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aurobindomahanty
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To force a person to retire solely because they have reached a certain Updated on: 11 Nov 2018, 17:49
Originally posted by aurobindomahanty on 28 Jun 2017, 07:28.
Last edited by BillyZ on 11 Nov 2018, 17:49, edited 2 times in total.
Edited the question.
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77% (01:07) correct 23% (01:16) wrong based on 1671 sessions

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To force a person to retire solely because they have reached a certain arbitrary age is like denying a person a job because of sex, race, or religion.

(A) To force a person to retire solely because they have reached a certain arbitrary age is like denying a person a job

(B) Forcing a person to retire solely because they have reached a certain arbitrary age is like denying a person a job

(C) Forcing people to retire solely because they have reached a certain arbitrary age is like to deny a person a job

(D) Forcing people to retire solely because they have reached a certain arbitrary age is like denying people jobs

(E) To force people to retire solely because they have reached a certain arbitrary age is like denying people jobs

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https://www.nytimes.com/1985/04/14/weekinreview/debate-should-mandatory-retirement-be-outlawed.html

Forcing a person to retire solely because he or she has reached a certain arbitrary age is no different from denying a person a job because of sex, race or religion. Forced retirement, by any name, is denial of employment.
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D
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To force a person to retire solely because they have reached a certain 28 Jun 2017, 07:47
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To set the context, the sentence is trying to compare two actions - forcing a person and denying.

Errors: Parallelism and Pronoun.

Option A (incorrect): To force a 'person'...because 'they' is wrong (antecedent for 'they' should be plural). Denying is a verb and should have parallel construction with 'forcing'.
Option B (incorrect): Pronoun error (as explained for options A).
Option C (incorrect): Parallel construction error of 'forcing' and 'to deny'.
Option D (CORRECT): Corrects pronoun and parallelism error.
Option E (incorrect): Parallelism error.
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To force a person to retire solely because they have reached a certain 28 Jun 2017, 08:43
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To force a person to retire solely because they have reached a certain arbitrary age is like denying a person a job because of sex, race, or religion.

(A) To force a person to retire solely because they have reached a certain arbitrary age is like denying a person a job
Use of Plural pronoun (THEY) for singular antecedent (PERSON) is incorrect.
(B) Forcing a person to retire solely because they have reached a certain arbitrary age is like denying a person a job
Use of Plural pronoun (THEY) for singular antecedent (PERSON) is incorrect.
(C) Forcing people to retire solely because they have reached a certain arbitrary age is like to deny a person a job
Modifier (DENYING) is required to maintain Parallelism.
(D) Forcing people to retire solely because they have reached a certain arbitrary age is like denying people jobs
CORRECT
(E) To force people to retire solely because they have reached a certain arbitrary age is like denying people jobs
Use of TO FORCE is idiomatically Incorrect
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To force a person to retire solely because they have reached a certain 27 Sep 2017, 09:46
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experts,

could you please help me with the decision point that can be used to choose between B and d. B is singular(a person) and D is plural(people).
thanks
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To force a person to retire solely because they have reached a certain 28 Sep 2017, 15:33
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The issue is the pronoun "they," which according to the GMAT is always plural. For decades, it has been standard to use the singular they/their to refer to one person of indeterminate gender, usually in cases where we don't have a specific person in mind: "Someone dropped their ticket." More recently, "they" has also become popular as a pronoun for individuals who don't identify as male or female. However, the GMAT is still stuck in the past and insists on "his or her" to refer to an individual.
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To force a person to retire solely because they have reached a certain 12 Jul 2019, 03:55
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To force is to deny --parallel

To force is like denying -- not grammatically parallel

Need to maintain parallelism in comparisons or idioms of contrast.
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To force a person to retire solely because they have reached a certain 29 Sep 2020, 11:07
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DmitryFarber
The issue is the pronoun "they," which according to the GMAT is always plural. For decades, it has been standard to use the singular they/their to refer to one person of indeterminate gender, usually in cases where we don't have a specific person in mind: "Someone dropped their ticket." More recently, "they" has also become popular as a pronoun for individuals who don't identify as male or female. However, the GMAT is still stuck in the past and insists on "his or her" to refer to an individual.
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In this (C) is more parallel than (D), even though the correct is (D)?
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To force a person to retire solely because they have reached a certain 29 Sep 2020, 11:12
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lakshya14

I'm not sure what you mean about C. That answer compares "Forcing" and "to deny," which are not parallel.

The "they" in C also refers to people, so is properly plural. It's not wrong to compare what several people to do with what one person does, so that's fine, and what I said about "they" wouldn't change our approach here.
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To force a person to retire solely because they have reached a certain 27 May 2021, 04:32
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[quote="aurobindomahanty"]To force a person to retire solely because they have reached a certain arbitrary age is like denying a person a job because of sex, race, or religion.

(A) To force a person to retire solely because they have reached a certain arbitrary age is like denying a person a job

(B) Forcing a person to retire solely because they have reached a certain arbitrary age is like denying a person a job

(C) Forcing people to retire solely because they have reached a certain arbitrary age is like to deny a person a job

(D) Forcing people to retire solely because they have reached a certain arbitrary age is like denying people jobs

(E) To force people to retire solely because they have reached a certain arbitrary age is like denying people jobs


In Options A and B - "THEY" (plural) can't refer to person (singular)- Eliminate
Between C, D, E - sometimes verbs can be used to hold two phrases parallel.
Thus C and E can be eliminated because "forcing" isn't parallel "to deny" (C)
"To force" isn't parallel to "Denying"
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To force a person to retire solely because they have reached a certain 05 Mar 2022, 22:29
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Eliminate A, C and E
Forcing and Denying, do not maintain parallelism
(A) To force a person to retire solely because they have reached a certain arbitrary age is like
denying a person a job
(C) Forcing people to retire solely because they have reached a certain arbitrary age is like
to deny a person a job
(E) To force people to retire solely because they have reached a certain arbitrary age is like
denying people jobs

Between B, and D - option B is wrong as it doesnt maintain SV agreement
(B) Forcing a person to retire solely because they have reached a certain arbitrary age is like
denying a person a job
(D) Forcing people to retire solely because they have reached a certain arbitrary age is like
denying people jobs - Correct Option
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To force a person to retire solely because they have reached a certain 16 Jun 2023, 06:12
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