Although online travel sites have made the local travel agent obsolete

Question

Although online travel sites have made the local travel agent obsolete, the  digitization of the ticketing process in the commercial bus industry reduced the average occupancy while the previous year’s costs were increased to double.

(A) digitization of ticketing in the commercial bus industry reduced the average occupancy while the previous year’s costs were increased to double.

(B) digitization of ticketing in the commercial bus industry reduced the average occupancy while increasing costs to double those of the previous year

(C) digitization of ticketing in the commercial bus industry reduced the average occupancy as cost were increased to twice of the previous year’s

(D) ticketing digitization in the commercial bus industry reduced the average occupancy as it doubled the previous year’s costs

(E) ticketing digitization in the commercial bus industry reduced the average occupancy while costs were increased to twice that of the previous year

daagh · Accepted Answer

It is not clear what this question wants to test. First thing, there is no rationale behind using the DC with a present perfect, while the main clause is in past tense. In fact the digitization of ticketing is not something that stopped at some point altogether. It is an ongoing thing even at the present and it is a contemporary event of the local agents going outdated. WE cannot use two different tenses for concurrent events. Use of past tense for the verb 'reduced' is suspect.
 
The use of the infinitive 'to double' is also confounding. Normally 'double' is a verb... In that case, to say that the digitization had an intention to double the costs is untenable. 'To double' could also be a prepositional phrase wherein the 'double' is used as noun meaning twice or two times. The author's intention is not clear.

B could be the eventual answer but with a pinch of salt.

ujjwaljee · Answer

Why is Option B correct despite the fact that the content before and after  while  does not seem parallel?

Pl explain " while+ participle " use in this question, and  parallelism concept , if applicable...

EducationAisle · Answer

Hi Ujjwal, it's best to  not  treat  while  as a parallelism indicator. Hence, content  before  and  after  the  while  construct, need  not  be parallel.

For example, following sentence is correct:

Peter met with an accident while driving .

Gknight5603 · Answer

Although online travel sites have made the local travel agent obsolete, the digitization of the ticketing process in the commercial bus industry reduced the average occupancy while the previous year’s costs were increased to double.

(A) digitization of ticketing in the commercial bus industry reduced the average occupancy while the previous year’s costs were increased to double.

Previous year's costs can not be doubled now...costs of present time can be twice to those of previous year's....

(B) digitization of ticketing in the commercial bus industry reduced the average occupancy while increasing costs to double those of the previous year

SV agreement is fine.... comparison is OK ... previous year's cost to this year's cost.... Correct answer....

(C) digitization of ticketing in the commercial bus industry reduced the average occupancy as cost were increased to twice of the previous year’s

cost is not OK..... costs were increased....

(D) ticketing digitization in the commercial bus industry reduced the average occupancy as it doubled the previous year’s costs

previous year’s costs can't be doubled now..... costs of present time can be twice to those of previous year's....

(E) ticketing digitization in the commercial bus industry reduced the average occupancy while costs were increased to twice that of the previous year

That of is problem here ....it should have been ...those of

Posted from my mobile device

kungfury42 · Answer

MartyTargetTestPrep   GMATNinja

Can you please help with this question? I could confidently eliminate only options C and E, but for the rest I'm completely clueless.

Can you please help understand what is happening in this question? For context, this appeared in today's QOTD, so I'm hopeful there is some learning intended behind this.

Posted from my mobile device

MartyTargetTestPrep · Answer

(A) is fine until this part.

while the previous year’s costs were increased to double

That part conveys the nonsensical meaning that the previous years costs were somehow increased. Did the commercial bus industry have a time machine?

(D) has a similar issue. Here's (D).

(D) ticketing digitization in the commercial bus industry reduced the average occupancy as it doubled the previous year’s costs

So, in (D) as well, the commercial bus industry somehow went back in time and "doubled the previous year's costs."

What (B) says, that digitization "reduced the average occupancy  while increasing costs to double those of the previous year ," makes sense since costs could be increased to double the costs of the previous year.

So, (B) is correct.

T4W01 · Answer

A.C.D have a grammer problem in year's, so I delete A.C.D, am I correct?

egmat · Answer

Hey  T4W01

Happy to help.

There are at least a couple of standard applications of "Year's" I can think of, off the top of my head.

a. In specifying the duration of a year
 For example: In a year's time

b. To denote certain things that belong to or are of a particular year
 For example: This year's calendar, etc.

Hence, I would take the cautious approach and not eliminate these choices just because of "year's". I'd look for more deterministic errors in those choices.

And gauging from the excellent explanations given above, there are clearly more blatant errors in choices A, C, and D.

I hope this helps.

Best,

Abhishek

ExpertsGlobal5 · Answer

Hello  T4W01 ,

We hope this finds you well.

To answer your query, there is no error in the use of the possessive noun "year's"; such usage is grammatically acceptable and conveys that whatever the possessive noun refers to "belongs to" or is "from" either a particular year or a span of time equal to a year.

For example, "a year's wages" refers to the wages earned in one total year.

"last year's wages" refers to the total wages earned in the preceding year.

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

DrHuber · Answer

The most appropriate and grammatically correct sentence is option (B): "digitization of ticketing in the commercial bus industry reduced the average occupancy while increasing costs to double those of the previous year."

This option correctly conveys that the digitization of ticketing in the commercial bus industry caused a decrease in average occupancy. It also states that costs increased to double the costs of the previous year. The phrase "double those of the previous year" accurately compares the costs to twice the amount of the previous year.

Although online travel sites have made the local travel agent obsolete

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Although online travel sites have made the local travel agent obsolete

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