Last month, Saxton’s announced plans to cut more than 7,000 jobs and c

Question

Last month, Saxton’s announced  plans to cut more than 7,000 jobs and close some of its  620 retail locations.

A. plans to cut more than 7,000 jobs and close some of its

B. its plans to cut more than at least 7,000 jobs and close some of their

C. plans to cut more than 7,000 jobs and to close some of their

D. that it plans to cut more than 7,000 jobs and closes some of its

E. their plans to cut more than 7,000 jobs and to close some of their

Please explain how come the OA is a complete sentence. Veritas is making people to reach OA by POE but the OAs are not always grammatically correct. That is so not GMAT like!

saswata4s · Answer

A. Last month, Saxton’s announced plans to cut more than 7,000 jobs and close some of its
B. Last month, Saxton’s announced its plans to cut more than at least 7,000 jobs and close some of  their 
C. Last month, Saxton’s announced plans to cut more than 7,000 jobs and to close some of  their 
D. Last month, Saxton’s  announced  that it  plans  to cut more than 7,000 jobs and  closes  some of its
E. Last month, Saxton’s announced  their  plans to cut more than 7,000 jobs and to close some of  their

B,C, and E have pronoun errors.
D has past and present tenses issue.
A is grammatically correct and the best choice among the 5 Hence, answer A.

VeritasPrepBrian · Answer

The way we have it in our question bank, the underline does not include "620 retail locations," so that ought to make the difference as to whether the correct answer is a fragment or not. I'm looking at it in our system and it displays with the underline only going to "its" and not all the way to the finish, but please let me know if that's not how it's displaying to anyone else!

broall · Answer

The fast way is POE. First, Saxton is singular, so B, C, E is out.

In C, "X announced that it plans to do sth" is wordy, and the better version in A is : "X announced plans to do sth"
"plans" in A is a noun, correct idiom is "anounce sth", so I see no grammatically problems here.

abhishekdadarwal2009 · Answer

Last month, Saxton’s announced plans to cut more than 7,000 jobs and close some of its 620 retail locations.

A. plans to cut more than 7,000 jobs and close some of its
B. its plans to cut more than at least 7,000 jobs and close some of  their 
C. plans to cut more than 7,000 jobs and to close some of  their 
D. that it plans to cut more than 7,000 jobs and  closes  some of its
E. their plans to cut more than 7,000 jobs and to close some of  their

The question can be solved through process of elimination since option B,C and E are wrong in their usage of pronuouns we are eliminating them and are left with

A and D, in D the closes is not parallel to announced therfore is also eliminated. so we are left with A

SMP · Answer

Hey Brian,
Sorry for that underlined part. I revised that. Anyway, could you please explain how come the OA is not a fragment. 
" Saxton's announced plans " is a single subject to me. Using the possessive Saxton's means that Saxton possess something and that is "announced plans" here. In that case, ANNOUNCED is not a verb and we end up lacking main verb in the sentence.

I think the OA would be correct had it been only "Saxton" and not Saxton's. My suggestion is as follow:
 Last month, Saxton announced plans to cut more than 7,000 jobs and close some of its 620 retail locations.

Is my reasoning correct?

VeritasPrepBrian · Answer

Hey Sajan,

Ah, ok now I get what you're saying. And that's really interesting, and actually brings up a tidbit about the GMAT that you weren't asking for (call that a bonus?).

So...for that problem, "Saxton's" is intended to be a brand name like "Coca Cola" or "Google." In the United States, it's pretty common for department stores, in particular, to have possessive names (Macy's, Dillard's, Marshall Field's, Hudson's, etc.). BUT if that's not universal, I could totally see where that could cause confusion. I'll go in and change the name, since the name of the store isn't at all what the question is about.

Now...on the GMAT, that's precisely why (well one of the reasons why) they do those unscored, experimental questions. For one they need to vet the difficulty, but the GMAT is also really, really concerned about cultural bias, so it monitors its results looking for signals that the same score level group in one country performs substantially better than that same group in another. Here that would probably be in play...a student in Chicago probably doesn't blink an eye considering "Saxton's" a brand name, whereas you're probably staring at it thinking "what in the world belongs to Saxton here?!" So rest assured that the GMAT has precautions to protect you from something like that (you may *see* something like that, but if you do it's almost certainly experimental and doesn't count toward your score). And you just saw how we do it at Veritas Prep...we monitor the stats for irregularities, too, and also heavily monitor the forums on new questions to see if something like this comes up. This problem went live ~5 days ago...thank you for helping us clean that cultural bias up!

AR15J · Answer

As sajanpanchal pointed out,  can you please tell me what is the subject of the given sentence?

daagh · Answer

Saxton's is a not possessive noun meaning something possessed by "Saxton". The entire word "Saxton's" is a proper name of a singular company at issue.

SMP · Answer

Yes, this makes sense. Thanks for the explanation Brian! Now I can sleep peacefully.

+1 Kudos to you .!

aepmk · Answer

It is still confusing . The part "and close some of its" , so here close isn't parallel to cut... shouldn't there be a to before close if both are sharing the same subject "announced"

Sent from my iPhone using GMAT Club Forum

abhimahna · Answer

It is a rule" Once Outside OR Twice Inside".

We can have "to" once and used for both cut and close. We can also have " to cut and to close". So, both ways are correct.

aepmk · Answer

Thank you. Now I got it

Sent from my iPhone using GMAT Club Forum mobile app

BillyZ · Answer

OFFICIAL SOLUTION

As you scan the answer choices for obvious Decision Points here, you should see the 3-2 split on the last word, between "their" and "its." This is a pronoun problem!

When you're working with pronouns, be sure to check the antecedent of each pronoun. Here the antecedent for all five last-word pronouns is the same: Saxton's. Since that is a singular noun, the correct answer must have "its" and not "their," and you can confidently eliminate B, C, and E.

Then move to the difference between A and D: while D has an additional pronoun ("it plans to cut..."), each construction is correct up until "7,000 jobs." But - as is often the case when a pronoun's singularity vs. plurality is a primary decision point, the next difference is a singular vs. plural verb, with "close" in A and "closes" in D. That verb belongs to the infinitive, parallel with "to cut," and so the only proper way to state that idea is "and to close." Therefore A is correct.

madhukaramar · Answer

Last month, Saxton’s announced  plans to cut more than 7,000 jobs and close some of its  620 retail locations.

-- their can't modify a singular - B , C , E are out.
-- in D , "plans" is used as a verb in simple present , but the sentence signifies past tense. (announced) . - so incorrect.
-- A is the correct answer.

A. plans to cut more than 7,000 jobs and close some of its

B. its plans to cut more than at least 7,000 jobs and close some of their

C. plans to cut more than 7,000 jobs and to close some of their

D. that it plans to cut more than 7,000 jobs and closes some of its

E. their plans to cut more than 7,000 jobs and to close some of their

surbhi1991 · Answer

shouldnt it be "to close" too to maintain parallelism?

anupam87 · Answer

In the prompt is "some" a proper use or should it be "few"? Can someone please explain? Initially I was looking for a split between "some" and "few" along with the parallelism error.

minustark · Answer

The main trap was to understand the use of appositive Saxton's. After realizing that, the problem will be easy. Moreover, the use of their eliminated 3 of the five options. In D Saxton's is used as like Saxton has. A is correct.

Last month, Saxton’s announced plans to cut more than 7,000 jobs and c

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Last month, Saxton’s announced plans to cut more than 7,000 jobs and c

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