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505-555 Level|   Parallelism|               
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The decision by one of the nation's largest banks to admit to $3 billi 05 Aug 2021, 09:05
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(C) increased pressure

is "(C) increased pressure" is noun phase or adverbial modifier ?? experts please suggest
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The decision by one of the nation's largest banks to admit to $3 billi 05 Aug 2021, 09:05
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(C) increased pressure

is "(C) increased pressure" is noun phase or adverbial modifier ?? experts please suggest
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The decision by one of the nation's largest banks to admit to $3 billi 06 Aug 2021, 05:08
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vipulgoel
(C) increased pressure

is "(C) increased pressure" is noun phase or adverbial modifier ?? experts please suggest
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Hi vipulgoel,

Increased pressure is a noun phrase. The sentence can be read like this: "ABC could mean X and Y".
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The decision by one of the nation's largest banks to admit to $3 billi 25 May 2022, 23:22
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CrackverbalGMAT
This is a good case of parallelism.

We need to pay attention to the two items that are being compared.
It would be a mistake to think that ‘lending’ and ‘increasing’ should be parallel.
I feel this is what is confusing to most of the readers.

The two items being compared are ‘less lending’ and ‘increased pressure’.

When you scan the options, you see that Option C is the best choice.

Hope this helps!
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Great explanation , directly jumped on ans this best you know but we dont know

Less lending ---adj + gerund (Noun) so we need same pattern that is adj + Noun
in Option c increased (Adj ) pressure is noun so perfect match
in this ques you need to be a bit selective rather than eliminator
have scientific logics instead sound best or just this is answere
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The decision by one of the nation's largest banks to admit to $3 billi 14 Jul 2022, 10:24
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Dear IanStewart

Could you please share your thoughts on answer choice B? Is it incorrect because of the time period mismatch? “could mean” refers to the events that have yet to take place while “the increasing pressure” talks about the pressure that’s already happening.

And does “the” make sense here?

We're comparing "less lending" with, in some phrasing, something that means "more pressure" (I'm just repeating what AjiteshArun said perfectly above). If you simply rephrase "less lending" in a synonymous way -- "reduced lending" -- it is immediately clear it is parallel with "increased pressure". Inserting the word "the" in one of those two phrases would disrupt that parallelism, so the "the" alone is decisive here.

If we delete the word "the" from B, you'd need to do a more subtle analysis of meaning. If we said the bank's admission will mean "increasing pressure", we'd be saying this single admission will lead to an ongoing increase in pressure. The sentence probably means that the pressure will increase at once to a new higher level. So we probably want to say it will lead to "an increase in pressure", or "increased pressure", and not that it will lead to "increasing pressure". But I think there's a reason the question didn't offer an answer choice like "increasing pressure"; if it had, you could probably justify two different answers. A post above cites some rule about types of gerund that I don't think actually exists (though I might be wrong about that -- I've never found any use for obscure rules like that).

If the "and" in the sentence immediately before the underlined portion were changed, then other answers might have been right. As written, the sentence lists two things, "lending and pressure". If instead the "and" became a comma, and the second half modified the first, we might have wanted a construction like this:

"The bank's admission could lead to less lending, increasing the pressure on governments..."

or if the "and" were used to join two complete clauses, then "increase" would become a verb, and we then might have wanted a different construction (though the earlier verb "could mean" would somehow need to agree in time with the later verb). So this construction would have been fine:

"The banks admission meant less lending, and increased the pressure on governments..."

but these two examples completely change the structure of the sentence, and we'd only have been looking for them among the answer choices if more of the sentence had been underlined.

I'd add that this question is playing a typical SC trick. It wants test takers to think "lending" and "increasing" should be parallel. But we're comparing "lending" with "pressure" here.
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IanStewart what about (A) increasing the pressure. Why is (A) wrong? Is it because of the ?

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The decision by one of the nation's largest banks to admit to $3 billi 14 Jul 2022, 15:02
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IanStewart what about (A) increasing the pressure. Why is (A) wrong? Is it because of the ?
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Answer A isn't parallel, though it might look like it is. "Lending" here is a noun, while "increasing" is an adjective. The parallel things here are "lending" and "pressure", not "lending" and "increasing" -- paraphrasing, the bank's decision will lead to 'less lending and more pressure'. Here, "less" and "more" (or "less" and "increasing") are just adjectives that describe the lending and the pressure. Answer A does become parallel if you delete the word "the" from "increasing the pressure", but in my overly long post above, I explained why "increasing pressure" wouldn't convey the meaning the sentence is trying to convey, which is why we want to say "increased pressure" instead.
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The decision by one of the nation's largest banks to admit to $3 billi 04 Aug 2022, 07:46
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the decision (subject) … could mean (verb) … less lending (adjective + noun) … and (parallel marker) increased pressure (adjective + noun)…

This parallel structure noun and noun can be found in answer choice C
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The decision by one of the nation's largest banks to admit to $3 billi 14 Aug 2022, 12:07
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at first I solved the question correctly and Chose C , but after reading the comments to cement my justification for choosing such answer, I got confused.

The parts of the comparison are "lending" and "pressure".

Less Lending = adj.+ action noun
so the other part has to have to same structure.

A) increasing the pressure = adj. + simple noun

B) the increasing pressure = that whole phrase is a noun itself i.e. complex gerund, so in B we have only "Noun" with no preceding adj.

(C) increased pressure = adj. + action noun (pressure comes verb to pressure)

(D) the pressure increased = another complex gerund (the pressure increased is the same as the increased pressure as in both cases the word "increased" modifies pressure)
(E) the pressure increasing = same as D but uses another tense of the participle - Present (Increasing) instead of the past (Increased)

D and E sound weird and convey the same meaning.

Hence C.

But please correct me if I am wrong
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The decision by one of the nation's largest banks to admit to $3 billi 18 Aug 2022, 16:46
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The reduced stem should be like:

The decision.......could mean less lending ........... and increasing the pressure on multigovernment lenders to supply the funds.

So here "lending" & "increasing" are in parallel as mentioned in option A.
Then how the OA, i.e. option C, "increased" is in parallel with any of the word in the question?
Please help me with this.
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The decision by one of the nation's largest banks to admit to $3 billi 18 Aug 2022, 23:59
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vaibu95

Then how the OA, i.e. option C, "increased" is in parallel with any of the word in the question?
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Following components are parallel:

i) less lending
ii) increased pressure

Basically, both are noun phrases. Note that increased is just an 'adjective' here, modifying the noun pressure.
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The decision by one of the nation's largest banks to admit to $3 billi 06 Nov 2022, 03:54
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Dear Friends,

Here is a detailed explanation to this question-
rohansherry
The decision by one of the nation's largest banks to admit to $3 billion in potential losses on foreign loans could mean less lending by commercial banks to developing countries and increasing the pressure on multigovernment lenders to supply the funds.

(A) increasing the pressure
(B) the increasing pressure
(C) increased pressure
(D) the pressure increased
(E) the pressure increasing
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Concepts tested here: Verb Forms + Parallelism

• Any elements joined by a conjunction ("and" in this case) must be parallel.
• The simple past tense is used to refer to actions that concluded in the past.
• In modifying a noun, the past participle implies that the noun took an action that concluded in the past.

A: This answer choice fails to maintain parallelism between the noun phrase "less lending" and the verb phrase "increasing the pressure"; remember, any elements joined by a conjunction ("and" in this case) must be parallel.

B: This answer choice incorrectly uses the present participle ("verb+ing" - "increasing" in this sentence) to refer to an action that concluded in the past; remember, the simple past tense is used to refer to actions that concluded in the past.

C: Correct. This answer choice correctly uses the past participle "increased" to refer to an action that concluded in the past; remember, in modifying a noun, the past participle implies that the noun took an action that concluded in the past. Further, Option C maintains parallelism between the noun phrases "less lending" and "increased pressure".

D: This answer choice fails to maintain parallelism between the noun phrase "less lending" and the clause "the pressure increased"; remember, any elements joined by a conjunction ("and" in this case) must be parallel.

E: This answer choice incorrectly uses the present participle ("verb+ing" - "increasing" in this sentence) to refer to an action that concluded in the past; remember, the simple past tense is used to refer to actions that concluded in the past. Further, Option E fails to maintain parallelism between the noun phrase "less lending" and the clause "the pressure increasing"; remember, any elements joined by a conjunction ("and" in this case) must be parallel.

Hence, C is the best answer choice.

To understand the concept of "Simple Tenses" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~2 minutes):



All the best!
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The decision by one of the nation's largest banks to admit to $3 billi 29 Dec 2022, 09:14
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egmat ,

The decision by one of the nation's largest banks to admit to $3 billion in potential losses on foreign loans could mean less lending by commercial banks to developing countries and increasing the pressure on multigovernment lenders to supply the funds.

(A) increasing the pressure
(B) the increasing pressure
(C) increased pressure
(D) the pressure increased
(E) the pressure increasing

Here option A is wrong because noun is parallel to a gerund, when we have a better option in C where noun is parallel to a noun. But a participle can't have a tense, be it present/past in itself , it will take the tense depending on the context of the sentence, which in this case is present tense [denoted by 'could mean']. So that leads me to the question Why is option D and E wrong when just like in option C we are comparing pressure with lending. One reason i can think of is structurally the parallelism should be adject + noun , but in D and E it is noun + adjective. Could you please see if my reasoning is correct here . Would really appreciate the help!! :)
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The decision by one of the nation's largest banks to admit to $3 billi 29 Dec 2022, 15:39
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Taulark1
egmat ,

The decision by one of the nation's largest banks to admit to $3 billion in potential losses on foreign loans could mean less lending by commercial banks to developing countries and increasing the pressure on multigovernment lenders to supply the funds.

(A) increasing the pressure
(B) the increasing pressure
(C) increased pressure
(D) the pressure increased
(E) the pressure increasing

Here option A is wrong because noun is parallel to a gerund, when we have a better option in C where noun is parallel to a noun. But a participle can't have a tense, be it present/past in itself , it will take the tense depending on the context of the sentence, which in this case is present tense [denoted by 'could mean']. So that leads me to the question Why is option D and E wrong when just like in option C we are comparing pressure with lending. One reason i can think of is structurally the parallelism should be adject + noun , but in D and E it is noun + adjective. Could you please see if my reasoning is correct here . Would really appreciate the help!! :)
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Hello Taulark1,

Hope you are doing well. Thank you for the query. I will be glad to help you with this one. :)

Your question is pretty grammar-oriented. However, I will give you a very meaning-based answer. Both Choice D and E say that losses on foreign loans could mean "the pressure". Please note that "increased on..." and "increasing on..." merely act as modifiers in Choices D and E. They are not part of the core meaning. So, these choices distort the intended meaning of the sentence.


Hope this helps. :)
Thanks.
Shraddha
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The decision by one of the nation's largest banks to admit to $3 billi 06 Jan 2024, 01:27
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