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RK007
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Unlike most other mergers in the utility industry, which have been 18 Aug 2019, 12:37
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GMATNinja can you please advice on this question as to why option A is incorrect

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(A) Unlike most other mergers in the utility industry, which have been driven by the need to save money and extend companies' service areas, the merger of the nation's leading gas and electric company is intended to create a huge marketing network for the utilities in question with states opening their utility markets to competition.

The key is to think about what, exactly, is being merged. The only thing that could make sense is to have a merger of two different companies -- in this case, the leading gas company AND the leading electric company. They're two separate entities, right? But in (A), it sounds like we're somehow just merging a single "gas and electric company", and that doesn't make sense.

I hope this helps!
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Hello daagh Gmat Ninja - I thought ellipses was at play in option A.
the nation's leading gas and electric company = the nation's leading gas company and electric company.. why not? We always do this, don't we?
Example - Mr. and Ms. Jones, March and Feb holidays etc etc. Then why not here?
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Unlike most other mergers in the utility industry, which have been 18 Aug 2019, 22:34
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The problem is not the ellipsis. The problem is that A says the merger between gas and electric company". It should sat say 'the merger between gas and electric companies' as two companies are involved.
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Hi Gmat Ninja and other experts,

Generally we notice in parallelism questions that we can take a portion common for the list. By that logic, in option (A), why can't we take "nation's leading" as common - then it would logically mean 2 different entities.
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Unlike most other mergers in the utility industry, which have been 18 Nov 2020, 05:38
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Karthik740
Hi Gmat Ninja and other experts,

Generally we notice in parallelism questions that we can take a portion common for the list. By that logic, in option (A), why can't we take "nation's leading" as common - then it would logically mean 2 different entities.
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Hi Karthik

When taking the common portion, it helps to think of the sentence as being structured as a mathematical expression with parentheses. The common portion outside the parentheses will apply to every entity of the list on expansion. For example:

At the next meeting, the company directors will (assess the yearly plan, discuss the compensation policy, and make a final decision regarding closure of the Bosnian operations).

Upon expansion, the above sentence will read as follows:

At the next meeting, the company directors will assess the yearly plan, will discuss the compensation policy, and will make a final decision regarding closure of the Bosnian operations).

Applying the same logic, if we do what you have suggested in option (A):

Unlike most other mergers in the utility industry, which have been driven by the need to save money and extend companies' service areas, the merger of the nation's leading (gas and electric company) is intended to create a huge marketing network for the utilities in question with states opening their utility markets to competition.

Upon expansion, the sentence reads as follows:

Unlike most other mergers in the utility industry, which have been driven by the need to save money and extend companies' service areas, the merger of the nation's leading gas and nation's leading electric company is intended to create a huge marketing network for the utilities in question with states opening their utility markets to competition.

As you can see, "nation's leading gas" is illogical - we do need another "company" following this, which is what the correct option (D) does.

Hope this clarifies.
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Unlike most other mergers in the utility industry, which have been 13 Jun 2021, 20:28
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Hi, I wanted to understand is the usage of both "with states opening" in option A and "as states open" in option E correct?
As daagh noted, we don't have to worry about the construction in (A) because it doesn't make any sense for a merger to consist of a single entity.

For whatever it's worth, I think you can argue that "with states" is, at best, confusing. At first, it sounds as though the the author is referring to a "question with states" or a "network...with states," neither one of which is logical. If you read it a few times, you can probably figure out what the author intended to convey, but we had to filter out some illogical interpretations to do so.

In (E), we have "the merger of the nation's leading gas company and leading electric company is intended to create a huge network for marketing the utilities in question as states open their utility markets.." "As" indicates that one action ("the merger is intended") is happening at the same time as another action ("states open their utility markets..."). This is crystal clear, and there's no other plausible way to interpret the sentence.

If you have to re-read one answer choice several times to understand it, but the other answer choice is clear and logical, the clear and logical one will be the winner. So (E) is still better, even if we ignore the other major problem in (A). (And we wouldn't!)

I hope that helps!
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Hi GMATNinja

Could you also explain if there is any difference in A vs E between "a huge marketing network for utilities" and "a huge network for marketing" ? I eliminated eliminated A cause the latter made more sense, but not sure if its the right way to look at it.
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Quote:
Could you also explain if there is any difference in A vs E between "a huge marketing network for utilities" and "a huge network for marketing" ? I eliminated eliminated A cause the latter made more sense, but not sure if its the right way to look at it.
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Interesting question. If you catch the initial logical error in (A) -- that the merger involves a single entity, rather than two entities joining together -- you wouldn't need to find any other issue, but I think you have a point. It probably makes more sense to say that they're creating the network for marketing the utilities than to say that they're creating the marketing network for the utilities themselves.

Would I say that the second interpretation is so illogical that I'd be willing to kill (A) on that basis alone? I'd be a little uneasy about it. After all, I'm not an expert on how utilities operate, maybe you could create a marketing network for them. It's a good reminder that a lot of the stuff we analyze in SC questions can fall into a gray area, where a construction might seem less than ideal without necessarily being a deal-breaker.

So here's how I'd handle it: if the first decision point I found was "marketing network for utilities" vs "a network for marketing," I'd acknowledge that I prefer one option. But I'd also recognize that my preference is debatable, so I'd keep looking for other issues. Hopefully, I'd find that more concrete reason to kill (A). If I didn't, I might use your reasoning as a tie-breaker.

The takeaway: it's okay to evaluate an issue and decide that you're not 100% sure. If that happens, keep looking for something more definitive. Ideally, you find it. If you don't, you can always go back to the original issue.

I hope that helps!
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