There was civil unrest, which contributed to the instability of the na

Hello,

There was civil unrest, which contributed to the instability of the nation's economy, along with no clear monetary policy.

What is the sentence telling us ? That two things, namely "civil unrest"(X) and "no clear monetary policy"(Y) contributed to "the instability of the nation's economy"(Z). We want the above items to be set-up in a way that clearly conveys that both elements X and Y lead to Z.

A) Original sentence does not properly convey this meaning. It reads as if X contributed to both Y and Z.

B) The sentence is set-up the following way : Z happened because of X and Y. We must ask ourselves : does it make sense to write our outcome Z at the front of the sentence ?
Apart from that, the use of was creates a S-V error: X and Y are independent events.

C) Has a way clearer lay out : Y and X contributed to Z. However, "the absence of" carries over "civil unrest", which reads as follow : "the absence of Y [...] and the absence of civil unrest contributed [...]". The whole point is that "civil unrest" is a thing, it is a part of the equation. It being "absent" shatters the meaning of the sentence.

D) I can't seem to pick out any grammatical reason as to why D) would be wrong. The layout is not great : X contributed to Z, and so did (contribute) Y to Z. In terms of diction, I see no reason to split this sentence into two seperate independant clauses with two different subjects : keep this one if you are conservative. Not extremely gmat friendly of an answer choice.

E) There we have it : X, along with Y, contributed to Z. It is sound and does not repeat the "carry over" problem we encountered when dealing with answer C)

IMO E

Let's watch out the role of "along with no clear monetary policy"
Did Civil unrest contribute to no clear monetary policy?
- Certainly not.

The problem has the case of, what we call "misplaced modifier".

X,contributed to Y, along with Z => implies that Y and Z are together.
X, along with Z, contributed to Y => implies that X and Z together contributed to Y.

"along with" acts as a modifier and not an additive.
Hence, it does not change the count of the subject , to which it's applied.

A) There was civil unrest, which contributed to the instability of the nation's economy, along with no clear monetary policy.
Incorrect because of the above reason.
B) Contributing to the instability of the nation's economy was civil unrest and no clear monetary policy.
S-V disagreement.
C) The absence of a clear monetary policy and civil unrest contributed to the instability of the nation's economy.
The absence of civil unrest contributed to the instability?? - No
D) Civil unrest contributed to the nation's economic instability, and so did the absence of a clear monetary policy.
No grammatical error.
X did, and so did Y. i.e. X and Y did (Note the equal emphasis on both X and Y)
However, the actual sentence intends to say : X along with Y did (more emphasis on X and "along with Y" is just the modifier to X).
E) Civil unrest, along with the absence of a clear monetary policy, contributed to the instability of the nation's economy.
No grammatical error.

I absolutely agree that if a sentence is completely underlined, we CAN'T anticipate the intended meaning of the sentence to pick a choice, and the grammar only is the weapon we have.
But, I have seen many problems,in which we have to make the decision based on the "intended" meaning of the actual sentence even if it's fully underlined.
I am not sure if all of them are official ones.
With the same experience, I would pick E as it aligns with what is intended by choice A (the actual one).

IMO E

There was civil unrest, which contributed to the instability of the nation's economy, along with no clear monetary policy.


A) There was civil unrest, which contributed to the instability of the nation's economy, along with no clear monetary policy.
Construction is wordy- Let us look for a better option

B) Contributing to the instability of the nation's economy was civil unrest and no clear monetary policy.
Subject verb disagreement: Subject of the inverted sentence is plural

C) The absence of a clear monetary policy and civil unrest contributed to the instability of the nation's economy.
Meaning is changed: The absence of a clear policy and absence of civil unrest contributed... - Illogical and meaning is flawed

D) Civil unrest contributed to the nation's economic instability, and so did the absence of a clear monetary policy.
The grammar is fine but sentence presents as the two actions are not simultaneous or are independent; however, per context and meaning it is evident that both actions simultaneously contributed to the instability of the nation's economy.

E) Civil unrest, along with the absence of a clear monetary policy, contributed to the instability of the nation's economy.[/quote]
Best choice. I got stuck initially as one of the important information, without which meaning can change, is enclosed between commas but later I could not find any better option

I go with (E)

POE:

A: Illogical meaning: A possible interpretation could be “civil unrest contributed to no clear monetary policy”

B: SVA: Singular verb WAS for compound subject (=civil unrest and no clear monetary policy)

C: Illogical meaning: The absence of civil unrest…

Option-D and E both are grammatically correct AND can express the meaning; however, I do not wish to keep the other contributor (=the absence of a clear monetary policy) as an ASIDE, so I chose D over E.

There was civil unrest, which contributed to the instability of the nation's economy, along with no clear monetary policy.



A) There was civil unrest, which contributed to the instability of the nation's economy, along with no clear monetary policy. Incorrect

civil unrest along with no clear monetary policy what?

B) Contributing to the instability of the nation's economy was civil unrest and no clear monetary policy. Incorrect

changes meaning

C) The absence of a clear monetary policy and civil unrest contributed to the instability of the nation's economy. Incorrect

changes meaning

D) Civil unrest contributed to the nation's economic instability, and so did the absence of a clear monetary policy. Incorrect

changes meaning

E) Civil unrest, along with the absence of a clear monetary policy, contributed to the instability of the nation's economy. Correct

There was civil unrest, which contributed to the instability of the nation's economy, along with no clear monetary policy.

The original meaning seems to portray that civil unrest and clear monetary policy together caused the instability of the nation's economy. It cannot be that civil unrest contributed to the instability and unclear policy. Generally, unrest are an outcome of bad policy decisions. So, we need to look for answers that align to this meaning.

A) There was civil unrest, which contributed to the instability of the nation's economy, along with no clear monetary policy.
There is ambiguity. The "no clear monetary policy" can be a continuation of the which modifier, modifying civil unrest, or it could be a continuation of the main object "civil unrest".

B) Contributing to the instability of the nation's economy was civil unrest and no clear monetary policy.
The usage of 'was' is incorrect. 'were' would have been more appropriate.

C) The absence of a clear monetary policy and civil unrest contributed to the instability of the nation's economy.
The absence of a clear monetary policy and (the absence of) civil unrest contributed to the instability of the nation's economy. Doesn't make sense.

D) Civil unrest contributed to the nation's economic instability, and so did the absence of a clear monetary policy.
There is a subtle but important difference between "nation's economic instability" and "instability of the nation's economy". In normal conversation, they can be used interchangeably, but not in GMAT. "nation's economy" is preferred as it directly says that there was instability in the economy, while in "economic instability" there is no mention of the economy as the economic serves more as an adjective.

E) Civil unrest, along with the absence of a clear monetary policy, contributed to the instability of the nation's economy.
This follows the intended meaning and doesn't have issues as listed in option D.

Hi generis

Request you to provide OE for this one

There was civil unrest, which contributed to the instability of the nation's economy, along with no clear monetary policy.



A) There was civil unrest, which contributed to the instability of the nation's economy, along with no clear monetary policy.

The core of this sentence seems to be "There was civil unrest along with no clear monetary policy." The intended meaning is that the civil unrest helped contribute to a lack of a monetary policy. The 'which' modifier is set apart from the rest of the sentence. If I wanted to use a 'which' modifier, I should say "There was civil unrest, which, along with a lack of clear monetary policy, contributed to the instability of the nation's economy."

B) Contributing to the instability of the nation's economy was civil unrest and no clear monetary policy.

This is a subject-verb issue. Sometimes subjects come after verbs. Here 'civil unrest' and 'no clear monetary policy' WERE contributing to the instability.

C) The absence of a clear monetary policy and civil unrest contributed to the instability of the nation's economy.

Here it seems that 'civil unrest' is also 'absent.' The parallelism is ambiguous. Is 'Civil unrest' parallel with 'monetary policy' (and therefore, civil unrest is also 'absent'), or is civil unrest parallel with 'the absence' and therefore something that contributed to the economy's instability.

D) Civil unrest contributed to the nation's economic instability, and so did the absence of a clear monetary policy.

This might not be grammatically wrong, but the structure could be cleaner. Either 'X and Y did Z' or 'X along with Y did Z' is much cleaner than "X did Z, and so did Y." 'And so' is also an unusual double-conjunction that raises my eyebrows a little bit.

E) Civil unrest, along with the absence of a clear monetary policy, contributed to the instability of the nation's economy.

This is correct and unambiguous

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