To attract the most talented workers, some companies are offering a wider range of benefits, letting employees pick those most important to them. (A) benefits, letting employees pick those most important to them (B) benefits, letting employees pick the most important of them to themselves (C) benefits and letting employees pick the most important to themselves (D) benefits and let employees pick the most important to them (E) benefits and let employees pick those that are most important to themselves Question No.: SC 743 Talented Workers (A) CORRECT (B) Pronoun ( them, themselves ) (C) Pronoun ( themselves ); Sentence Structure ( and ) (D) Sentence Structure / Parallelism ( and ) (E) Pronoun ( themselves ); Sentence Structure / Parallelism ( and ) First glance The word benefits is the same in all five choices, but notice that some have a comma after and some do not. Something is going on with sentence structure. The two options are benefits , letting (signaling a comma -ing modifier) and benefits and (signaling a parallel sentence structure). Issues (1) Pronoun: them; themselves A glance down the end of the choices reveals a split: them or themselves ? Answer (B) also has two pronouns: both them and themselves . Start there. Logically, the pronoun them should refer to the benefits and the pronoun themselves should refer to the employees. Putting the two almost-identical pronouns so close to each other, though, creates an ambiguity; the reader has to think about which pronoun refers to which noun. In general, it’s not a good idea to use the same (or almost the same) pronoun to refer to two different nouns in the same sentence; it’s too confusing. Eliminate (B). Now, what about them vs. themselves in the other choices? Both are intended to refer to employees, but they aren’t interchangeable. Them is a “straight” plural pronoun used as an object in sentences, while themselves is reflexive; reflexive pronouns are used in two more specific situations. Object form: She made macaroni and cheese for them . Reflexive form #1 (refer back to earlier pronoun): They made macaroni and cheese for themselves . ( Themselves refers back—reflexively—to the first pronoun, they .) Reflexive form #2 (for emphasis): They ate the macaroni and cheese themselves after the kids binged on candy all afternoon. (You could remove the word themselves and the sentence would still make sense; you’re just emphasizing that they themselves ended up eating the mac and cheese.) In the given sentence, themselves is not referring back to an earlier pronoun; rather, it’s referring to the noun employees . It is also not used for emphasis; you can’t remove it and still have the sentence make sense, as in the example above. Eliminate choices (B), (C), and (E) for faulty use of a reflexive pronoun. (2) Sentence Structure: and Parallelism: and The initial split in the answers is between benefits , letting and benefits and . What’s the difference? Benefits, letting is a comma –ing modifier structure. The letting modifier refers back to the main clause (the main subject and verb of the sentence). By contrast, benefits and is a parallel structure. What do you think about these two sentences: Some companies have good benefits and employ lots of people. Some companies have good benefits, employing lots of people. The two structures mirror the structures in this problem—with one big difference. In the two sentences above, the benefits and structure is correct, not the benefits, employing structure. Why? Both pieces of information are about the companies, but the two pieces of information are separate from each other. It isn’t the case that, because these companies have good benefits, they therefore employ lots of people. Contrast that with the meaning of the sentence in this problem. In this case, the fact that the companies are offering a wider range of benefits is exactly what then allows the companies to let employees pick which benefits they want. In other words, the two pieces of information are related, so you do want a comma –ing structure to connect them: some companies are offering (lots of) benefits, letting employees pick which ones they want. Eliminate choices (C), (D), and (E) for faulty meaning. Answers (D) and (E) also change the form of the verb to let rather than letting , setting up the parallel structure some companies are offering…and let… While it isn’t absolutely required to put two parallel verbs into the same tense in all circumstances, it is the case that, if the two verbs are talking about events taking place simultaneously, it’s generally preferable to keep the two verbs in the same tense. Answer (C) is okay but eliminate answers (D) and (E) for switching tense even though the events are taking place simultaneously. The Correct Answer Correct answer (A) uses the regular object pronoun them to refer to employees. It also uses a comma –ing modifier structure to properly signal the connection between offering a wider range of benefits and letting employees pick those most important to them .

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arry232

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12 Oct 2023, 16:46

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Hi Experts EMPOWERgmatRichC ,daagh , mikemcgarry , egmat , GMATNinja , RonPurewal

I have a confusion regarding modifiers. In this particular question it seems that the modifer letting modifies the entire clause? Is that correct?

Doesnt a modifier only modify the subject? How do we discern when a subject is being modified or when the full clause is being modified.

Please help!

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17 Oct 2023, 06:56

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arry232

If you find yourself wondering, "is this modifier describing the subject, or the action (verb) being performed by that subject?", then you want to ask yourself: "does it really matter?" In other words, does it change the meaning at all? Usually not, so who cares if you label it incorrectly?

For more on the modifier in choice (A), check out this post: https://gmatclub.com/forum/to-attract-t ... l#p2820593.

For more on -ing modifiers and how they can modify nouns or clauses, check out this post (particularly Use #3 and Use #4): https://gmatclub.com/forum/experts-topi ... 39780.html.

I hope that helps!

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22 Oct 2023, 10:48

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GMATNinja

I see different calls for help in at least three different posts, so I'll try to address everything in one big, fat explanation:

Quote:

(A) benefits, letting employees pick those most important to them

"Those" is just a plural pronoun here, so we should look for some plural noun that it can refer back to. "Benefits" makes sense, right? "...letting employees pick the benefits most important to them." So we're good there. (And for more on demonstrative pronouns, check out our Topic of the Week or our YouTube video about the many uses of "that.")

And yes, "benefits" is an object, but there's no reason why a pronoun can't refer back to an object. There's some weird myth going around about that, and I'm not sure where it's coming from. Pronouns can refer to subjects or objects.

"Letting" is used as a modifier here (click here for more on "-ing" modifiers), and that makes sense: "letting employees pick (the benefits) most important to them" is giving us more information about what happens when "companies are offering a wider range of benefits." So it makes sense for "letting" to be a modifier, not a verb. Keep (A).

Hello,
GMATNinja
Thanks for the explanation. I'm just facing a confusion on this explanation.
those refers back to what, actually? Is it the benefits or benefits only?
For both possibility the versions could be:
a) To attract the most talented workers, some companies are offering a wider range of benefits, letting employees pick benefits most important to them
^^ The green part is just a simple sentence itself-there is no connection to the previous sentence (To connect the .....of benefits). We can think of the green part as independent sentence which has sub, verb, object.

b) To attract the most talented workers, some companies are offering a wider range of benefits, letting employees pick the benefits most important to them
^^ The green part tell us that this part directly connected with the previous part (To connect the .....of benefits) because of the use of the.
So, it seems that version b makes sense. But, why do we use extra the in front of benefits here in this case? The word those directly should refer back to only benefits, shouldn't it?

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22 Oct 2023, 13:54

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Quote:

To attract the most talented workers, some companies are offering a wider range of benefits, letting employees pick those most important to them.

(A) benefits, letting employees pick those most important to them
(B) benefits, letting employees pick the most important of them to themselves
(C) benefits and letting employees pick the most important to themselves
(D) benefits and let employees pick the most important to them
(E) benefits and let employees pick those that are most important to themselves

Request Expert Reply:
In E, the that and those both refer back to benefits, don't they? if yes, can we think that using the consecutive subject side to side is wrong?

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04 Nov 2023, 07:31

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egmat KarishmaB DmitryFarber
- How would you look at this question on an overall basis?

Also, In choice A, what role is "letting" playing? Is it saying that given the companies are offering a wider (compared to before) range of benefits (Cause) , employees are able to select the most important benefits for themselves (Effect)?

Here is how I rejected the choices:

B) benefits, letting employees pick the most important of them to themselves
Here them refers to benefits and the second themselves refers to employees. There can be ambiguity in relation to them. But I think the major issue is with the usage of "to". It should be "for".

Here is what I found on the internet for usage of themselves:

Usage 1: You use themselves to refer to people, animals, or things when the object of a verb or preposition refers to the same people or things as the subject of the verb.

They all seemed to be enjoying themselves.
The men talked amongst themselves.
All artists have part of themselves that they can never share with anyone else

Usage2: You use themselves to emphasize the people or things that you are referring to. Themselves is also sometimes used instead of 'them' as the object of a verb or preposition.

(C) benefits and letting employees pick the most important to themselves
When I read the sentence, this is something that automatically came to my mind but with "for them" and not "to themselves". I am unsure if we can change the causal relationship (please correct my understanding if I am wrong here) to two separate actions. Also "to" seems to be an issue to be used with themselves. I think it should have been "for" themselves.

(D) benefits and let employees pick the most important to them
I don't think there is any parallelism issue but more of a meaning issue as the choice as written means that companies generally let employees do certain things.

(E) benefits and let employees pick those that are most important to themselves
Same issue as D along with issues in C.

Is my understanding correct?

Thanks you

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