The pharmaceutical company conceded that its blockbuster drug may have

Question

The pharmaceutical company conceded that its blockbuster drug may have contributed to the recent outbreak of skin rashes experienced by its  users and, having pulled the drug off the market, caused  a sharp drop in the company’s share price.

(A) users and, having pulled the drug off the market, caused

(B) users and pulled the drug off the market, causing

(C) users and had pulled the drug off the market, causing

(D) users, pulled the drug off the market, and caused

(E) users and has pulled the drug off the market, which has caused

Verbal Question of The Day: Day 80: Sentence Correction 
 Subscribe to GMAT Question of the Day:   E-mail  |  RSS 
 For All QOTD Questions  Click Here

GMATNinja · Accepted Answer

This one is all about parallelism and meaning. Several of the answer choices sound pretty good, but only one of them actually makes sense if you’re strict and literal with the meaning of the sentence.

I don’t love the sound of “having pulled the drug off the market”, but I can’t be certain that it’s wrong. “Having pulled the drug off the market” needs to precede some other action – and “caused a sharp drop in the share price” seems to work fine. So I guess that part is OK.

But the parallelism is a problem. The word “caused” follows the parallelism trigger “and”, so something has to be parallel with “caused” – I guess that’s either “contributed” or “conceded.”

Neither of those options makes a lot of sense, though. “The pharmaceutical company  conceded  that its blockbuster drug may have contributed to the recent outbreak… and  caused   a sharp drop in the company’s share price. Basically, that’s saying that the company directly caused the drop in the share price, and that’s not quite right – it was the combination of the skin rashes and pulling the drug off the market that caused the drop.

It makes even less sense for “caused” to be parallel to “contributed.” “The pharmaceutical company conceded that its blockbuster drug may have  contributed  to the recent outbreak… and  caused  a sharp drop in the company’s share price.” That’s saying that the drug itself “may have caused” the drop, and that’s not right, either – again, it was the combination of the skin rashes and pulling the drug off the market that caused the drop.

So (A) is out.

This is much better! The company “conceded… and pulled the drug off the market.” “Causing” is an –ing modifier (more on those  here , and it modifies that entire previous clause. That’s great: the entire story (pharma company’s drug causes rashes, so the firm pulls the drug off the market) is causing the drop in share prices. Keep (B).

Only difference here is the use of the past perfect “had pulled.” For this to be correct, the drug would have been pulled off the market first – before the actions in simple past tense (“conceded that its blockbuster drug may have caused skin rashes…”). And that makes no sense. (C) is gone.

Now everything is parallel! So we have “The pharmaceutical company  conceded  that its blockbuster drug may have contributed to the recent outbreak…,  pulled  the drug off the market, and  caused  a sharp drop…” That might sound OK, but it doesn’t actually make sense. Why would these three actions be parallel to each other? The pharma company didn’t directly cause the drop in the share prices – it’s the entire situation that caused it. (B) conveys this meaning much more clearly, so we can eliminate (D).

This one is nice, because it’s so clearly wrong. “Which has caused” seems to be modifying “the market”, and that makes no sense. I also can’t really understand why “has pulled” and “has caused” are suddenly in present perfect tense; the mix of verb tenses and modifiers in (B) is much better. (E) is out, and (B) wins.

rekhabishop · Answer

C should be the correct answer IMO.
1. "had pulled" is required to show that the action happened before "causing" the effect in the residual part of the sentence.
2. -ing modifier is aptly used to show the effect.

For others
(A) users and, having pulled the drug off the market, caused
(B) users and pulled the drug off the market, causing
(C) users and had pulled the drug off the market, causing
(D) users, pulled the drug off the market, and caused
(E) users and has pulled the drug off the market, which has caused

Please tell me, if I'm wrong.

Will I get kudos for this?

gmatexam439 · Answer

The pharmaceutical company conceded that its blockbuster drug may have contributed to the recent outbreak of skin rashes experienced by its  users and, having pulled the drug off the market, caused  a sharp drop in the company’s share price.

1. Here company did 2 things: accepted something and pulled the drug out of market. So "conceded" and "pulled" should be parallel. 
2. We do not need a perfect tense since the actions are not done in a sequential order.
3. Since company did 2 actions, we need "and" in the sentence to join the two actions and link them with the company.
Thus, option "B" has to be correct.

(A) users and,  having pulled the drug off the market , caused -  the striked part in the sentence becomes non-essential information. Thus the meaning of the sentence is "company conceded something and caused the shares to drop". This is absurd. Company can't cause a drop in shares, the action of drug being pulled out of market led to drop in share price. 
(B) users and pulled the drug off the market, causing - Correct as per aforesaid explanation 
(C) users and had pulled the drug off the market, causing - We do not need a past perfect tense 
(D) users, pulled the drug off the market, and caused - Same as option A 
(E) users and has pulled the drug off the market, which has caused - which wrongly refers back to market. We need a participle which will explain the impact of removal of the drug from market on the share price. "has" is wrongly used. We do not need a present perfect tense. It should be simple past.

AndrewN · Answer

rekhabishop  - The trouble with the past perfect tense in (C) is that it leads to an anachronism. If you strip the sentence down to its barebones, you are left with the following:

The pharmaceutical company conceded   and  had  pulled the drug, causing a drop.

Rather than pulling the drug as a result of the concession, the pharmaceutical company is made to look as if it made the concession after it had already pulled the drug, and that makes the sentence confusing, particularly with its use of  and :   is supposed to follow  . For your proposed sentence to work, you would expect the meaning to be clearer, as in,

The pharmaceutical company conceded    after it had pulled  the drug, causing a drop.

Of course, you are free to disagree, but the clarity of the sentence should be the number one concern in any SC question. I like that you explained your reasoning, though, which I believe can be helpful to others who come across the question and its accompanying discussion. Kudos from me.

- Andrew

Turkish · Answer

Hello Andrew,

Can you please help us understand why B is correct. In B we have

The pharmaceutical company conceded that its blockbuster drug may have contributed to the recent outbreak of skin rashes experienced by its users and, having pulled the drug off the market, caused a sharp drop in the company’s share price.

(A) users and, having pulled the drug off the market, caused

(B) users and pulled the drug off the market, causing

(C) users and had pulled the drug off the market, causing

(D) users, pulled the drug off the market, and caused

(E) users and has pulled the drug off the market, which has caused

Verbal Question of The Day: Day 80: Sentence Correction

Subscribe to GMAT Question of the Day: E-mail | RSS
For All QOTD Questions Click Here

Show Answer

Official Answer

B

The company conceded and pulled X , causing-- Here it sounds like share prices came down because of conceded and pulled.

AndrewN · Answer

Turkish   - Sure thing. I will start by saying that this question took me about 30 seconds to answer--31, to be exact--not because I am a grammar maven, but because I have become adept at knowing what the answer  cannot  be, due to a lack of clarity or grammatical issues, and rarely does that knowledge betray me. If we look at each barebones sentence, we get the following:

(A) The company conceded   and, having pulled  , caused  .
(B) The company conceded   and pulled  , causing  .
(C) The company conceded   and had pulled  , causing  .
(D) The company conceded  , pulled  , and caused  .
(E) The company conceded   and has pulled  , which has caused  .

The easy targets are (A), (C), and (E), all of which add words to no useful end. Specifically, (A) resorts to a weak -ing phrase when a more active verb tense would do (to answer the question,  What did the company do? ). Meanwhile, (C) and (E) both introduce perfect constructs for no apparent reason. That is, (C) creates an incorrect timeline, as discussed in my original post; although (E) could work grammatically in this stripped-down version of the sentence, unless there were a compelling reason to add extra words--namely, that a lack of clarity demanded it--such answers will not be correct. (D) has a nice bit of -ed conjugation going on, but in terms of meaning, the three actions sound concurrent, as though they were performed together: The company  ,  , and  . (B) is the only choice that does, in fact, establish a clear cause-and-effect relationship within a clearly delineated timeline: The company   and  , causing  . In this case, the reader understands the chain of events. The company announced something and decided to pull its own product off the market, thereby causing a certain effect. Again, it is not so much that I homed in on (B) right away, but rather than I burned off the other answers in passing.

I hope that explanation helps. If not, just post a reply, and I would be happy to address the issue in a different manner.

- Andrew

AcetheGMAT2019 · Answer

The pharmaceutical company conceded that its blockbuster drug may have contributed to the recent outbreak of skin rashes experienced by its users and, having pulled the drug off the market, caused a sharp drop in the company’s share price.

(A) users and,  having pulled  the drug off the market, caused - Incorrect as it distorts meaning

(B) users and pulled the drug off the market, causing

(C) users and  had   pulled the drug off the market, causing - Incorrect tense usage of Past Perfect Tense conveys incorrect meaning that first drug was pulled off the marked and then there was a drop in company's share price

(D) users , pulled  the drug off the market, and caused - Incorrect

(E) users and has pulled the drug off the market,  which   has caused - comma-which modifier can be used only to modify nouns, also comma-which modifier can be used only as a non-essential modifier - Incorrect

Annet1524 · Answer

The pharmaceutical company conceded that its blockbuster drug may have contributed to the recent outbreak of skin rashes experienced by its users and, having pulled the drug off the market, caused a sharp drop in the company’s share price.

(A) users and, having pulled the drug off the market,  caused  - modification for causing cases is ing

(B) users and pulled the drug off the market, causing -  correct answer 
 
(C) users and  had pulled  the drug off the market, causing - the actions were at the same time

(D) users, pulled the drug off the market,  and caused  - modification for causing cases is ing

(E) users and has pulled the drug off the  market, which  has caused - wrong modification

VerbalBot · Answer

Hello from the GMAT Club VerbalBot!

Thanks to another GMAT Club member, I have just discovered this valuable topic, yet it had no discussion for over a year. I am now bumping it up - doing my job. I think you may find it valuable (esp those replies with Kudos).

Want to see all other topics I dig out? Follow me (click follow button on profile). You will receive a summary of all topics I bump in your profile area as well as via email.

The pharmaceutical company conceded that its blockbuster drug may have

Prep Toolkit

Top 5 GMAT Debrief Videos

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards

GMAT Sentence Correction (SC - EA only) Questions

The pharmaceutical company conceded that its blockbuster drug may have

Prep Toolkit

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards