The employer from a prestigious well-known production compan

Question

The employer from a prestigious well-known production company will appear in court tomorrow, because  he lets all the employees affiliated with his political party to take  two days off per month.

(A)
he lets all the employees affiliated with his political party to take
(B)
of letting all the employees that are affiliated with his political party take
(C)
of letting all the employees affiliated with his political party to take
(D)
he let all the employees affiliated with his political party take
(E)
he let all the employees who were affiliated with his political party taking

Source: go gmat platform

crackball · Answer

I think D is not the correct OA. Explanation below -

D& E are out because of Sub verb not agreeing in number (He - Singular; let - Plural)
In A & C, "to take" in not required. The author of this sentence is not showing any intent by using "to take" , but rather stating a fact - So I think "take" should be used.
Hence B is the correct answer.

Rock750 · Answer

Hi,

D is correct because Let is the past tense of itself. So it has not to be agree with number .. and in option D, the second event as a whole occured in the past ( let all the employees affiliated take two days off) that's why The employer will appear in court tomorrow

Paris75 · Answer

Hi,

You need subjonctive here;   Because he let X

A B C are out.

E is wordy and have to many useless words!

Answer D

hih

ftwsday · Answer

Hi
But, in my opinion, sentense should be in the present tense:
He let them two days off two days off  per month 
Original sentense sounds like he is doing it every month. 
Correct me if I wrong.

Abdul29 · Answer

(A)  he lets  all the employees affiliated with his political party to take.  Wrong grammar 
(B) of letting all the employees that are affiliated with his political party take  Wordy 
(C) of letting all the employees affiliated with his political party  to  take  Wordy + awkward structure 
(D) he let all the employees affiliated with his political party take  Correct, the act of letting his employees should be in the  past , which it is (let) + it finishes on a good note, "take" and not "to take". 
(E) he let all the employees  who were affiliated  with his political party  taking   Wordy + wrong grammar

sayantanc2k · Answer

Let someone to do / doing something  is wrong...should be  let someone do something . Therefore A,C and E can be eliminated.

The pronoun "that" cannot be used to refer to person/people. Hence option B is wrong.

D is the correct option.

aaa2007 · Answer

Hi. Is there anything wrong with option B, other than the use of pronoun, particularly the use of 'of letting'?

ryanstarr · Answer

There are a lot of pieces in the above explanations that are correct and a few that are incorrect. A couple of quick notes on the reasons why the correct answer is  D :

to take/take/taking

This kind of split--equally valid forms of the same word--is usually indicative of an issue with  parallelism  or  idioms . If parallelism were at issue here, though, we would expect to see a parallelism marker, such as and, before this split. As there's not one, it is most likely an idiom split, and we should look for a nearby word that might determine the correct idiomatic construction (usually a verb). In this case, the key word is some form of  let . With idioms, it's often a good idea to try to make a sentence using a simpler version of the same construction to see what feels natural to go with:

I let them  eating  chocolate? Not a great fit.
I let them  to eat  chocolate? That doesn't work either.
I let them  eat  chocolate? Bingo.

With that issue alone, we can eliminate all answers but  B  and  D .

of letting/he lets/he let

Technically, because of letting doesn't have a grammatical issue. However, there's a long-standing GMAT convention whereby when you have a choice between a verbal (such as letting, which does not function as a verb on its own) and subject-verb construction (such as he let), you're better off choosing the subject-verb construction. This is especially true after because. The GMAT usually justifies this on a meaning level: because of letting doesn't specify who was letting something happen, so it's less clear in construction. This leaves D as the strongest candidate, barring any other issue that would prohibit us from picking it.

Addressing other issues that have come up in the above discussion:

Because  doesn't require a verb in the subjunctive after it.  Because he lets  from  A  is fine if we want this part of the sentence in the present tense, and in truth, there's no reason why it shouldn't be in the present tense--this part of the sentence could be describing a habitual and ongoing action that the employer takes. Answer  A  ends up being eliminated for the incorrect idiom at the end. However, the switch to the past tense  let  in the later answers is also okay. It's actually impossible to know from the context if this is an action the employer is still habitually taking or an action that he took in the past but has since stopped, meaning that both tenses of the verb give that part of the sentence a legitimately logical meaning. And as the GMAT shows no clear preference for retaining the meaning of the original version of the sentence, the tense of  let  can't be used as an eliminatory factor.

The comment that  B  can be eliminated because the relative pronoun  that  can't be used to modify the personal noun  employees  is 100% legitimate. Some version of  who  would need to be used here. As a slight corollary, the GMAT has a light preference for just cutting straight to the participial modifier when it can rather than wasting such connecting words as  who are  or  that are . Again, this isn't a strong preference, as it's based only on concision; as such, you wouldn't want to use it to make an early-round elimination.

PyjamaScientist · Answer

ryanstarr   sayantanc2k 
Hi, I do agree with both of your analyses, but I think there is one glaring error that is hard to digest. Usage of the pronoun "he". The pronouns "he" can refer to "human male nouns", but not when there is no such noun in the sentence. In the sentence the subject is "Employer", you are bringing outside information by assuming that the employer is a male, and though that might sound plausible given the fact that most males hold the highest position in that pyramid, it is not explicitly indicated in the stimulus. So, to be incorporating such outside knowledge into an SC question may not be a true representation of the actual GMAT SC question. And thus, I believe this answer choice rather than this type of question would ever be considered sound in actual GMAT.
Your opinions?

ExpertsGlobal5 · Answer

Hello  PyjamaScientist ,

We hope this finds you well.

Having gone through the question and your query, we believe that we can help resolve your doubt.

A non-gendered noun that refers to a human can absolutely be referred to with a gendered pronoun; in such a case, it is simply assumed that the pronoun correctly refers to the gender of the noun.

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

PyjamaScientist · Answer

ExpertsGlobal5 Thank you. And I understand your point, but can you please refer to an OG question where such usage is considered correct? See, this question for example. https://gmatclub.com/forum/when-investi ... l#p2888967 In its solution, Bunuel has written, AndrewN would you like to share your insights on this matter?

AndrewN · Answer

Hello,  PyjamaScientist . Rather than consider the issue in a vacuum or from a purely theoretical standpoint, we should look at what evidence the five iterations of the sentence provide  in this particular context . Since each answer choice employs either  he  or  his , we must accept that in this sentence, the author wishes to convey that  the employer  is a male. In other words, the gender of the pronoun is a non-issue.

In the other sentence you linked to, there is a problem that arises by conflating the gender-neutral  one  with  he — one  is the third-person cousin of the second-person  you , and interchanging  one/he/she  does not work any better than  you/he/she —but notice that other versions of the sentence sidestep the issue. I would also argue that the answer choice that mashes up  one  and  he  suffers from a basic modifier problem:  When investigating...  it  . I would expect  one  to appear after the comma as the person doing the investigating.

I agree with  ExpertsGlobal5  that "a non-gendered noun that refers to a human can absolutely be referred to with a gendered pronoun." Again, it depends on the context of the sentence. Consider the following:

The person  who wrote the article left behind few traces of  her  identity, but readers nevertheless figured out that  the best-selling author  had penned it.

Of course, the reader is to understand that the  best-selling author  in this case is a female, and nothing is inherently wrong with referring to  the person  as  she  or  her .

I know it can be tempting to create absolute rules, but, as I have done in the past, I would urge you to consider clues within a holistic,  contextual  framework to make the most informed decision you can regarding meaning.

I hope that helps clarify your concerns. Thank you for thinking to ask.

- Andrew

ryanstarr · Answer

See number 955 in the 2021  Official Guide , in which a sentence about an unnamed pianist liberally references the pianist with male-gendered pronouns. Question 826 in the same edition of the  Official Guide , however, balances this out: in that sentence, an unnamed CEO is referenced with "she" in the correct answer.

I'll grant that the original question in this post is  not  an official question, and it does feel a little bit off to me. But the way the GMAT would treat such an issue is to hold it up to the standard of plausibility (basically the same standard that makes  let  and  lets  both equally, albeit differently, correct in the original sentence). Because it's logical that the employer in this sentence would be a male,  he  is a perfectly acceptable pronoun to use in creating a sentence with an overall coherent meaning; likewise, had the sentence used the pronoun  she , it would be equally correct. By contrast, the use of  it  or  they  in this case would've been highly questionable by GMAT standards.

I hope that helps!

The employer from a prestigious well-known production compan

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The employer from a prestigious well-known production compan

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