Discrimination in wages paid in occupations that are predominantly mal

Question

Discrimination in wages  paid in occupations that are predominantly male over the predominantly female have  given rise to substantial differentials between the wage of housepainters and secretaries and between the wages of parking-lot attendants and library assistants.

(A) paid in occupations that are predominantly male over the predominantly female have

(B) paid in occupations that are predominantly make over those that are predominantly female have

(C) that favors predominantly male occupations over the predominantly female have

(D) that favors predominantly male occupations over those that are predominantly female has

(E) paid in predominantly male occupations over the predominantly female has

TommyWallach · Accepted Answer

Hey All,

Lots of conversation around this one, but it doesn't look like anyone's taken it apart piece by piece. Let's do that.

This is a tough question, because it is masquerading as a comparison question. I saw a lot of people mention comparison here, and there absolutely is one. However, none of them really compare the way I (and probably you) would like to see it, "Discrimination in wages paid in occupations that are predominantly male over those paid in occupations that are predominantly female..." Then we would get the comparison we want. But none of the answers do it, so comparison must not be the issue here. In reality, it's much simpler: this is a straight-forward subject-verb agreement question.

The two important splits are paid/favors, and have/has at the end.

Discrimination in wages paid in occupations that are predominantly male over the predominantly female have given rise to substantial differentials between the wage of housepainters and secretaries and between the wages of parking-lot attendants and library assistants.

(A) paid in occupations that are predominantly male over the predominantly female have
PROBLEM: The subject of "have" is "discrimination", which is singular, so we need "has". How do we know it's "discrimination", and not "wages" or "occupations"? Well, if you'd read the MGMAT Sentence Correction guide, you'd know! : ) The subject of a sentence will never be within a prepositional phrase. "in wages paid" is prepositional, as is "in occupations". This means "discrimination" is our subject, which is singular.

(B) paid in occupations that are predominantly make over those that are predominantly female have
PROBLEM: same as above.

(C) that favors predominantly male occupations over the predominantly female have
PROBLEM: Because "that" is a relative pronoun, we know that this phrase modifies "wages". This means "wages" must be the subject of "favors", so it should be "favor".

(D) that favors predominantly male occupations over those that are predominantly female has
PROBLEM: Same as above.

(E) paid in predominantly male occupations over the predominantly female has
ANSWER: Correct in all ways.

That's a rough one. Hope that helps!

-tommy

vineetgupta · Answer

D it is.
E incorrectly compares male occupations with predominantly females and not occupations with occupations.

x2suresh · Answer

discrimination .. has 
A,B,C -out

D --> that is not appropirate here..

"those"<wages> that are predominantly female
how come wages are female..

I chose E. It's not great but best amonth them.

sasen · Answer

D is wrong because
(DISCRIMINATION IN WAGES) that favors (predominantly male occupations) over those (that are predominantly female) has

1)How can DISCRIMINATION IN WAGES favour an occupation over another..ambiguous meaning
2)THOSE refer to MALE OCCUPATIONS and MALE OCCUPATIONS THAT ARE PREDOMINANTLY FEMALE is incorrect.

Sentence is clearly trying to state that:
Discrimination in wages paid in X over those paid in Y has led to BLAH BLAH BLHA...
E comes closest to expressing this...

TommyWallach · Answer

Hey All,

So a few more questions about the notion of comparison. Perhaps I was a bit hasty to write off comparisons entirely here (though you can answer the question more directly as subject-verb agreement. Let's take a look at the comparisons.

245. Discrimination in wages paid in occupations that are predominantly male over the predominantly female have given rise to substantial differentials between the wage of housepainters and secretaries and between the wages of parking-lot attendants and library assistants.

(A) paid in occupations that are predominantly male over the predominantly female have
COMPARISON: We would want to compare "predominantly male occupations" to "the predominantly female". The fact that this sentence breaks up that first element into "occupations that are predominantly male" is pretty ugly. We would rather have two nouns, not a noun and a clause.

(B) paid in occupations that are predominantly make over those that are predominantly female have
COMPARISON: This is a nice comparison "occupations that are predominantly male", "those that are predominantly female".

(C) that favors predominantly male occupations over the predominantly female have
COMPARISON: This is okay, too. "predominantly male occupations" "the predominantly female  "

(D) that favors predominantly male occupations over those that are predominantly female has
COMPARISON: This gives us a noun and a clause again, just like A.

(E) paid in predominantly male occupations over the predominantly female has
COMPARISON: Looks good, just like C.

Hope that helps!

-tommy

noboru · Answer

Discrimination in wages that...

As per my understanding, that is a relative pronoun that modifies the antecedent noun. However, in a prepositional phrase, such as "Discrimination in wages", it does modify the subject: in this case, "Discrimination".

The same happens with "which", which not always modify the noun before the comma.

Could you clarify this point?

Many thanks.
Your explanations are always tons of light.

TommyWallach · Answer

Hey Noboru,

You're absolutely right on this front. Though I would argue that there's still a lack of clarity over which one is being modified (an issue that E resolves by removing the relative pronoun entirely), logic DOES tell us it must be discrimination, not wages. Luckily, C still has the verb error at the end of the sentence, so we don't have to make a decision on this alone.

Hope that makes sense. Occasionally relative pronouns DO have to modify something they don't touch (something that ALREADY has a modifier, so it's impossible for both modifiers to touch...in this case, the other modifier is "in wages"), but if you can avoid it, do so. : )

-t

noboru · Answer

Yes, for me it makes sense. Here is another one. It has already been discussed here: sc-dr-sayre-s-lecture-48411.html but some issues are still there. For me, "that" modifies episodes, which is plural, so it must be "illustrate". Between C and D, I prefer C, although I would prefer "among" rather than "between". Dr. Sayre’s lecture recounted several little-known episodes in the relations between nations that illustrates what is wrong with alliances and treaties that do not have popular support. (A) relations between nations that illustrates (B) relation of one nation with another that illustrates (C) relations between nations that illustrate (D) relation of one nation with another and illustrate (E) relations of nations that illustrates Later on I will post the OA. Many thanks.

kvskesav · Answer

245. Discrimination in wages paid in occupations that are predominantly male over the predominantly female have given rise to substantial differentials between the wage of housepainters and secretaries and between the wages of parking-lot attendants and library assistants.

(A) paid in occupations that are predominantly male over the predominantly female have
(B) paid in occupations that are predominantly make over those that are predominantly female have
(C) that favors predominantly male occupations over the predominantly female have
(D) that favors predominantly male occupations over those that are predominantly female has
(E) paid in predominantly male occupations over the predominantly female has

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Is E the correct answer,

generally the idiom is X over y.

and here is we are comparing male Occupations to female. Is this not the wrong comparison.

TommyWallach · Answer

Hey kevskesav,

In fact, that is the correct comparison. We're comparing occupations that are predominantly male to the predominantly female (occupations). They left out the noun, but that's because it's understood.

As for Noboru's example, yes, your example is grammatically correct, because even though the relative clause isn't directly touching what it modifies, that's because we already have another modifier (and they can't both touch) "of high school graduates" which ITSELF is then modified by "in the United States".

Hope that helps!

-t

nusmavrik · Answer

Hi tommy

Thanks for awesome explanation ! In D "those" refers to occupations. But does occupations have gender? Is it grammatically correct to say -
occupations that are predominantly female?

Also in E, I think discrimination is wrt wages. I can interpret E as

discrimination in  wages   paid in predominantly male occupations over the  wages   paid in predominantly female occupations has ---> is this correct?
(E) paid in predominantly male occupations over the predominantly female has

thanks

TommyWallach · Answer

Hey Nusma,

Well the sentence itself already says "predominantly male occupations", so it must be okay to imply that other occupations are predominantly female. It isn't that the word itself has a gender, it's just like saying "The boys soccer team".

-t

Zatarra · Answer

Hey tommy i am digging up a very old topic.Hope u dont get irritated.
I have a very conceptual question.
MGMAT SC strategy guide suggests that we may eliminate the middlemen (propositional modifiers) to find the subject and verb.
so in the sentence 
Discrimination in wages that favors predominantly male occupations over the predominantly female have given rise to substantial differentials between the wage of housepainters and secretaries and between the wages of parking-lot attendants and library assistants.
The that clause in the bolded part should modify discrimination when we eliminate "in wages" as "in wages" is a prepositional modifier.

TommyWallach · Answer

Hey Munda,

I don't quite understand your question. The "that" clause modifies the big noun "discrimination in wages." It's sort of like saying:

"The Jack in the box that I got for Christmas is broken."

"in the box" is technically modifying "Jack", but really it's just one big noun "The Jack In The Box".

Also, the rule you're referencing is to deal with subject-verb agreement issues, not modifier issues. You get rid of middlemen to locate the subject and verb, not to figure out how the modifiers are working. You wouldn't want to get rid of middlemen to deal with modifiers, because middlemen ARE modifiers.

-t

craky · Answer

Hi Tommy

Supposing that "THAT" refers here correctly to discrimination and there is no problem with clarity > could not be then C+D ruled out because Discrimination is only inanimate abstract term and as itself, discrimination cannot favor anything at all?

TommyWallach · Answer

Hey Matthew,

You're absolutely right. Yes, LOGICALLY, we know that discrimination is the subject of "favor." I'm right to the extent that the use of the relative pronoun is unclear, because relative pronouns generally modify what they touch, which is "wages" here. However, YOU'RE right in that there are exceptions when you have an already modified noun, as we do here ("Discrimination in wages..." the first word is modified by the prepositional phrase "in wages").

Luckily, the verb at the end doesn't match if "discrimination" is the subject in C. And the pronoun usage is wrong in D. Those issues are more ironclad.

-tommy

daagh · Answer

The flaw in D is very basic. It says -  wages that favors -, a singular verb for the plural  wages 
Of course, there may be arguments that -  favors  - stands for 
 the entire phrase -  discrimination in wages  and therefore the singular verb is justified. The right diction for such intent will be -  discrimination in wages favouring  –

Secondly the phrase –  predominantly male occupations over those that are predominantly female  - can be as effectively expressed as -  predominantly male occupations over the predominantly female  –

We can dismiss D on these counts. This leaves us with E

mariyea · Answer

A, B and C are out because of S-V agreement as they said. But E is out because as q10ink said it takes on a different meaning and since the main verb is  has , the relative pronoun  that  being added would only make the sentence better. D is your answer.

daagh · Answer

I am afraid D can not be the answer. According D, it is the wages that favors. How can wages favor? Again ‘ wages that favors ’? Don’t you miss the all important SV agreement there? Because a relative pronoun, whether ‘which or that’ is supposed to relate to the noun it touches. Only a participle can refer to the entire phrase before.

If you want to say discrimination favors, then you have to say Discrimination in wages, favoring .......

As far as E is concerned, it means that it is the discrimination (shown) in wages paid ……….

So as such, E stands for what it says and does not change the meaning.

E in my opinion is the one.

Discrimination in wages paid in occupations that are predominantly mal

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GMAT Sentence Correction (SC - EA only) Questions

Discrimination in wages paid in occupations that are predominantly mal

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