Looking back over an 80-year lifespan

Question

Looking back over an 80-year lifespan, a typical person in a wealthy country  have seen his or her annual income quadruple. But looking from  one year to the next, the improvements in living standards that come from higher incomes are glacial. 
(A) have seen his or her annual income quadruple. But looking from
(B) would have seen his or her annual income quadruple. But looking from
(C) would have seen his or her annual income quadruple, but if we are looking from
(D) have seen his or her annual income quadruple, but if we are looking from
(E) would have seen his or her annual income has grown four times. But looking from

Abhishek009 · Answer

Would have = Refers to a hypothetical situation ( Options A & D negated ) 
 
Errors in the other answer options highlighted in RED, correct answer must be (D)...

AbhiGarg2007 · Answer

Looking back over an 80-year lifespan, a typical person in a wealthy country  have seen his or her annual income quadruple. But looking from  one year to the next, the improvements in living standards that come from higher incomes are glacial. 
(A) have seen his or her annual income quadruple. But looking from
(B) would have seen his or her annual income quadruple. But looking from
(C) would have seen his or her annual income quadruple, but if we are looking from
(D) have seen his or her annual income quadruple, but if we are looking from
(E) would have seen his or her annual income has grown four times. But looking from

IMO: C

Confused between B & C

"A Person" is singular so based on S-V agreement Choices A & D get eliminated.
Choice E has no subject for "has grown 4 times"
IMO a sentence can not start from "But" as there is full stop rather than coma. Folks please clarify my doubt.

somdeep · Answer

B is correct.

Original Sentence was as below, from WSJ :

That is still significant progress. Looking back over an 80-year lifespan, a typical person in a wealthy country would have seen his or her annual income quadruple. But looking from one year to the next, the improvements in living standards that come from higher incomes are glacial.

But I also have confusion about But at the beginning of a sentence.

Another example, from the same article, is as below:
 Historically, boom times are the exception, not the norm. That isn’t true just in America. Over the past two centuries, per capita incomes in all advanced economies, from Sweden to Japan, have grown at compound rates of around 1.5% to 2% a year. Some memorable years were much better, of course, and many forgettable years were much worse.   But these distinctly non-euphoric averages mean that most of the time, over the long sweep of history, people’s incomes typically take about 40 years to double .

reachskishore · Answer

Hi AbhiGarg2007,

It can't be C. C says "but if we are looking from". Who is "we" in this sentence. The subject should be a Typical person and "we" definitely does'nt refer to "a person"

Hope this helps.

-
K K

DmitryFarberMPrep · Answer

C would be fine in normal written English (outside the GMAT). It's common to use "we" in this general way. It won't fly on the GMAT, where we won't ever see the use of first-person. (See what I did there?) Then again, an SC also won't have two sentences in one, so to adapt this to an SC, you would have to crunch the sentences together with a comma or semicolon.

As for the use of "But" at the beginning of sentences, this is a grey area. Typically, "but" serves as a conjunction, so it should join up two parts of one sentence. However, it is common (even in GMAT CR & RC) to start sentences with "But" in order to introduce a contrast. Of course, we won't see this in SC, since there would be no previous sentence to contrast with.

eddy8700 · Answer

Looking back over an 80-year lifespan, a typical person in a wealthy country have seen his or her annual income quadruple. But looking from one year to the next, the improvements in living standards that come from higher incomes are glacial. 
(A) have seen his or her annual income quadruple. But looking from
(B) would have seen his or her annual income quadruple. But looking from
(C) would have seen his or her annual income quadruple, but if we are looking from
(D) have seen his or her annual income quadruple, but if we are looking from
(E) would have seen his or her annual income has grown four times. But looking from

First Vertical split b/w have seen vs would have seen
Whenever there is some level of uncertainty involved always prefer using would 
A and D eliminated
In C , but if we are looking not correct
In E annual income has grown four times.is no better than quadruple
So A is the best answer

matayo25 · Answer

I have a question :how to judge uncertainty in this question for the use of would have seen. Please explain what am i missing?

Posted from my mobile device

VerbalBot · Answer

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Looking back over an 80-year lifespan

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Looking back over an 80-year lifespan

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