The 2008 mortgage crisis is thought to have been caused in large part

Question

The 2008 mortgage crisis is thought to have been caused in large part by lender behavior changes,  which, like the continuously eroding lending standards that saddled numerous borrowers with impossible payments and led to unsustainably high-risk loans,  and the mortgage options that allowed homeowners to pay interest alone for a time, after which many unsuspecting borrowers found themselves unable to pay the increased bills that included payments on the principal.

A) which, like the continuously eroding lending standards that saddled numerous borrowers with impossible payments and led to unsustainably high-risk loans,

B) which, like the continuously eroding lending standards that saddled with impossible payments numerous borrowers led to unsustainably high-risk loans,

C) like the unsustainably high-risk loans that, due to continuously eroding lending standards, saddled numerous borrowers with impossible payments,

D) such as the unsustainably high-risk loans that led to continuously eroding lending standards saddling numerous borrowers with impossible payments,

E) such as the continuously eroding lending standards that led to unsustainably high-risk loans, saddling numerous borrowers with impossible payments,

Source: Ready4GMAT

DinoPen · Answer

I chose E.

This sentence compares an action with another action. Hence, you want to use 'as'. This eliminates A,B, and C.
Between D and E, I took out D due to the run on phrases involved. You have extra information that needs to be separated with a comma.

Midhilesh489 · Answer

Out of D and E , I marked E because " continuosly eroding lending standards leads to high risk loans  not viceversa.
Is my reasoning correct

AditiSharma13 · Answer

How to choose between D and E. Could you please explain.

CrackverbalGMAT · Answer

The 2008 mortgage crisis is thought to have been caused in large part by lender behavior changes,  which, like the continuously eroding lending standards that saddled numerous borrowers with impossible payments and led to unsustainably high-risk loans , and the mortgage options that allowed homeowners to pay interest alone for a time, after which many unsuspecting borrowers found themselves unable to pay the increased bills that included payments on the principal.

A) which, like the continuously eroding lending standards that saddled numerous borrowers with impossible payments and led to unsustainably high-risk loans,

Two issues with this option:
i) There is no need to use "which" prior to stating an example.
ii) "like" is used to express similarity, whereas the sentence is clearly trying to give a specific example for which "such as" is the appropriate prefix.

B) which, like the continuously eroding lending standards that saddled with impossible payments numerous borrowers led to unsustainably high-risk loans,

The same 2 issues as option (A). Additionally, "saddled with impossible payments numerous borrowers" is an awkward construction. The correct construction would be "saddled numerous borrowers with impossible payments" (the verb should be followed by the receiver of the action).

C) like the unsustainably high-risk loans that, due to continuously eroding lending standards, saddled numerous borrowers with impossible payments,

i) The sentence uses "like" to provide the specific example of "unsustainably high-risk loans" to illustrate "lender behavior changes". This is incorrect for 2 reasons:
 - "such as" is the correct phrase to prefix a specific example whereas "like" is used to simply denote similarity.
 - The original sentence states "continuously eroding lending standards" as an example of "lender behavior changes" and hence this option represents a change of meaning.
ii) This option implies that "the borrowers were saddled with impossible payments"  by  "the high risk loans"  because of  "the continuously eroding lending standards". The original sentence states that "the borrowers were saddled with impossible payments"  by  "the continuously eroding lending standards" and  resulted in  "high risk loans". Very different meanings.

D) such as the unsustainably high-risk loans that led to continuously eroding lending standards saddling numerous borrowers with impossible payments,

This option implies that the "unsustainably high-risk loans"  caused  the "continuously eroding lending standards", whereas the original sentence gives the opposite causality.

E) such as the continuously eroding lending standards that led to unsustainably high-risk loans, saddling numerous borrowers with impossible payments,  Correct

Abhi077 · Answer

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION

We can see that the answer choices start with 3 different words: "which," "like," and "such as." Since the "lending standards" are a subset of "lender behavior," the standards are (in this context) an example of this behavior. This means that we need to use a transition that matches this relationship: "such as," which means we can eliminate (A), (B), and (C). (Although "like" is sometimes used to mean "for example," it's not as clear as "such as." 
To choose between the others, we need to look at the difference between them: he order in which the information is given. Since this sentence is basically a long chain of cause and effect, the best way to order the events is to put them in chronological order: this happened, which caused this, which caused that. So which was the cause and which was the effect, between "high-risk loans" and "lending standards"? The lower standards led to the riskier loans, so we choose (E). 
  The correct answer is Choice (E)  .

nehasomani33 · Answer

AditiSharma13  :

The 2008 mortgage crisis is thought to have been caused in large part by lender behavior changes, which, like the continuously eroding lending standards that saddled numerous borrowers with impossible payments and led to unsustainably high-risk loans, and the mortgage options that allowed homeowners to pay interest alone for a time, after which many unsuspecting borrowers found themselves unable to pay the increased bills that included payments on the principal.

Noun comparison : Like is used
Clause/ Action comparison : As is used

Here two actions (you can technically call these as "Clauses") are compared.

So in Option D, action described in the initial sentence is getting compared to a type of loans (the unsustainably high-risk loans), which is not action but rather a noun phrase.

Therefore, D is not right. We're left with Option "E".

Hope this helps!

VerbalBot · Answer

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The 2008 mortgage crisis is thought to have been caused in large part

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GMAT Sentence Correction (SC - EA only) Questions

The 2008 mortgage crisis is thought to have been caused in large part

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