Hi DmitryFarber
In C-- could you please help explain what about the placement of "ultimately" before with makes no sense ? Does it not make sense with the previous clause perhaps ?

I dont see any difference in meaning in this analogy

HI MartyTargetTestPrep -
Interesting you say Ultimate goal makes more sense. While i understand the difference between Ultimate goal and Ultimately reduce - what makes more sense with the previous clause ? [The tourism commission has conducted surveys of hotels in the most popular resorts....]

I thought Ultimately reduce made more sense because of the previous clause specifically.

How can one expect to conduct a survey ONLY if you are hoping to reduce the number of unhappy guests ? The survey is just ONE STEP in a series of steps obviously, the tourism commision has to take. Given there are 'many steps' [not just conducting a survey] that the tourism commission has to take in order to achieve the goal -- the word ultimately reduce [or eventually] made more sense to me.

ultimately reduce [or eventually] re-inforces the fact that MANY STEPS are in between by the time the tourism commision reaches its goal.

That too me makes sense because conducting a survey obviously is just the first step.

Ultimate goal is also okay but in my view Ultimately reduce is better because we know conducting a survey is just one of a series of steps the commission has to take in order to achieve the goal ..

jabhatta2

It might be better to condense some of these ideas down into one post, since the threads you're pulling on with me and Marty are very similar. Also, I think much of the trouble stems from the fact that ULTIMATELY creates confusion no matter where we place it in the sentence. The meaning clearly expressed in E is that reducing the number of people who express dissatisfaction is the ultimate goal of the commission. That is, this is the goal that they want to achieve at the end of a series of efforts. Keep in mind that this is the meaning of “ultimate” that is retained in “ultimately.” We’re describing something that happened, or will happen, at the end of a sequence of events.
We could certainly express this idea with “ultimately” if the second half were a separate clause:

The tourism commission has conducted surveys of hotels in the most popular resorts; ultimately, the commission’s goal is to reduce the number of guests who express overall dissatisfaction with the hotels’ service.

However, when we add “ultimately” to the modifier, we end up with trouble. The exact position of the word matters, and it creates a weird meaning wherever we put it in this phrase!

ultimately with the goal to reduce
It sounds like they only have the goal at the end. They weren’t with the goal initially, but later on they are with the goal. This doesn’t make sense. For the same reason, your option C about the gun doesn’t work. (By the way, I hope John is okay.)

with ultimately the goal to reduce
This just isn’t a coherent English word order. If we want “ultimately” to apply to “with,” we should place it before for clarity. It can’t apply to a noun (“the goal”).

with the goal ultimately to reduce / with the goal to ultimately reduce
I’ll consider these together. Since an adverb can’t apply to “the goal,” both of these must be using “ultimately” to modify the infinitive verb “to reduce.” This is a valid place to put an adverb, but it’s not how we typically use “ultimately.” I might say “I want to finally increase my running speed” if I had tried before and hoped to hit the accomplishment now. But “ultimately” doesn’t work the same way. If we used it here, it would sound as if we ONLY wanted the result later, as the result of a series of steps, and would not be happy to have it now. That’s not something we typically say. (This cuts option B about the gun.)

with the goal to reduce ultimately
We don’t normally place adverbs directly after the verb like this. We can say “I want to gradually lose weight,” not “I want to lose gradually weight.”

One additional source of confusion here is that ULTIMATE has a wider range of meanings than ULTIMATELY. Often, we use “ultimate” to talk about something that is the most, best, or furthest extreme available. “This roller coaster is the ultimate thrill ride.” That’s not a meaning that really works in adverb form, but there are shades of that meaning when we misplace ULTIMATELY. So when you say “ultimately kill John,” it sounds like an extreme action. Perhaps John is a vampire or demon lord, and he is being killed once and for all this time. Similarly, when you say “ultimately reduce,” there are shades of grinding that number into dust. This may not be a standard dictionary usage of “ultimately,” but since these placements aren’t standard to begin with, that’s what comes to mind for me. I can’t speak for Marty, but perhaps he is experiencing the same thing.
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Hello experts,

chose B over E,

1. first thing which occured to me while I was reading the original choice was "goal to reduce" vs "goal of reducing"; "to reduce" looked better as it shows the intention what exactly tourism commision wanted to do. Isn't "to reduce" is better than E?

2. ultimate goal vs goal to ultimately-
when I read ultimately, as a non native, I get comfortable when I see it as final or finally. The tourism commission has conducted surveys -
(B)- they have a final goal to reduce certain type of guests. vs (E) They have a goal to finally reduce as if they have been trying for so long and finally want to reduce certain type of guests-

both choices convey logical meaning, both could be correct, how can we choose when there are no other errors except meaning, even though both meanings make sense ?

This question was posted in another thread. Adding it here in case it helps anybody.

Keep in mind that it's the guests who express dissatisfaction, not the number. (Numbers don't have feelings, right?) So "the number" doesn't actually have a verb, and we don't need to worry about whether it's singular or plural!

We elaborated on this point earlier in the thread: https://gmatclub.com/forum/the-tourism- ... l#p2913818. Check it out, adyg14, and let us know if you still have questions!
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Hello dcoolguy,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, Option B actually alters the meaning of the sentence through the phrase "goal to ultimately reduce"; the construction of this phrase incorrectly implies that the goal of the tourism commission is to ultimately, or eventually, reduce the number of guests who express overall dissatisfaction with the hotels’ service; the intended meaning is that the ultimate, or final goal of the tourism commission is to reduce the number of guests who express overall dissatisfaction with the hotels’ service. Further, Option B incorrectly uses the unidiomatic construction "goal + to" rather than the idiomatic construction "goal + of"; please remember, when "goal" is part of a noun phrase, "goal + of" is the correct, idiomatic construction. Additionally, Option B uses the needlessly wordy phrase "end up expressing", leading to awkwardness and redundancy.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
Experts' Global Team
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Hi MartyTargetTestPrep, what are your thoughts on the sentences below?

I'm going to quote a bunch of newspapers, including NYT since we know, once in a while, GMAC uses NYT's articles to come up with SC questions.

https://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/17/busi ... loans.html:
"IT plans to ultimately reduce its exposure to these loans further, though the bank is reluctant to sell right now since prices for these companies' debt are depressed."

https://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/29/business/29rim.html:
"It said it expected the options review to ultimately reduce its net earnings since 1997, when it became publicly traded, by $25 million to $45 million ."

https://www.wsj.com/articles/glaxos-kar ... 1512502700
"The goal is to ultimately reduce the time it takes to train workers and increase the time the machines are up and running"

"The French government agreed last December to ultimately reduce its EADS stake to 12 per cent, and, in the meantime, that Paris would not exercise voting rights over 3 per cent of the company’s stock."
https://www.ft.com/content/16624d80-a5b ... 144feabdc0

"The clear intention is to ultimately reduce the prevalence of parent-child listings, which are rarely seen in developed markets outside of Japan."

Vordhosbn

Very interesting finds. I do sometimes find some interesting grammar errors in the NYT, but it seems clear that they're accepting this usage (or at least, that their copy editors don't have this issue on their radar). That doesn't mean that it would fly on the GMAT, but notice that most of these cases fit the meaning I suggested above for this construction. They are talking about something that is expected or planned for later, but NOT for now. I still don't love it, but that's how I'd read that construction.
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