Declining enrolments are forcing smaller private colleges to choose be

Question

Declining enrolments are forcing smaller private colleges to choose between  raising tuition and reduction of the staff .

A. raising tuition and reduction of the staff
B. raising tuition and reducing staff
C. the raise of tuition and the reduction of staff
D. among raising tuition and reducing staff
E. between raising tuition or reducing staff

I was going through a practice set and came across this example. Can somebody please help me understand why choice C is incorrect ?

machichi · Answer

The "raise of" is not standard English. There can be a "rise in tuition".

plui31 · Answer

I agree with Machichi. Also, I think C is unnecessarily wordy comparing to B. My choice is B.

CMcAboy · Answer

I chose B as well, but there is something wrong with your question. Where exactly is the underlined section of the sentence. Based upon answer choice A, it is "raising tuition and reduction of the staff.", which does not have "between" in it. Answer choices D and E have among and between in them respectively. That creates a repeat word in answer choice D. Is this the intended structure of the question?

crashVcrush · Answer

1.The idiom is Between X AND Y : 2. The list has 2 items

Thus Among = Eliminated / Between X OR Y = Eliminated ( D & E = Gone with the wind )

A : Raising ..............AND.............Reduction = Breaks parallelism = Eliminated

C : The raise of tuition is unidiomatic = doesn't make sense = Eliminated

B :............. Raising.............. AND..............Reducing = parallel

leading to B = my take

catalysis · Answer

I think you entered the wrong answer choice when you submitted this question. Right now, it is counting C as the right answer in the GMAT timer but it is the wrong one.

pqhai · Answer

@catalysis:
Error is fixed. Thanks for raising the issue.

STEMBusiness · Answer

Why is E incorrect? Is it generally the case that one should say "between X and Y" and not "between X OR Y"?

mvictor · Answer

the correct idiom between X and Y.
D and E can be eliminated on this account.
A - raising and reduction - we have action and noun - not parallel, so out.
C - the raise and the reduction - 2 nouns, parallel, but B is more concise and gives 2 actions..so B is more preferable.

sayantanc2k · Answer

Yes, we could have 2 options to express such cases:

1. Choose X  OR  Y.... correct
2. Choose between X  AND  Y....... correct

Choose between X  OR  Y........... wrong.

daagh · Answer

Declining enrollments are forcing smaller private colleges to choose between  raising tuition and reduction of the staff .

First thing. It looks as though ‘between is’ not underlined. (If the poster had underlined the error part as in the original, he could have found it out, as I do not believe that Kaplan’s question would contain such a basic error.)

A. raising tuition and reduction of the staff. ---  raising and reduction not parallel  
B. raising tuition and reducing staff ---  parallel and good . 
C. the raise of tuition and the reduction of staff ---  unidiomatic  
D. among raising tuition and reducing staff ---  among is a wrong diction for two items  
E. between raising tuition or reducing staff –  'between .. or' is unidiomatic and also see the use of ‘ between’ twice. .

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Declining enrolments are forcing smaller private colleges to choose be

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