Colombians in 2002 were suffering the tightening grip of the FARC guer

Question

Colombians in 2002  were suffering the tightening grip of the FARC guerrillas over much of the national territory as well as a recession and a banking crisis.

A. were suffering the tightening grip of the FARC guerrillas over much of the national territory as well as a recession and a banking crisis.

B. were suffering the tightening grip of the FARC guerrillas over much of the national territory and a recession and a banking crisis.

C. were suffering the tightening grip of the FARC guerrillas over much of the national territory, recession, and a banking crisis.

D. suffered the tightening grip of the FARC guerrillas over much of the national territory as well as a recession and a banking crisis.

E. suffered the tightening grip of the FARC guerrillas over much of the national territory and a recession and a banking crisis.

TaN1213 · Answer

Between A and D , the decision point lies on 'suffered' and 'were suffering'. I don't think GMAT will hinge the decision point on such equally accepted tense.
This Qs is atypical of GMAT format.

Akash720 · Answer

A. were suffering the tightening grip of the FARC guerrillas over much of the national territory as well as a recession and a banking crisis 
-  Correct - No parallelism error and the tense is maintained from the original sentence

B. were suffering the tightening grip of the FARC guerrillas over much of the national territory  and  a recession and a banking crisis.
-  Wrong - Parallelism Error

C. were suffering the tightening grip of the FARC guerrillas over much of the national territory, recession, and a banking crisis.
-  Changes the intended meaning by removing as well as ( When we use as well as we give more importance to the prior than the latter)

D. suffered the tightening grip of the FARC guerrillas over much of the national territory as well as a recession and a banking crisis. 
-  No grammatical error. I chose A over D because A is similar to the original sentence

E. suffered the tightening grip of the FARC guerrillas over much of the national territory  and  a recession and a banking crisis
-  Same as B

kunalcvrce · Answer

I will mark D.

Because i think past continous tense is no required when year is mentioned.
Please correct me ...

hiranmay · Answer

Colombians in 2002  were suffering the tightening grip of the FARC guerrillas over much of the national territory as well as a recession and a banking crisis.

A.  were suffering  the tightening grip of the FARC guerrillas over much of the national territory as well as a recession  and  a banking crisis.

B. were suffering the tightening grip of the FARC guerrillas over much of the national territory  and  a recession  and  a banking crisis. --> "the tightening ..." & "a recession and a banking crisis" are two different groups and should be connected with "as well as" not "and"

C. were suffering the tightening grip of the FARC guerrillas over much of the national territory  ,   recession,  and  a banking crisis. --> same as B

D. suffered the tightening grip of the FARC guerrillas over much of the national territory as well as a recession  and  a banking crisis. -->  correct

E. suffered the tightening grip of the FARC guerrillas over much of the national territory  and  a recession  and  a banking crisis.--> same as B

sudarshan22 · Answer

Both   A   and   D   are correct

A.  were suffering  the tightening grip of the FARC guerrillas over much of the national territory  as well as  a recession  and  a banking crisis.

B. were suffering the tightening grip of the FARC guerrillas over much of the national territory  and  a recession  and  a banking crisis.

C. were suffering the tightening grip of the FARC guerrillas over much of the national territory , recession, and a banking crisis.

D.  suffered  the tightening grip of the FARC guerrillas over much of the national territory  as well as  a recession  and  a banking crisis.

E. suffered the tightening grip of the FARC guerrillas over much of the national territory  and  a recession  and  a banking crisis.

I doubt this is a  GMAT-like  question, for both   A   and   D   are correct.
What is the  OA  and  source  of this question?

abhik1502 · Answer

From verb tense prospective D looks to be correct.

this whole sentence is in past tense. And past progressive is generally used to represent an action was in progress when some other action took place at that very moment.
Ex : He came in evening when I was eating.

SO here its like action "came" took place when "eating" was in progress.

When we don't have any action to compared with then we use simple past only. SO option D should be correct.

jackspire · Answer

Hello sudarshan22 , I guess that we can chose option A over D. The suffering as explained in this sentence was not a single point event. It was a phenomenon which occurred throughout the length of the year 2002 and this brings a sense of continuity to the meaning. And we don't know exactly when this suffering started and ended. So, I guess A is the proper answer. You know that I am not an expert. We can argue.

abhi2707 · Answer

Hi...
not able to get the parallelism fault with the usage of as well as...
also tense selection seems very subtle. Can an expert elaborate

MG1105 · Answer

Can anyone explain why is C incorrect. The usage of and is correct and it is not altering the meaning as much as i understand.

Kapil1650 · Answer

I too think It should be D , and finally submitting my answer it got wrong
Alas !!
A and D both should be right i guess ; both look flawless

Posted from my mobile device

BobFrank · Answer

GMATNinja  please help by explaining the reasoning behind A vs D.

tramobile · Answer

@e-gmat can you please explain A over D

ExpertsGlobal5 · Answer

Hello  tramobile ,

We hope this finds you well.

As others have written in this thread, this question seems a bit suspect.

The only real reason we can see why Option A is superior to Option D is that D needlessly changes the tense from simple past continuous ("were suffering") to simple past ("suffered") without a concrete reason, and thus slightly alters the meaning.

We hope this helps.
All the best!
Experts' Global Team

VerbalBot · Answer

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Colombians in 2002 were suffering the tightening grip of the FARC guer

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Colombians in 2002 were suffering the tightening grip of the FARC guer

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