The overall slackening of growth in productivity is influenced less by

Hi AnthonyRitz IanStewart GMATNinja - If i understand the difference between “coming to an end of a period ” vs “end of a period ”
-- coming to an end of a period means many data points of time (last three months of your GMAT preparation for example)
vs
-- End of a period : specific data point of time in the past (your GMAT test date specifically in the past)

If so, I don’t see why the End of a period specifically cannot logically be the reason for slackening of growth.

Analogy for option E
Passive voice: Declining WWE revenues is caused by the end of the Hulk Hogan era

Above analogy seems okay. The end of the Hulk Hogan era took plce at a specific point of time in the past (April 1992 specifically if you are wrestling fan)
That point of time in 1992 is still contributing towards declining WWE revenues today.

Simirlarly, the end of the period (lets say, ended in 2010) is causing slackening even today (in the year 2021)

I agree with Ian that it is neither simple nor useful to attempt to turn these sentences into active voice versions. In fact, I'd avoid such attempts as a general matter. It's too easy to inadvertently change something determinative when you reword.

The subject "slackening" is singular here, in every case. Gerunds are generally singular unless you put an "s" on the end. If you somehow wanted to make "coming" and "end" the subjects (again, inadvisable), those would both also be singular.



I know that this is a subtle and tricky logic point, but you really cannot avoid engaging with it. So it goes, with 700-level questions (and this one is 750+). There is no other meaningful difference between C and E.

In your example sentence, if the last part of Hulk Hogan's career sucked, then your sentence might work. (Except of course it should be "are caused" or more likely "were caused," and "declining WWE revenues" is a problematic fused participle that should be rewritten as "the decline in WWE revenues," but anyway...). But it's not the same meaning as saying "the coming to an end of the Hulk Hogan era," which implies that the fact that the era ended is what caused revenues to drop.

I think you're not quite following the distinction here. "The coming to an end" isn't several "data points of time" -- it's the fact that it ended. Conversely, "the end" actually could be several "data points of time" -- all of the times that make up the last part of the period in question.

So, again, "the coming to an end" is "the fact that the time period ends/ended/is ending/was ending"; "the end" is "the last part of this time period"; and there's your meaning error. "[the last part of a period of growth] in agricultural productivity" is not what caused "the overall slackening of growth in productivity."

Fantastic catch, Ian! I'm totally going to cite this example in the "like" wars in the future.

Hi AnthonyRitz - can i try to enunciate the difference between (c) and (e) with the help of an real life example

Background : ww2 was between September 1st 1939 to May 12th 1945

E is


So (E) is referring to May 12th 1945 (The day that Germany surrendered)

Alternatively, C is


(C) is referring to several months PRIOR to may 12th 1945 (Jan 1st - 1945 to May 12th 1945 for exmaple)

^^ AnthonyRitz

if thats the case -- i actually think (E) is just as good as (C) or better.

It's the end of hostilities (i.e. May 12th 1945) --- that is causing the slackening of the number of deaths (because the entire war CAME to complete end - so the number of deaths would obviously start reducing as the war is no longer taking place)

Thoughts ?

This is a good example to further elucidate the distinction.

"the end of a period of hostilities" remains ambiguous. Does it mean the last part of the period, or does it mean the fact that the period is/was ended? The ambiguity alone makes this wrong. You're going to have a really hard time finding a sentence in which "the end of a period" isn't at least a little bit unclear. But also, I would tend to assume that "the end of a period" is the last part of the period, and if it is truly the last part of the period of hostilities, I would expect it to increase the deaths, or at least maintain the high death rate, since, after all, it is still one portion of a period of hostilities.

"the coming to an end of a period of hostilities" means the fact that the period is/was ended. It's clear. I would expect that "the coming to an end of a period of hostilities" would decrease the deaths, since it is, again, the fact that the period is/was ended.

Hi AnthonyRitz - thank you for your response

Afraid - don't see why the yellow is ambigous.

The "the end of a period of hostilities" in the WW2 example is referring to May 12th 1945 (not may 11th 1945 nor may 13th 1945)

"the coming to an end of a period of hostilities" refers to the period of 5 months (Jan 1st 1945 - May 12th 1945)

Both periods (May 12th 1945) or (Jan 1st 1945 - May 12th 1945) can infuence the number of deaths IMO

I disagree with your take on both of these. "the end" could be "the fact that it ended" or "the last day of the period" or even "the last months or year or whatever of the period." The dictionary defines "end" as "a final part of something, especially a period of time, an activity, or a story." There's no further specification of how big of a part it might be.

Imagine this is a rope:

-----------------------------------------

How much is "the end of the rope"?

----------------------------------------[-] Is it just this?

If I say "grab on to the end of the rope" but you grab here

-------------------------------------[----]

... did you fail to do what I asked? I don't think so.

What if I had imagined the rope as being subdivided into smaller sections?

.................................................[..]

Now you're holding this. Is it no longer the end of the rope, because I decided to imagine the rope as a bunch of half-inch segments instead of a bunch of inch segments? (I mean, how do you know whether "the end of the period of hostilities" is the last day, the last year, the last second, or whatever?)

In fact, I'd even be okay with you grabbing something like this:

----------------------------------[----]---

How far is too far to still be "the end"? It's unclear, context-dependent, and probably subjective.

And then of course, in any case, it's still part of the rope. In the same way, the "end of a period of hostilities" is still part of a period of hostilities. It may be the last little bit, but it's still a segment of time during which the war is taking place and people are dying. The last part of the war wouldn't be something that I would expect to reduce deaths.


Moving on, I think your latter interpretation is backwards. This bit:



The dictionary says that "coming" means "an arrival or approach." In "coming to an end" we mean "arrival" to an end. Why would "the coming to an end" refer to a period of five months? How did we get that it has to be the whole year up until the last day of the war? I don't see any basis for that. In fact, "the coming to an end" isn't any part of the war at all. It's the fact that the war ended. You can't point to it on the rope, because it's not any part of the rope. It's not even something you can point to at all, since it's an abstract concept (even more so than war or time periods are). But "the fact that the war ended," abstract though it may be, can definitely reduce the death rate.

"The coming to an end of the rope is why I couldn't tie a bigger knot" is just a weird way of saying "The fact that the rope ended is why I couldn't tie a bigger knot."

SC questions with only a few words underlined can be very difficult at times. This question is no different. More often than not, people pick the same incorrect option (E). Let’s understand why it is not correct.

Take a simpler sentence with just the core, relevant meaning.

Growth in productivity is slackening because the period of rapid growth in agricultural productivity is ending.
or
Growth in productivity is slackening because the period of rapid growth in agricultural productivity is coming to an end.
Both of these are correct.

(E) by the end of

But look at option (E) plugged into our original sentence (unnecessary modifier removed) broken down into the two parallel structures:

The overall slackening of growth in productivity is influenced
- less by government regulation
- than by the end of a period of rapid growth.

Let’s remove the comparison structure to get a sentence similar to option (E):

The overall slackening of growth in productivity is influenced by the end of a period of rapid growth.
(It implies that something happened at the end of the period. 'end of the period' implies time, not the action of ending.)

Consider another sentence (not in our options)

The overall slackening of growth in productivity is influenced by the ending of a period of rapid growth.
(Seems better but still, there is a slight confusion whether we are talking about the action of 'ending' e.g. We routinely say 'The ending of the movie was diabolical' - Here we mean the part of the movie at the end.)

(C) by the coming to an end of

Consider this sentence now (similar to option (C))

The overall slackening of growth in productivity is influenced by the coming to an end of a period of rapid growth.
(Here, there is no confusion. The influencing factor was that the period was coming to an end. Not the end/ending of the period.)
Hence, (C) is correct and (E) is not.

(A) the coming to an end of
(B) the ending of

As for the other options, since this is a comparison structure ‘less X than Y,’ X and Y must be parallel. Since X begins with ‘by,’ Y should also begin with ‘by.’ Hence options (A) and (B) are incorrect.

(D) by ending

Option (D) needs ‘of’ at the end to be considered a viable option. Then it would become similar to the sentence in italics in our explanation above.

Answer (C)

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1996/ ... %20end.%20

Try to open this above link, you will notice the highlighted sentence "Maintenance came to an end" -- Why the didn't the author just say "Maintenance ended"? Had that not been more simple?

It is because, you use such structures as "coming to an end" and "came to an end" in formal English, and the sentence in the above mentioned URL is used in formal context.


Common usages of this structure:

the exams came to an end.
finally after a long tussle among the state politicians, the legal battle came to an end and peace prevailed.


You need to understand GMAT is an exam of formal communication, and, hence, "coming to an end" makes more sense than just "the end".

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