Before its bankruptcy in 2008, Goldman Sachs Inc. financed Crystal Tec

Question

Before its bankruptcy in 2008, Goldman Sachs Inc. financed Crystal Technologies, a tech company, as a venture capital investment and they would withdrew all their funding  only after a long and comprehensive analysis of the bankrupt tech company’s account books.

(A) Before its bankruptcy in 2008, Goldman Sachs Inc. financed Crystal Technologies, a tech company, as a venture capital investment and they would withdraw all its funding

(B) Before its bankruptcy in 2008, Goldman Sachs Inc. had financed Crystal Technologies, a tech company, as a venture capital investment and withdrew all its funding

(C) Before its bankruptcy in 2008, Crystal Technologies, a tech company, had been financed by Goldman Sachs Inc. as a venture capital investment and the investor withdrew all its funding

(D) Before its bankruptcy in 2008, Crystal Technologies, a tech company, was financed as a venture capital investment by Goldman Sachs Inc., which withdrew all its funding

(E) Before its bankruptcy in 2008, Crystal Technologies, a tech company, was a venture capital investment of Goldman Sachs Inc. , who withdrew all its funding

Verbal Question of The Day: Day 59: Sentence Correction 
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Vercules · Accepted Answer

Hey Fellas, Updated the question with OA and here goes the OE :-)

. Have any questions, let me know!!! Note that if you are reading only the underlined portion, it will be difficult to determine which company got bankrupt, Goldman Sachs Inc. or Crystal Technologies. The non underlined part of the sentence clearly states “bankrupt tech company’s account books”, which means that Crystal Technologies (a tech company) went bankrupt. Moreover, original sentence begins with a modifier ("Before its bankruptcy ") that clearly describes Crystal Technologies, though the subject of the main clause is Goldman Sachs. Finally, "they" has no grammatical antecedent and "would" is not a proper tense here (the simple past is required). (A) Before its bankruptcy in 2008, Goldman Sachs Inc. financed Crystal Technologies, a tech company, as a venture capital investment and they would withdraw all its funding Incorrect as explained above. (B) Before its bankruptcy in 2008, Goldman Sachs Inc. had financed Crystal Technologies, a tech company, as a venture capital investment and withdrew all its funding Goldman Sachs should not be the recipient of the modifier “Before its bankruptcy.” (C) Before its bankruptcy in 2008, Crystal Technologies, a tech company, had been financed by Goldman Sachs Inc. as a venture capital investment and the investor withdrew all its funding Even though the sentence is grammatically correct; the use of “before” and the past perfect together in a sentence is redundant. In the absence of answer choice D, (C) would have been the best choice. (D) Before its bankruptcy in 2008, Crystal Technologies, a tech company, was financed as a venture capital investment by Goldman Sachs Inc., which withdrew all its funding Correct. This correctly places Crystal Technologies as the recipient of the opening modifier. The simple past is correctly used as the sense of one action happening before another in the past can be sufficiently expressed by the use of the word “before”. The relative pronoun “which” correctly modifies Goldman Sachs Inc… (E) Before its bankruptcy in 2008, Crystal Technologies, a tech company, was a venture capital investment of Goldman Sachs Inc. , who withdrew all its funding The use of “who” for a company is inappropriate. This choice also slightly modifies the meaning of the sentence by changing “Crystal Technologies as a venture capital investment” to “Crystal Technologies was a venture capital investment”. Hope this helps, Vercules

emmak · Answer

Before its bankruptcy in 2008, Goldman Sachs Inc. financed Crystal Technologies, a tech company, as a venture capital investment and they would withdrew all their funding  only after a long and comprehensive analysis of the bankrupt tech company’s account books. 
A) Before  its  bankruptcy in 2008, Goldman Sachs Inc. financed Crystal Technologies, a tech company, as a venture capital investment and  they  would withdraw all its funding -  Pronoun ambiguity as "ITS" can refer either to Goldman Sach or to Crystal Tech. 2nd error is Pronoun number agreement as "They" is used to refer singular noun. 
B) Before  its  bankruptcy in 2008, Goldman Sachs Inc.  had  financed Crystal Technologies, a tech company, as a venture capital investment and withdrew all its funding-  Pronoun ambiguity as "ITS" can refer either to Goldman Sach or to Crystal Tech. Because GMAT prefers simplicity we should use simple past rather than past perfect 
C) Before its bankruptcy in 2008, Crystal Technologies, a tech company,  had been  financed by Goldman Sachs Inc. as a venture capital investment and the investor withdrew all its funding -  Use of Past perfect continuous is incorrect  
D) Before its bankruptcy in 2008, Crystal Technologies, a tech company, was financed as a venture capital investment by Goldman Sachs Inc., which withdrew all its funding -  Although this option uses Passive voice, it succinctly conveys the meaning. Thus CORRECT 
E) Before its bankruptcy in 2008, Crystal Technologies, a tech company, was a  venture capital investment  of Goldman Sachs Inc. ,  who  withdrew all its funding -  Relative pronoun WHO is used incorrectly to refer a Non-living things. Moreover, this option changes the meaning 
How can a Company be an Investment?

I hope fellow aspirants will know why option B & E are Incorrect.

CaptnBArbecue · Answer

Question stem : "Before its bankruptcy in 2008, Goldman Sachs Inc. financed Crystal Technologies, a tech company, as a venture capital investment and they would withdrew all  their  funding"

the pronoun error cannot be found in any answer.

ShankSouljaBoi · Answer

C is also wrong for the reason--- the investor maybe different from Goldman ... changing the meaning of the setence.

Abhishekrao12 · Answer

Im surprised not to find your answer in the QOTD segment! GMATNinja

I have a query. How did we end up choosing D over C ?

Is using both Before and had been financed redundant ? 
Is it the investor which is ambiguous as it doesn't refer directly to Goldman Sachs ?

jkrishh7 · Answer

Before its bankruptcy in 2008, Goldman Sachs Inc. financed Crystal Technologies, a tech company, as a venture capital investment and they would withdrew all their funding  only after a long and comprehensive analysis of the bankrupt tech company’s account books.

(A) Before its bankruptcy in 2008, Goldman Sachs Inc. financed Crystal Technologies, a tech company, as a venture capital investment and they would withdraw all its funding

(B) Before its bankruptcy in 2008, Goldman Sachs Inc. had financed Crystal Technologies, a tech company, as a venture capital investment and withdrew all its funding

(C) Before its bankruptcy in 2008, Crystal Technologies, a tech company, had been financed by Goldman Sachs Inc. as a venture capital investment and the investor withdrew all its funding

(D) Before its bankruptcy in 2008, Crystal Technologies, a tech company, was financed as a venture capital investment by Goldman Sachs Inc., which withdrew all its funding

(E) Before its bankruptcy in 2008, Crystal Technologies, a tech company, was a venture capital investment of Goldman Sachs Inc. , who withdrew all its funding
*****************************************************************************
We must ask who got bankrupt? Crystal or Goldman? Read lines after underlined portion and clearly Crystal got bankrupt and Goldman withdrew funds.
(A) & (B) are wrong, clear modifier error.
(C) who withdrew funding Goldman did. The investor confuses the meaning.
(D) Correct
(E) 'Who' is confusing between Cyrstal or Goldman

VS1412 · Answer

Shouldn't had been be the correct answer since the past peerfect is use for two incidents

TarunKumar1234 · Answer

Before its bankruptcy in 2008, Goldman Sachs Inc. financed Crystal Technologies, a tech company, as a venture capital investment and they would withdrew all their funding only after a long and comprehensive analysis of the bankrupt tech company’s account books.

(A) Before its bankruptcy in 2008, Goldman Sachs Inc. financed Crystal Technologies, a tech company, as a venture capital investment and they would withdraw all its funding

(B) Before its bankruptcy in 2008, Goldman Sachs Inc. had financed Crystal Technologies, a tech company, as a venture capital investment and withdrew all its funding

(C) Before its bankruptcy in 2008, Crystal Technologies, a tech company, had been financed by Goldman Sachs Inc. as a venture capital investment and the investor withdrew all its funding

(D) Before its bankruptcy in 2008, Crystal Technologies, a tech company, was financed as a venture capital investment by Goldman Sachs Inc., which withdrew all its funding

(E) Before its bankruptcy in 2008, Crystal Technologies, a tech company, was a venture capital investment of Goldman Sachs Inc. , who withdrew all its funding

Verbal Question of The Day: Day 59: Sentence Correction

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Show Answer

Official Answer

D

mSKR · Answer

Hi  AndrewN  sir

I would like to know your comments on B

1.) If for a moment, I ignore which company was bankrupted , What are the key reasons to reject B:
( I could find only 1 key reason)
--> withdrew and had financed - are not parallel. because both happened before 2008- strong reason to reject? Should it be  had withdrawn 
any other?

2.) I don't think presence of  had  is redundant. It just add more clarity to the sentence. Am I right?

3.) Can I use outside knowledge to solve such question because I know Goldman sachs is still existing and was not bankrupted . I remember about  Lehman Brothers  that was bankrupted. So if  Lehman Brothers  was present then I could have used that knowledge to get a hint.

4.) Finally, It is clear from the text " bankrupt tech company’s account books.  " that Crystal Tech was bankrupted and investor i.e. GS withdrew money.

Thanks!

AndrewN · Answer

Sure thing,  mSKR . I will respond to your questions below.

Why would we ignore an obvious problem with (B)? Although reading just the underlined portion might lead you to believe that either company could be the one that had faced bankruptcy, reading the non-underlined portion, a crucial SC skill, leads us to a single interpretation:  the bankrupt tech company   must be  the same as  Crystal Technologies, a tech company , since the GMAT™ would not force someone to know what type of company Goldman Sachs was (even if there is a clue in  financed ). Yes,  had financed  and  withdrew  are not parallel, but it could be the case that Goldman Sachs had put money down on Crystal Technologies and later withdrew additional assistance. I would not use the mismatched verbs alone to eliminate the answer choice.

It depends on what the sentence aims to convey. When a  before  construct is used, sometimes the simple past makes sense:  Before I ran, I  ate  a light meal.  In another sentence, the past perfect might work better:  Before his ascension to the throne, Henry VIII  had  already  garnered  a reputation for being uncompromising.  More important than asking whether the past perfect is redundant or incorrect, you should be wondering whether it is  necessary  to convey the idea the sentence aims to express. If the answer is no, then stick with the simple past.

That is not how SC works. The question would have to provide enough information for you to be able to make a clearcut distinction as to which company did what. I would not recommend relying on outside knowledge to guide your decision-making during such a question.

Yes, as I indicated above. There is no room for misinterpretation since the appositive phrase after Crystal Tech— a tech company —is later repeated, but with a more restrictive article—  the  bankrupt tech company... .

Any time. (Even on RC.)

- Andrew

CEdward · Answer

Before its bankruptcy in 2008, Goldman Sachs Inc. financed Crystal Technologies, a tech company, as a venture capital investment and they would withdrew all their funding only after a long and comprehensive analysis of the bankrupt tech company’s account books.

(A) Before its bankruptcy in 2008,  Goldman Sachs Inc . financed Crystal Technologies, a tech company, as a venture capital investment and they would withdraw all its funding

(B) Before its bankruptcy in 2008,  Goldman Sachs Inc . had financed Crystal Technologies, a tech company, as a venture capital investment and withdrew all its funding

(C) Before its bankruptcy in 2008, Crystal Technologies, a tech company, had been financed by Goldman Sachs Inc. as a venture capital investment and  the investor  withdrew all its funding

(D) Before its bankruptcy in 2008, Crystal Technologies, a tech company, was financed as a venture capital investment by Goldman Sachs Inc., which withdrew all its funding  CORRECT

(E) Before its bankruptcy in 2008, Crystal Technologies, a tech company, was a venture capital investment of Goldman Sachs Inc. ,  who  withdrew all its funding

GMel · Answer

It would not be redundant if it used with the correct verb tense.

I would say that "the investor" introduces a different meaning to the sentence. We know which company invested in Crystal Technologies. Also, the semtence has 2 independent clauses. To use 2 independent clauses in the same sentence with "and", we need a comma, which is missing in this sentence.

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VerbalBot · Answer

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Before its bankruptcy in 2008, Goldman Sachs Inc. financed Crystal Tec

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GMAT Sentence Correction (SC - EA only) Questions

Before its bankruptcy in 2008, Goldman Sachs Inc. financed Crystal Tec

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