V21-17

Official Solution:

The pharmaceutical company conceded that its blockbuster drug may have contributed to the recent outbreak of skin rashes experienced by its users and, having pulled the drug off the market, caused a sharp drop in the company’s share price.

A. users and, having pulled the drug off the market, caused
B. users and pulled the drug off the market, causing
C. users and had pulled the drug off the market, causing
D. users, pulled the drug off the market, and caused
E. users and has pulled the drug off the market, which has caused


This one is all about parallelism and meaning. Several of the answer choices sound pretty good, but only one of them actually makes sense if you’re strict and literal with the meaning of the sentence

(A) users and, having pulled the drug off the market, cause

I don’t love the sound of “having pulled the drug off the market”, but I can’t be certain that it’s wrong. “Having pulled the drug off the market” needs to precede some other action – and “caused a sharp drop in the share price” seems to work fine. So I guess that part is OK.

But the parallelism is a problem. The word “caused” follows the parallelism trigger “and”, so something has to be parallel with “caused” – I guess that’s either “contributed” or “conceded.”

Neither of those options makes a lot of sense, though. “The pharmaceutical company conceded that its blockbuster drug may have contributed to the recent outbreak… and caused a sharp drop in the company’s share price. Basically, that’s saying that the company directly caused the drop in the share price, and that’s not quite right – it was the combination of the skin rashes and pulling the drug off the market that caused the drop

It makes even less sense for “caused” to be parallel to “contributed.” “The pharmaceutical company conceded that its blockbuster drug may have contributed to the recent outbreak… and caused a sharp drop in the company’s share price.” That’s saying that the drug itself “may have caused” the drop, and that’s not right, either – again, it was the combination of the skin rashes and pulling the drug off the market that caused the drop

So (A) is out.

(B) users and pulled the drug off the market, causin

This is much better! The company “conceded… and pulled the drug off the market.” “Causing” is an –ing modifier (more on those here, and it modifies that entire previous clause. That’s great: the entire story (pharma company’s drug causes rashes, so the firm pulls the drug off the market) is causing the drop in share prices. Keep (B)

(C) users and had pulled the drug off the market, causin

Only difference here is the use of the past perfect “had pulled.” For this to be correct, the drug would have been pulled off the market first – before the actions in simple past tense (“conceded that its blockbuster drug may have caused skin rashes…”). And that makes no sense. (C) is gone

(D) users, pulled the drug off the market, and cause

Now everything is parallel! So we have “The pharmaceutical company conceded that its blockbuster drug may have contributed to the recent outbreak…, pulled the drug off the market, and caused a sharp drop…” That might sound OK, but it doesn’t actually make sense. Why would these three actions be parallel to each other? The pharma company didn’t directly cause the drop in the share prices – it’s the entire situation that caused it. (B) conveys this meaning much more clearly, so we can eliminate (D)

(E) users and has pulled the drug off the market, which has cause

This one is nice, because it’s so clearly wrong. “Which has caused” seems to be modifying “the market”, and that makes no sense. I also can’t really understand why “has pulled” and “has caused” are suddenly in present perfect tense; the mix of verb tenses and modifiers in (B) is much better. (E) is out, and (B) wins


Answer: B