The original building and loan associations were organized as limited

Question

The original building and loan associations were organized as limited life funds, whose members made
monthly payments on their share subscriptions, then taking turns drawing on the funds for home
mortgages.

A. subscriptions, then taking turns drawing
Run on sentence : “then taking turns drawing….” Does NOT have a verb at all ..
Also, if we see from the meaning point of view :
The members did two things …first they made the payments and then they took turns to draw the funds..
So logically, both the action should be described using parallel verbs…

B. subscriptions, and then taking turns drawing
Still same error as in option A

C. subscriptions and then took turns drawing
Correct Answer : Parallelism restored by the use of verb “took”

D. subscriptions and then took turns, they drew
“and then took turns” to do what ? Run on sentence as the sentence is NOT completed ..

E. subscriptions and then drew, taking turns
If we see the last part of the sentence together with the non-underlined part it reads like this ..
“and then drew, taking turns on the funds for home mortgages” !!!
The member did NOT took turns on the funds…they took turns to draw the funds…

whamberto · Accepted Answer

I picked C for this question:

A. There are parallelism issues here because we are trying to describe the 2 things that members do: made payments...and took turns. "Taking" is not parallel to "made." My initial thought was that "taking" was actually a modifier - in either case, this answer choice is still incorrect.

B. The coordinating conjunction separates 2 independent clauses. "Then taking..." is not an independent clause making this answer choice incorrect. Also, it suffers from parallelism issues.

C. This answer is correct because the verbs are parallel: made monthly payments...and took turns drawing.

D. There is a comma splice. 2 independent clauses are separated by a comma - this is incorrect.

E. "Taking..." seems to be modifying the entire clause preceding it - this makes no sense.

GMATNinja · Answer

The phrase "then taking turns" is an issue.

First, it doesn't make sense for it to serve as a modifier for the previous clause, since it seems to be a new action that takes place after the members "made" payments. But "taking" isn't a verb, so it can't function as a new action that occurs after "made."

If there's no logical way to interpret "taking," it's a problem. (A) is out.

Because we see "and," the modifier "taking" has to be parallel to another modifier. Again, "made" is a verb, so that won't work. Because there's nothing for "taking to be parallel to," we can kill (B).

Now we're in business. The verb phrase "took turns drawing on the funds" is parallel to "made monthly payments." Perfectly logical, too. Keep (C).

As Karishma noted, this is a run-on sentence -- we have two independent clauses with no conjunction. Not cool. Eliminate (D).

Same problem as (A). First, "taking turns on the funds" doesn't logically modify the previous clause. Worse, I know what it means to take turns  drawing  on the funds, but taking turns on the funds themselves? Taking turns doing  what , exactly?

I don't know, and that's a problem. So (E) is out, and (C) is our winner.

I hope that helps!

ykaiim · Answer

IMO C.

The two verbs in the subclause should be parallel: made....took
A one after the other relationship is occuring here >>> 
 made  monthly  payments on their share ..... and then took turns

DRAWING is correct usage here to indicate the ongoing activity.

seekmba · Answer

it is C.

homeowners made monthly payments on their..... and  took turns drawing on the funds ....conveys the correct meaning.

homeowners made monthly payments on their.....and then drew,  taking turns on the funds ....is awkward

fozzzy · Answer

The original building and loan associations were organized as limited life funds, whose members made monthly payments on their share subscriptions, then taking turns drawing on the funds for home mortgages.

Can someone explain the  run-on in option D  do we need a semi-colon (;)?

semi-colon is used to join 2 IC's but doesn't "whose" start a DC?

Gian · Answer

Yes, semi-colon is used to join 2 ICs or we can also use conjunctions (FANBOYS) to join 2 ICs.

But, here the clause after the comma is not an IC but a relative clause. Also, who, whom, whose, which can only act as relative clauses because they are referring back to some noun in the sentence. Like in this case, whose is referring back to the noun "limited life funds".

You can read the below sentence and see whether it makes sense by itself, it won't. Thus, it'll always be a relative or a dependent clause.
  whose members made monthly payments on their share subscriptions and then took turns, they drew on the funds for home mortgages

Choice C: Both the verbs  made  and  took  are parallel in the relative clause.

Let me know if it makes sense.

shindesubodh · Answer

I have a query in the below OG question:

The original building and loan associations were organized as limited life funds, whose members made monthly payments on their share  subscriptions, then taking turns drawing  on the funds for home mortgages.
(A) subscriptions, then taking turns drawing
(B) subscriptions, and then taking turns drawing
(C) subscriptions and then took turns drawing
(D) subscriptions and then took turns, they drew
(E) subscriptions and then drew, taking turns

Below is my query:

I know that a verb-ing modifier when put without a comma after a noun(object) will modify the object itself and not the subject. As happens in the below example:

He killed the snake using a stick.

Then in the OG question above, isn't drawing modifies noun turns? instead of modifying members?

pqhai · Answer

Hi shindesubodh

Yes, you're correct.  Verb-ing modifier without a comma --> modifies a preceding noun. 
Thus, drawing modifies turns. It tells us that what the turns draw on (turns draw on the funds for home mortgages).

As in your example: 
He killed the  snake using  a stick. <-- Verb-ing modifier without a comma ==> "using" modifies snake, not "he". Thus, the sentence does not make any sense.

Hope it helps.

egmat · Answer

Hi Subodh,

Remember that verbs in the '-ing' form can be modifiers, but they can also just be actions.

In this case, ‘drawing’ is part of the verb ‘took’. Think of it this way: instead of saying the members ‘took turns drawing on the funds’, we can also say the members ‘took turns to draw on the funds,’ and it would not change the meaning of the sentence. Since ‘drawing’ in this case is interchangeable with the verb ‘to draw’, it is functioning as part of the action in this sentence.

I hope this helps to clarify your doubt! :-)

Regards,
Meghna

Regards, Meghna

egmat · Answer

Hi Deepak,

The second analysis of the sentence is absurd, since the members are the subject of the verb 'taking' and the sentence makes no sense without the second clause. This is the second query of yours that I've seen in which you've tried to make sense of a sentence by removing a part of it. This is not recommended at all.

As for why option A is wrong, let's look at this part of your analysis:  Meaning Cl2: Fund members made monthly payment of their part ,then as a result of that they took turns to draw on the funds for something .

Is 'taking turns to draw on the funds' a result of the previous clause?

Let's look at a similar example:

Mary set aside some funds for her college fees, withdrawing some money every semester.
 
This sentence indicates that Mary withdrew some money because she set aside some funds for her fees. Does that make sense? She withdrew the money to pay her fees. To withdraw the money, she had to deposit it first. So, these are two separate actions that are chronological: first, she set aside some money. Then, she withdrew it. This does not mean that she withdrew the money because she deposited it. Note that just because one action happens after another, it does not mean that they share a cause-and-effect relationship. So, this sentence is incorrect.

Applying this understanding to the OG question, we can understand it as follows: first, the fund members made monthly payments. Then, they took turns drawing on the funds. Why did they draw on the funds? Answer: for home mortgages. They did not draw on the funds because they made monthly payments. So, the two actions do not have a cause-and-effect relationship and have to be written as parallel actions joined by 'and'.

I hope this helps!

Regards,
Meghna

AD2GMAT · Answer

I am also looking for the explanation of this query. Could anyone expert answer this, please.

sayantanc2k · Answer

If the intended meaning is that 'Mary set aside some funds for her college fees by withdrawing some money every semester.', then there is no problem with the sentence 'Mary set aside some funds for her college fees, withdrawing some money every semester.'.

"Withdrawal" happens first, and then happens "setting aside".

However this reasoning leads to a meaningless sentence for the original question (option A):

Members made monthly payments, (then) drawing on the funds.... this sentence implies that drawing happens first, and then happens "making monthly payments". However the usage of "then" indicates the events happened in the reverse order. "Making monthly payments" happened first, and THEN happened "drawing.". Thus the sentence is meaningless.

LogicGuru1 · Answer

Answer is C
Parallelism is at at play here.
X's were organized as limited life funds, whose members     made     monthly payments on their share   subscriptions, then    taking    turns drawing   on the funds for home mortgages.

(  Took   is the correct parallelism with    made   )

ALSO :---> The second dependent clause needs a FANBOYS conjunction. In this case it needs an  "AND"

So we must look for an answer that has "AND + TOOK"

C and D are right there to be plucked

D is wrong (It's a very nasty run-on error also called as the comma splice error)

C is correct

TheUltimateWinner · Answer

Anyone please to paraphrase whole the sentence? Is not the meaning cause and effect?
How can we eliminate E?
also, how C wins? I'm confused about the word 'drawing' after the word 'turns'.
Thanks Expert...

sayantanc2k · Answer

The OG clearly explains why C is better than E - please refer to the OG, and even then if your doubt is not cleared, please post once again.

mihir0710 · Answer

The original building and loan associations were organized as limited life funds, whose members made
monthly payments on their share subscriptions, then taking turns drawing on the funds for home
mortgages.
 
A. subscriptions, then taking turns drawing
Run on sentence : “then taking turns drawing….” Does NOT have a verb at all ..
Also, if we see from the meaning point of view :
The members did two things …first they made the payments and then they took turns to draw the funds..
So logically, both the action should be described using parallel verbs…
 
B. subscriptions, and then taking turns drawing
Still same error as in option A
 
C. subscriptions and then took turns drawing
Correct Answer : Parallelism restored by the use of verb “took”
 
D. subscriptions and then took turns, they drew
“and then took turns” to do what ? Run on sentence as the sentence is NOT completed ..
 
E. subscriptions and then drew, taking turns
If we see the last part of the sentence together with the non-underlined part it reads like this ..
“and then drew, taking turns on the funds for home mortgages” !!!
The member did NOT took turns on the funds…they took turns to draw the funds…

EMPOWERgmatVerbal · Answer

Hello Everyone!

Let's tackle this question, one issue at a time, and narrow down the options to the correct choice! To start, here is the original question with any major differences between the options highlighted in  orange :

The original building and loan associations were organized as limited life funds, whose members made monthly payments on their share subscriptions, then taking turns drawing on the funds for home mortgages.

(A) subscriptions, then  taking  turns  drawing 
(B) subscriptions, and then  taking  turns  drawing 
(C) subscriptions and then  took  turns  drawing 
(D) subscriptions and then  took  turns, they  drew 
(E) subscriptions and then  drew ,  taking  turns

After a quick glance over the options, there are a couple things we can focus on:

1. took vs. taking ( parallelism )
2. drew vs. drawing ( meaning )

Let's start with #1 on our list, which mainly deals with parallelism.  If we look at the entire sentence carefully, we can find clues as to what we need to make sure is parallel:

The original building and loan associations were organized as limited life funds, whose members  made monthly payments  on their share subscriptions,  then taking turns  drawing on the funds for home mortgages.
 
These two actions MUST be written using parallel structure! Let's see which options do this correctly, and then rule out those that don't:

(A) subscriptions, then  taking  turns drawing
(B) subscriptions, and then  taking  turns drawing
(C) subscriptions and then  took  turns drawing
(D) subscriptions and then  took  turns, they drew
(E) subscriptions and then drew,  taking  turns

We can eliminate options A, B, & E  because they don't use parallel structure for the two actions (made/took) members do in the sentence.

Now that we have things narrowed down, let's tackle #2 on our list.  To make things easier to see, we'll add in the entire sentence for you. We need to make sure the sentences are clear, concise, and make logical sense:

(C) The original building and loan associations were organized as limited life funds,  whose members made monthly payments on their share subscriptions and then took turns drawing on the funds for home mortgages .

This is  CORRECT ! It uses parallel structure for the members' actions (made/took), and there aren't any issues with meaning or punctuation.

(D) The original building and loan associations were organized as limited life funds , whose members made monthly payments on their share subscriptions and then took turns, they drew on the funds for home mortgages.

This is  INCORRECT  for a couple reasons. First, if you place commas before and after a phrase that beings with "which," it becomes a modifier. Since modifiers are non-essential clauses, we should be able to remove it without screwing up the meaning of the sentence. If we remove the phrase, here is what we're left with:

The original building and loan associations were organized as limited life funds they drew on the funds for home mortgages.

That doesn't really make sense, does it? If removing a phrase that contains commas on both sides leads to an incomplete or confusing sentence, there is likely a problem with a misplaced modifier or poor punctuation - or both!

The other problem we have is a bit of distorted meaning. By putting a comma after the phrase "they took turns," it's now unclear what they were taking turns doing! We're not sure if they took turns drawing on funds for home mortgages, or they took turns doing something else AND THEN they all drew on funds for mortgages at the same time. This lack of clarity is a major no-no on the GMAT, so let's rule out this option.

There you have it - option C is the correct choice!  It uses parallel structure and has a clear, concise meaning.

Don't study for the GMAT. Train for it.

CrackverbalGMAT · Answer

It is important to pay attention to the  tense  in this sentence.

It says that associations  were organized  … whose members  made  monthly payments …

‘ made ’ and ‘ took ’ has to be  parallel  here. Additionally, we need the conjunction ‘and’ here.

Only  Options C and D  have the combination we are looking for.

Option D  commits the error of comma splice. This alters the meaning.

Eliminate   Option D.

Option C  is the best choice.

Hope this helps!

mba757 · Answer

Hi Experts,

Within E, what is the "taking turns on the funds..." modifying? Is it modifying first part of the sentence "The original building...as limited life funds" or "whose members...share subscriptions and then draw"?

The -ing modifiers modify the previous clause. But in this case, I'm not sure what it means..Could you please explain in depth!

The original building and loan associations were organized as limited

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The original building and loan associations were organized as limited

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