Having finally reached a tentative labor agreement with its

E is not correct becos of 'both and also' redundancy; D is the one. May be a typo

Its 'D'

the airline's board of directors must now determine how the airline can both increase profits and compete more effectively for customers than it did in the past

opening modifier correctly modifying the airline's board.
'both'..'and' parallelism marker correctly made increase profits and compete more effectively
two adjective phrases parallel

past and preset performance separated by 'than' also right

IMO D
A and B are out due to pronoun referent issue
C has incorrect placement of "both"
E has incorrect use of "also" along with "both" - making unnecessary double comparison

Having finally reached a tentative labor agreement with its company's pilots, it must now be determined by the airline's board of directors how the airline can both increase profits and compete more effectively for customers than they did in the past.

(A) it must now be determined by the airline's board of directors how the airline can both increase profits and compete more effectively for customers than they did in the past
(B) it must now be determined by the airline's board of directors how the airline can both increase profits and must compete more effectively than in the past for customers
(C) the airline's board of directors must now determine both how to make the airline increase profits and compete more effectively for customers than they did in the past
(D) the airline's board of directors must now determine how the airline can both increase profits and compete more effectively for customers than it did in the past
(E) the airline's board of directors must now determine how the airline can both increase profits and also how to make it compete more effectively than in the past for customers

MEANING:
Airline's board of directors can now determine how :
1.to increase profit
2.to compete more effectively
in the same way board was doing before.

CATCH:
Airline's board: collective noun
Having finally reached a tentative labor agreement with its company's pilots: THIS IS A MODIFIER...so ask question WHO?....So as per the meaning of sentence answer will be airline's board which is noun.
whenever modifier modifies a noun then it should touch the noun ,so on the basis of this we can eliminate A,B...as modifier is not touching noun.

now we have C D E
(C) the airline's board of directors must now determine both how to make the airline increase profits and compete more effectively for customers than they did in the past(In this "they" is incorrect because as per the meaning "they" should represent board ....but airline's board is singular so this pronoun is incorrect.
(D) the airline's board of directors must now determine how the airline can both increase profits and compete more effectively for customers than it did in the past(correct)
(E) the airline's board of directors must now determine how the airline can both increase profits and also how to make it compete more effectively than in the past for customers(in this there are 2 errors:(a).and also together is redundant
(b)parrallelism error---how the airline can both increase profits AND also how to make it compete more effectively
both sides of and is not parallel.

hope i correctly explained.
experts please suggest if i am wrong somewhere.

SKM

Having finally reached a tentative labor agreement with its company's pilots, it must now be determined by the airline's board of directors how the airline can both increase profits and compete more effectively for customers than they did in the past.


(C) the airline's board of directors must now determine both how to make the airline increase profits and compete more effectively for customers than they did in the past
(D) the airline's board of directors must now determine how the airline can both increase profits and compete more effectively for customers than it did in the past
(E) the airline's board of directors must now determine how the airline can both increase profits and also how to make it compete more effectively than in the past for customers

Having finally reached a tentative labor agreement with its company's pilots, it must now be determined by the airline's board of directors how the airline can both increase profits and compete more effectively for customers than they did in the past.

(A) it must now be determined by the airline's board of directors how the airline can both increase profits and compete more effectively for customers than they did in the past - opening modifier issue
(B) it must now be determined by the airline's board of directors how the airline can both increase profits and must compete more effectively than in the past for customers - same as A
(C) the airline's board of directors must now determine both how to make the airline increase profits and compete more effectively for customers than they did in the past- they should logically refer to airline ; both X and Y -- parallelism issue
(D) the airline's board of directors must now determine how the airline can both increase profits and compete more effectively for customers than it did in the past - Correct
(E) the airline's board of directors must now determine how the airline can both increase profits and also how to make it compete more effectively than in the past for customers - Both X and also Y is incorrect

Answer D

GMATNinja GMATNinjaTwo VeritasPrepKarishma

Can experts comment if usage of - BOTH A and B- is correct in (C)

A : how to make the airline increase profits (verb)
B: compete more effectively (verb)

I am not expert but i can say usage of BOth A and B in C is not correct. A is interrogative clause and B is phrase.

In simple words..Both How Bblah Blah and How Blah Blah.... will make more sense.

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