Although the plaintiff had been planning to call Mr. Hoff as a witness

Question

Project SC Butler: Day 72 Sentence Correction (SC1) 
 For SC butler Questions  Click Here

Although the plaintiff had been planning to call Mr. Hoff as a witness, she failed to secure a sworn record of his testimony  during pre-trial discovery, leading the judge to grant the defendant's motion for summary judgment.

A) Although the plaintiff had been planning to call Mr. Hoff as a witness, she failed to secure a sworn record of his testimony

B) Even though the plaintiff was planning on calling Mr. Hoff as a witness, having failed to secure a sworn record of her testimony

C) Although the plaintiff has been planning to call Mr. Hoff as a witness, failing to secure a sworn record of her testimony

D) Even though the plaintiff was planning on calling Mr. Hoff as a witness, she was failing to secure a sworn record of his testimony

E) Although the plaintiff had planned on calling Mr. Hoff as a witness, she had failed to secure a sworn record of his testimony

The  best or excellent answers get kudos , which will be  awarded  after   the answer is revealed.

GKomoku · Accepted Answer

As sentence represents some court trial, we do our own trail. First of all usage of "past perfect continuous": ......................... The past perfect continuous tense (also known as the past perfect progressive tense) shows that an action that started in the past continued up until another time in the past. The past perfect continuous tense is constructed using had been + the verb’s present participle (root + -ing). Unlike the present perfect continuous, which indicates an action that began in the past and continued up to the present, the past perfect continuous is a verb tense that indicates something that began in the past, continued in the past, and also ended at a defined point in the past. ex: He had been drinking milk out the carton when Mom walked into the kitchen . ................................ Meaning analysis: "Although" - we expect some contrast here. 1. Although the plaintiff had been planning to call Mr. Hoff as a witness 2. She failed to secure a sworn record of his testimony during pre-trial discovery (this is the expected contrast) 3. This lead the judge to grant the defendant's motion for summary judgment. (this is the result of this contrast) A) Although the plaintiff had been planning to call Mr. Hoff as a witness, she failed to secure a sworn record of his testimony Past perfect continuous correctly represents "planning" action started in the past, continued in the past, and ended in the past during the pre-trail discovery. comma+v-ing ",+leading" modifies preceding clause and shows the result of it. So far (A) is not bad, let's keep it. .JPG The split between "although" and "even though" is not enough for elimination, because both of them have same meaning. Hence we have to look for other solid errors. B) Even though the plaintiff was planning on calling Mr. Hoff as a witness , having failed to secure a sworn record of her testimony (we don't have any IC standing alone, "having failed" - modifies preceding clause - there is no logic, and "leading" modifies "having"??? or they //??? no, there is no //ism marker, total mess, out. Note: "was planning" past continuous could be fine, not as good as past perfect continuous, but fine) C) Although the plaintiff has been planning to call Mr. Hoff as a witness , failing to secure a sworn record of her testimony (same issue as in (B),"failing" - awful, moreover "has been planning" - distorts the intended meaning, this action was in the past) D) Even though the plaintiff was planning on calling Mr. Hoff as a witness, she was failing to secure a sworn record of his testimony (seems "was planning" and "was failing" // to each other, fine, good, okey, BUT past continuous is used to talk about the past: for something which continued before and after another action, here we don't have any action point in the past, out) E) Although the plaintiff had planned on calling Mr. Hoff as a witness, she had failed to secure a sworn record of his testimony (same as (D), seems "had planned" and "had failed" //, but again past perfect requires some action point in the past to show the sequence of event, we don't have any sequence here, out) We've already come to correct answer. But if you interested in split between "plan to do and plan on doing" please look --> Why plan to do something if you can plan on doing nothing??? In the long run (A) is the answer

Shrinidhi · Answer

The Statement means the plaintiff planned on calling me.hoff as witness,but he failed to do so....(all which happened in past) which led to the judge to grant...

So correct usage or flow will be simple past tense to present continues..

Option E correctly uses correct parallel structure  had planned....had failed....,leading to....

Posted from my mobile device

GiuPao94 · Answer

A) Although the plaintiff had been planning to call Mr. Hoff as a witness, she failed to secure a sworn record of his testimony.

Had been planning express the sequence of actions and she failed targets the right subject, and the sentence, overall, makes sense. This should be the right answer.

B) Even though the plaintiff was planning on calling Mr. Hoff as a witness, having failed to secure a sworn record of her testimony

having failed could modify mr. Hoff or the paintiff, so it is ambiguous. Was planning does not express the sequence in the actions.

C) Although the plaintiff has been planning to call Mr. Hoff as a witness, failing to secure a sworn record of her testimony

failing could express the result of the action, but this, overall, doesn't make sense

D) Even though the plaintiff was planning on calling Mr. Hoff as a witness, she was failing to secure a sworn record of his testimony

she was failing. Mh... she was failing to secure a record of his testimony? was failing doesn't sound good. Simply it expresses continuity and securing a record of testimony it is not a continuous action. So I would discard this, but not without any kind of doubt.

E) Although the plaintiff had planned on calling Mr. Hoff as a witness, she had failed to secure a sworn record of his testimony

the double had doesn't convince me. Had should be used to express the sequence of two actions, so where there are 2 had, there should be a mistake. So I would discard also this.

At the end of the day, A.

generis · Answer

Project SC Butler: Day 72 Sentence Correction (SC1)

For SC butler Questions Click Here

Although the plaintiff had been planning to call Mr. Hoff as a witness, she failed to secure a sworn record of his testimony during pre-trial discovery, leading the judge to grant the defendant's motion for summary judgment.

A) Although the plaintiff had been planning to call Mr. Hoff as a witness, she failed to secure a sworn record of his testimony
B) Even though the plaintiff was planning on calling Mr. Hoff as a witness, having failed to secure a sworn record of her testimony
C) Although the plaintiff has been planning to call Mr. Hoff as a witness, failing to secure a sworn record of her testimony
D) Even though the plaintiff was planning on calling Mr. Hoff as a witness, she was failing to secure a sworn record of his testimony
E) Although the plaintiff had planned on calling Mr. Hoff as a witness, she had failed to secure a sworn record of his testimony

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION
My annotations are in blue typeface.

• The sentence is correct as written.

• The first difference that stands out in the answers is the alternation between although and even though; unfortunately, the only difference between them is stylistic, not grammatical, so that [split] is not really something fixable.

• The verbs are changing in tense, from had been planning to was planning to had planned

• Check the rest of the sentence for other verbs and time cues.
Logically, this action needs to take place before she failed or possibly simultaneously [with her having failed].

• Choice B incorrectly makes it sound [as if] the failure happened first, and can therefore be eliminated.

• Choice C removes the she from before the failure and changes the verb to failing. That [omission] makes the sentence incomplete, so C can be eliminated too.

• Choices D and E both have simultaneous verbs.
Choice D sounds kind of weird but that [weirdness] doesn't always mean an answer is wrong, so look for more errors.

• Comparing the remaining three, there's another difference after the word planning:
A says to, while
D and E say on

• The correct idiom is planning to, so D and E can be eliminated. (???)

The correct answer is A.

COMMENTS
GiuPao94 , welcome!

• IDIOM?
I chose this question in part because I am concerned about the idiomatic status of plan to vs. plan on.

First, the idiom is obscure, and a lot of contradictory information exists about it.

Second, although GMAC has issued one question in which "to plan ON" was correct,
that question was a GMATPrep question, and I am not sure whether that question
would actually make it onto the GMAT. HERE is the GMAT Prep question in which "to plan ON" was correct.

Third and finally, I don't think that the issue is settled.
I researched for quite a while. I'm not sure whether Manhattan Prep's position is accurate. Manhattan often is the go-to source on issues such as this one.

You can see a discussion on this thread, here and in particular, in in this post, here.

I think that the expert on the GMAT Club post (the GMAT Prep question, linked above) is correct: the GMAT is unlikely
to test this idiom without other errors.

•• Time sequence? From latest to earliest in time
• The judge dismissed the case at the end of a summary judgment hearing. Z

• Before the hearing, the plaintiff failed to secure (and submit) a sworn statement. Y
A sworn statement simply states on penalty of perjury that pre-trial testimony is true to the best of the oath-taker's knowledge.

• She needed the sworn statement only after she decided to use Mr. Hoff.
The earliest/first event was her decision to use him as a witness, her plan to use him as a witness. X

----|<------------------------------------------>|
---X<--------------Y--------------------------->Z

I usually use splits to answer questions, but in this case, I would take the options one by one, and go from obviously worst to least bad.

• Option C
Option C is the worst. It's an incomplete sentence.

Although Plaintiff has been planning to P, failing to Q during D, leading the judge to do R

No working verb exists.
You might also have caught that "has been planning" does not match with the fact that the judge ended the trial.
Eliminate C.

• Option D - I disagree with the OE. Option D is not just "weird." I think option D is wrong.

D) Even though Plaintiff was planning on P, she was failing to Q during D, leading the judge to do R
"was failing" does not work in a logical sense.
Her failure —finished, over, no more chances— compelled the judge to declare summary judgment in favor of the other party

"was failing" connotes a continual failing that ends at some point in the past.
Correct: I was shoveling show all day yesterday.

Weird but not wrong: He was neglecting to turn in assignments and was failing the class, and the teacher gave him an F.
He was not still failing the class when the teacher gave him an F. He had failed. He failed. Whatever you like, but it's over.
In this sentence, we have a simple past time marker. The teacher gave him an F.

Weird and wrong: Option D.
At some point prior to the trial during pre-trial discovery, she failed, not "she was failing."
Her completed failure to secure the sworn statement then logically LED the judge to rule against her.
Eliminate D

• Option B

B) Even though the plaintiff was planning on P, having failed to Q during D, leading the judge to do R.

I do not think that the OE is very clear.
In Verbal and in Quant, if need be, create a similar but simpler example that IS logically correct, and compare.

Having decorated his birthday cake, I was planning on shopping for two hours, _________
I cannot come up with a verbING that works.
(If you can, let me know.)

Option A is better

Eliminate B

• Option E

E) Although the plaintiff had planned on P, she had failed to Q during D, leading the judge to rule against her.

Past perfect requires the presence of at least one simple past tense event.
No such event exists.

Eliminate option E

The answer is A.

Because I did not warn you about the idiom (I wanted to see whether it would be an issue),
and because all the answer are good to very good, everyone gets kudos.

GiuPao94 , GKomoku , and Shrinidhi - kudos!

P.S. Am I the only one who caught that the testimony of the PERSON changes in B and C?
I find it strange that an obvious oddity is not mentioned at all by anyone, OE writer included.
I suspect that one of the authors at Princeton Review studied law and legal history.
I doubt that the pronoun change was mere oversight. When I thought about the civil procedure issue, though, from a legal standpoint the owner of the unsworn testimony does not matter. Under oath and in the courtroom, he can be examined about his own testimony, or he can corroborate hers. Just a heads up.

GiuPao94 , GKomoku , and Shrinidhi - kudos! P.S. Am I the only one who caught that the testimony of the PERSON changes in B and C? I find it strange that an obvious oddity is not mentioned at all by anyone, OE writer included. I suspect that one of the authors at Princeton Review studied law and legal history. I doubt that the pronoun change was mere oversight. When I thought about the civil procedure issue, though, from a legal standpoint the owner of the unsworn testimony does not matter. Under oath and in the courtroom, he can be examined about his own testimony, or he can corroborate hers. Just a heads up.

GiuPao94 · Answer

It is incredible how a so little thing like a correct answer on a SC question can bright up my day. I will take part to these challenges more often. Thank you

Gylmitul · Answer

egmat

- Can you please explain the sequence of the events in the first two clauses in this sentence

Although, I ruled out option D because  was planning  and  was failing  had been mentioned in the same tense, I am confused if that is a general rule or something that is incorrect with respect to the context of this specific sentence.
For e.g. - Are the below sentences grammatically incorrect:

1. She  had been writing , when I  arrived   (v1 is part perfect continuous, V2 is simple past: timelines would be: T0 - started writing; T1 - was writing; T1 - I arrived; T2 -  assumed to be present )

2. She was writing, when I arrived (here there will be no T0 ; T1 - was writing; T1: I arrived; T2:  assumed to be present )

3. She was writing, when I was arriving - (this is where I am confused)

Although the plaintiff had been planning to call Mr. Hoff as a witness

Prep Toolkit

Top 5 GMAT Debrief Videos

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards

GMAT Sentence Correction (SC - EA only) Questions

Although the plaintiff had been planning to call Mr. Hoff as a witness

Prep Toolkit

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards