Although deciding the outcome of an election by chance may seem antiqu

Question

Project SC Butler: Day 233 Sentence Correction (SC1) 
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Although deciding the outcome of an election by chance may seem antiquated, a toss of a coin, playing a round of poker, and drawing straws are all methods that have been used within the span of 15 years to determine the winner of a deadlocked election somewhere in the United States.

A) a toss of a coin, playing a round of poker, and drawing straws are all methods that have been used

B) the tossing of a coin, playing a round of poker, and drawing straws are all methods that have been used

C) tossing a coin, playing a round of poker, and drawing straws are all methods that would have been used

D) a toss of a coin, playing a round of poker, and drawing straws are all methods that had been used

E) tossing a coin, playing a round of poker, and drawing straws are all methods that have been used

generis · Answer

Project SC Butler: Day 233 Sentence Correction (SC1)

• HIGHLIGHTS

Issues tested: 
-- parallelism. Items in a list must exhibit parallel structure. 
-- verb tense
-- style. In option B,  the tossing of a coin  is more awkward than phrasing in other choices such as options C and E, which state "tossing a coin."

Gerunds (verbINGs) rather than dedicated nouns?
-- Generally, GMAC prefers dedicated nouns (e.g. the  toss  of a coin) over gerunds (the  tossing  of a coin). 
-- On the other hand, we are kinda stuck with ___ING because in all five choices, two of the three list items are ___ING nouns (playing and drawing).
In that case, GMAC requires us to use "toss" in its gerund form, too.

In other words,  tossING  a coin,  playing  a round of poker, and  drawing  straws are all parallel.

• Split #1: parallelism

All five options contain the phrasing, "playing a round of poker, and drawing straws."

Options A and D break parallelism by using "a toss of a coin."
We need  tossing .
 Tossing a coin  is parallel to  playing a round of poker  and to  drawing straws

Eliminate A and D

Option B uses  the tossing of a coin , which is a very awkward construction, especially compared to the simple phrase in options C and E, "tossing a coin."
Eliminate B.

• Split #2 - verb tenses

We are down to C and E.

Option C incorrectly states " methods that  would  have been used. . .  " 
If the sentence were hypothetical, option C would be okay.
But the sentence is not hypothetical. These methods have actually been used.
Eliminate C.

Option D (already eliminated on other grounds) incorrectly states " methods that  had  been used. "
HAD + BEEN + past participle (verbED) = "past perfect" in the passive voice
In order to use the past perfect, often described as  the past of the past,  we need one at least one event to be rendered in simple past tense, or we need a time marker.

Correct :  By the time he was released from a North Vietnam POW camp in 1973, the late Senator John McCain had been horribly tortured for almost six years and had refused early release because others had been prisoners longer than he.   Here 
→ One past tense verb exists:  was released 
→ A time stamp also exists:  By the time .. . in 1973

Ungrammatical (though factually accurate,  here )  :  The late Senator John McCain had been disparaged by Donald Trump as "not a war hero." 
→ neither a time stamp nor an event in simple past tense exists
→  had been disparaged  should be  was disparaged 
 
Option E uses the correct verb tense to talk about something recent and/or ongoing.
We have a couple of clues about timing:
→ Recent events only  seem  antiquated
→ "within THE span of 15 years" means "in the last 15 years, X, Y, and Z have been used."

We use HAVE + BEEN + _____ED to talk about events that started in the past and continue into the present or that ended in the very recent past.
HAVE + BEEN + __ED is the passive voice of the present perfect.

The best answer is E

COMMENTS

I really enjoy the way that most of you try to explain your answers for your fellow aspirants.

In this time of chaos, it is good to see people helping one another. Kudos to all.

zhanbo · Answer

I chose  (E) . It took me one minute.

In list “A, B, and C", parallelism should be maintained. That should rule out A, B, and E.

Between (C) and (E), the differences are in verb tense: "would have been used" in (C) yet "have been used" in (E). Since those methods have indeed been used in the past, we choose (E) rather than (C).

Praveenksinha · Answer

Although deciding the outcome of an election by chance may seem antiquated, a toss of a coin, playing a round of poker, and drawing straws are all methods that have been used within the span of 15 years to determine the winner of a deadlocked election somewhere in the United States.

A) a toss of a coin, playing a round of poker, and drawing straws are all methods that have been used :-  all elements in list are not parallel

B) the tossing of a coin, playing a round of poker, and drawing straws are all methods that have been used :- The tossing of a coin is not paralle to other two elements

C) tossing a coin, playing a round of poker, and drawing straws are all methods that would have been used :- here parallelism is maintained but action happened in past, use of would is not correct

D) a toss of a coin, playing a round of poker, and drawing straws are all methods that had been used :-  Parallelism error

E) tossing a coin, playing a round of poker, and drawing straws are all methods that have been used :-   Correct

TheNightKing · Answer

Parallelism Errors:

A)  a toss  of a coin,  playing  a round of poker, and  drawing  straws are all methods that have been used

D)  a toss  of a coin,  playing  a round of poker, and  drawing  straws are all methods that had been used

C) tossing a coin, playing a round of poker, and drawing straws are all methods  that would have been used  - The intended meaning is that these methods have already been used in the States. So would have been used is incorrect tense here.

I am not very confident but I picked E. Because tossing/playing/drawing are general events and not particular events, The use of "the" is not justified here.

Option E is what I stick with.

hero_with_1000_faces · Answer

Took me exactly two minutes, the question is testing tenses and parallelism.

The parallelism aspect is pretty confusing in this question; however, the answers can be found using the split in tenses.

IMO, The right tense is  Had been   "D", as we can see there is  a time indicator  " within 15 years "
So, the meaning is "the methods stated has been used before the end of 15 years period.

Timeline
1970----Methods used---1985 timeline ends.

Also, for the sake of confirmation, i did check parallelism in D, it seems to be imperfect parallelism but the meaning is clear.

D. deciding  the  outcome of an election by chance may seem antiquated,  a  toss of a coin, playing  a  round of poker, and drawing straws are all methods that had been used.

generis · Answer

The official explanation is  here .

VerbalBot · Answer

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Although deciding the outcome of an election by chance may seem antiqu

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GMAT Sentence Correction (SC - EA only) Questions

Although deciding the outcome of an election by chance may seem antiqu

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