V02-05

Official Solution:

In order to properly understand an investor’s state of mind and gain important insights prior to a deal, a substantial period of time must be spent with the investment banker by the investor to become fully aware of the pros and cons of the investment.

A. a substantial period of time must be spent with the investment banker by the investor to become fully aware of the pros and cons of the investment.
B. the investment banker and the investor must spend a substantial amount of time together, thus ensuring full awareness of the pros and cons of the investment.
C. the investor must spend a substantial amount of time with his or her investment banker, thus ensuring that he or she has been made fully aware of the pros and cons of the investment.
D. the investment banker must spend a substantial amount of time with the investor, thus ensuring that the investor is fully aware of the pros and cons of the investment.
E. the investment banker must ensure that he or she is fully aware of the pros and cons of the investment by spending a substantial amount of time with the investor.


The sentence tells us how to gain useful insights on the investment. The non-underlined modifier should be followed by the subject of the sentence to express the meaning clearly. Therefore the underlined part of the sentence should start with "the investment banker".

A. Incorrect, non-underlined part should begin with "the investment banker".

B. Though, the placement of the subject is correct, the sentence suggests that both "the investor"and"the investment banker" should understand the investor's mind. Moreover the later part of the sentence does not specify whose full awareness is insured. The awareness should be of the investor.

C. This sentence illogically suggests that the investor himself would understand his mind, making it sound nonsensical.

D. CORRECT. The subject is properly placed after the initial modifier and the later part of the sentence clearly expresses that it is the investor who is assured.

E. In this choice the placement of investment banker is correct, but the sentence incorrectly suggests that it is the investment banker who should be aware of the pros and cons of the investment as opposed to the investor.


Answer: D
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Is there a good way to discern the meaning of the sentence?

I struggled - read: guessed - to figure out whether it was the banker or the investor who was trying to become aware of the investment's pros and cons. I realise changing the meaning of a sentence is incorrect, so I spent a fair bit of time trying to understand the sentence. With the benefit of hindsight, I can see why D doesn't change the meaning of the sentence.

You are correct - it is changing the meaning of the sentence. Dont think too much into it, in GMAT you would never change the original meaning of the sentence.

Good help from GMATClub to provide these questions, but at some places I have a conflict with official answers as well - like this one.

Thanks

I eliminated choice D because the clause ,"thus ensuring " looked like a run on sentence where I thought the independent clauses were not properly connected. Can you help me on what I am missing.

I think this is a nice question but the solution answer contains an error.

What this sentence implies:

For the investment banker to understand the investor's state of mind and gain prior insights on a deal, the investment banker must spend a lot of time with the investor. ---> This would ensure the investor is fully aware of the pros and cons of an investment.

It starts with the investment banker trying to figure out the investors state of mind and insights on a deal, and according to the answer, this would ensure the investor is fully aware of pros and cons of an investment. That does not seem correct.

Could someone please elaborate as to why the solution answer is correct?

Hi Bunuel

Choice D has an error. "Thus" is not used as conjunction. There has to be a semi colon after "investor". The comma after investor is incorrect.
Thus has same usage as however, in addition to, etc., all of which use semi colon and not a comma.

Thus is not functioning as a conjunction. The word ensuring (after thus) is actually modifying the phrase preceding it

I dont understand the mistake in C.

The question says, "a substantial period of time must be spent with the investment banker by the investor.

Option C says the same exact thing - The investor must spend a substantial amount of time with his or her investment banker, thus ensuring that he or she has been made fully aware of the pros and cons of the investment. Clearly, the investor has to ensure that he has been made fully aware of the pros and cons. Why is this sentence wrong?
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Can someone tell me how the part after "Thus" is not an independent clause? I eliminated answer choices because it didn't follow FANBOY rule.

I think this is a high-quality question.

I think this is a poor-quality question and I don't agree with the explanation. I'm afraid this solution (option D) makes no sense. "In order to understand the investor's state of mind and gain important insights...the investment banker must...ensure the investor is fully aware of the pros and cons of the investment". This inaccurately implies that ensuring the investor is aware of the pros/cons will allow the investment banker to gain important insights. The "thus" and everything after it is nonsensical.

Option E, however, correctly implies that the investment banker must be aware of the pros and cons of the investment in order to gain important insights prior to the deal. The explanation is wrong in saying this doesn't make sense: if I am a banker trying to sell a business, I should 100% be talking to the potential buyer to understand what they are looking for and why. The what is the pros/cons and the why is the "state of mind and important insights".

Can someone clarify whether usage of THUS as in the options is right?
In official questions, THUS will be preceded by AND (and thus)

I use this specific usage of THUS(only THUS) to eliminate options.
I have eliminated the right option by applying this.

Thanks

Divyam3295