B
B: Company is singular
C: Meaning issue. The report didn't surpass expectations.
D: This sequence looks off. I think it's because of the use ", and" that makes it seem there are three items being discussed. There are only two items: reported and announced.
E: The firm didn't surpass estimates. The earnings surpassed estimates.

My selection: Choice A.

Hello articuno,

You have done good quick analysis of this official sentence. This one should not take too long to solve. And you have done a good job with this one. Keep it up.


However, the reason that you have presented to reject Choice D is not correct as there is no comma + and in this choice.

I have seen that many posters in this thread have rejected Choice D for wordiness. Choice D has very deterministic errors.

i. Use of while is incorrect in the context of this sentence because the company did not do the action of reporting and announcing together.

ii. Use of comma + verb-ing modifier announcing… is incorrect because this choice enforces the cause-and-effect relationship between reporting the strong earnings and announcing the price cuts. Per the original sentence, these two are independent actions by the computer company. Hence, this forced cause-and-effect relationship changes the meaning of the sentence.

iii. Increasing sales did not surpass Wall Street's estimates. Per the original sentence, second-quarter earnings did so.

iv. Use of simple present tense verb surpass is incorrect. This choice says that the first in a series of price cuts were announced to increase sales. So these sales are yet to surpass the estimates of Wall Street.


Hope this helps.
Thanks.
Shraddha

I do agree with option-A but still I believe there is a ambiguity ...."surpassed Wall Street’s estimates "

Posted from my mobile device

Hello tamal99,

I am not sure what is your doubt with regards to the usage of "surpassed Wall Street's estimates".

Nonetheless, here is my analysis about this structure.

The word surpassed is the verb for the subject that = strong second-quarter earnings.

The earnings surpassed Wall Street's estimates.

As already explained in this thread earlier, usage of plural estimates is correct because the sentence intends to say Wall Street made more than one estimate about the particular earning.


Hope this helps.
Thanks.
Shraddha

egmat
Thanks for your reply.
As I understand that option A should have been modified like- surpassed Wall Street’s estimates of that
just for better clarity.

Hello tamal99,

Thank you for the clarification.

I am afraid, however, I do not understand what do you mean to suggest.

Can you please write the entire sentence with the modification that you suggested in your previous post and explain how that modification makes sense in the sentence?


Looking forward to hear from you.
Thanks.
Shraddha

Hello egmat,

I believe option -A would be more clear with a addition of demonstrative pronoun- those, where the antecedent would be - earnings.
we need to specify which estimation of Wall street we are talking about as there would be numerous estimations from Wall street, though logically we can predict the same.
Please help me if my understanding is wrong.

The computer company reported strong second-quarter earnings that surpassed Wall Street’s estimates of those and announced the first in a series of price cuts intended to increase sales further.

Hello tamal99,


I apologize for getting back to this post so late. Sincere apologies.


IMHO, we do not requite those estimates exclusively in the sentence because the sentence clearly says that the second-quarter earnings surpassed Wall Street's estimates. There is nothing else that the sentence talks about that Wall Street's estimates can be logically associated with.

Hence, the intended meaning is absolutely clear from the original sentence.


Hope this helps.
Thanks.
Shraddha

what is the problem for "while announcing that"?

PLUTO "While announcing" (in both D and E) implies that the company reported strong earnings at the exact same time as its announcement about price cuts (perhaps as part of the latter announcement). There's no sensible reason to say this, but that's not the main problem with E. The real trouble is the placement of the modifiers. "Surpassing Wall Street's estimates" should not come between the subject and the verb. This implies that they were already surpassing the estimates when they began to report. (Compare to "The criminals, fearing a trap, ran for safety.") We also can't say "to increase sales further, there would be . . . price cuts." The modifier "to increase sales further" implies a purpose that someone would have, so we need a proper subject, e.g. "To increase sales further, the company will institute price cuts."

Hello expert, can give shade to my below doubt.
Doesn't it seem the surpassed and announced in the parallel form which creates ambiguity. should there be any comma before "anounced" to separate it from surpassed?
Thanks in advance